Part 23: Ooo La La!

Dustin had a business trip to Fos, in southern France by Marseille, and so Jacob and I tagged along. Dustin had to be in the office on Thursday, so we flew out Wednesday night and planned to stay until Sunday. We rented a car so we could drive along the French Riviera. The weather forecast called for sun and temperatures in the 50s and 60s – a big improvement from the cold, rainy Holland weather. The only problem was that when we arrived, it was sunny but in the 30s and 40s. Dustin had his heavy coat that he had worn to work and Jacob had his heavy coat because I always pack for all kinds of weather for him. I, however, in an attempt to pack light did not bring my heavy coat. Instead, I brought a lighter weight jacket appropriate for temperatures in the 50s and 60s. Needless to say, I froze.

While Dustin was at work on Thursday, Jacob and I drove to Les Baux (about 30 minutes from where Dustin was). The travel book said you could see castle ruins so it sounded fun to me. Once we got there, however, I had visions of Capri where Dustin and I carried Jacob in his stroller up a million steps to see Tiberius’ ruins. This time, though, I was on my own and Jacob weighs a lot more. He can walk, but I didn’t think he could climb castle ruins. Dustin would have said that “since Jacob is so advanced” he could handle it, but I didn’t think so. And, since there was no way I was going to carry him up a bunch of steps, I decided to take a picture of the castle remains from below and opened the tour book to find another town to visit (preferably something without manual labor).

Thus, we headed to Arles. I drove to the town center and just walked around the narrow streets of shops. I stopped to grab a sandwich for me and Jacob and continued walking. We found a park, so I let Jacob out of the stroller to walk around.

Dustin ended up calling to tell me that he would be done early and that our plan was changing - we were heading to Avignon for the night instead of Nice.

We arrived in Avignon late afternoon on Thursday. We immediately fell in love with the town. The city center is surrounded by a medieval wall and the entrance and main street are completely covered in Christmas lights. In the center of town, there was a Christmas market. We perused that for a while and enjoyed a crepe with nutella (a yummy chocolate spread) and a waffle with powdered sugar. On the way back to the hotel, there was a beautiful crescent moon. It definitely put us into the Christmas spirit.


As you can see, Jacob had a long day.

The next morning we grabbed breakfast and then toured the House of Popes (Dustin language; it is actually called Palais des Papes). In the 1300s, the papacy was moved from Rome to Avignon due to some political reasons. Seven popes resided in the Avignon House of Popes from 1309 through 1377. It’s pretty impressive, but I’m sure it’s nothing compared to the Vatican. We can’t wait to go to Rome in March!



Aside from pure southern French charm and the palace, the other notable item found in Avignon is the St. Benedict Bridge. This bridge was made famous in the 1100’s after Benedict told the church that God spoke to him and told him to build a bridge across the river Rhone. He was quickly laughed at and mocked by both the clergy and citizens. The story indicates that the Pope told Benedict if God told him to build the bridge, then he can start with this rock. As the pope made the statement he pointed to a huge boulder left over from building the cathedral. Without hesitation Benedict walked over to the boulder, picked it up, moved it to the river, and tossed it toward the river edge. That clearly signaled to all watching that God supported his mission and the town rallied behind Benedict to build the bridge. After Benedict’s death at 26 years of age, the papacy canonized his life work, and he was thereafter only referred to as Saint Benedict.

After Avignon, we drove to Aix en Provence. Aix is similar Avignon. We walked through the many streets of shops and through the Christmas market. Jacob also had a carousel ride. This town reminded us a lot of Italy. I think we are learning that there aren’t really country-by-country differences. Instead, there are regional differences. Southern Europe (Italy, Southern France, Barcelona, etc.) all resemble one another just like Northern Europe (Holland, Germany, etc.).

That night, we finally made our way to Nice. We didn’t really have a plan once we got there. On Saturday morning we woke up to cold, rainy weather (we could have stayed in Holland if we wanted that). Since it was so yucky outside, we took a quick stroll through town to the beach and then decided to drive north along the coast to see what there was to see. The biggest surprise for me was that the beaches are rocky, not sandy.


The drive along the coast is gorgeous!


Monaco (the second smallest European country behind Vatican City) is not far from Nice. We stopped there to see yet another Christmas market in Monte Carlo. Each market seems to have something a little unique, but for the most part, they are all very similar. This one made snow to help decorate. This was really just another gross display of wealth by the “rich and famous”.

After Monaco, we continued north (back into France) and stopped in a small town for lunch. Then, we turned back south and drove to Cannes: known for the Cannes Film Festival. How could we be that close to where all the Hollywood stars go and not go ourselves? Unfortunately, the festival is held in May and it was freezing cold, so we didn’t see anyone famous. The beaches of Cannes were less rocky. I guess as you travel south, the beaches get nicer and nicer.

We left Cannes early evening with the hopes of finding a neat place to eat dinner on the way back to Nice. Luck was on our side. We came upon Antibes (Dustin pronounces this one as AnTEEBS – he really has no culture at all – the proper pronunciation is ahn-teeba). This town was the highlight for Dustin. It was quaint and charming. It also held a Christmas market where we found a unique stand that sold children’s puzzles and other items. They were all handmade by the lady running the stand. We purchased an elephant puzzle for Jacob, and he now plays with it constantly. Mostly he brings me all the pieces and watches me put it together. Hey, whatever keeps him entertained makes me happy. Each piece is a different color so it’s a good learning tool as well. We found a nice restaurant and had a wonderful last dinner on our trip.

The next morning, we woke up and headed back to Marseilles. We made a detour through Saint Tropez, another hot spot for celebrities. Supposedly, it also has the nicest beaches of the French Riviera – these were sandy. The scenery is beautiful and it’s easy to see why St. Tropez attracts so many people (and money). The boats sitting in the marina are unreal!

We need to try to make it to the Mediterranean when it’s warm and we can actually enjoy the beaches.

Jacob enjoyed the plane ride home.

Part 22: It's Christmas!

Everyone raves about the German Christmas markets. They start around the last week of November and run through Christmas. We’re so close to Germany and we had a free weekend, so we decided to head to Germany to check out a couple. After looking at some websites, it seems that just about every town in Germany has their own market with a little different spin. Cologne is probably the largest city in Germany that we could make a day trip out of, so we headed there.

We heard that Dusseldorf had some nice markets and it’s on the way to Cologne, so we stopped there first. Unfortunately, on the way I realized I had forgotten the camera. We were too far along to turn back, so our first order of business once we arrived was to buy a disposable camera (pictures will be forthcoming once we get them developed and scanned in). After finding a camera, we needed to get some lunch. We stopped at the first bratwurst stand and dug in. Next door was a potato cake tent, so we tried some of those, too. Not too healthy, but very yummy!

After eating, we started walking through the markets. There were stands selling candles, glass ornaments, wooden ornaments, puppets, honey, candy, toys, crafts and more! The stands themselves were set up along the sidewalks in a busy shopping area of town. The first market we went to looked like a log cabin village in a forest. We found another market that had angels everywhere. It seems that each market area had its own theme.

Jacob also had his first ride on a carousel. We couldn’t tell if he liked it or not, but we sure thought it was cute!

After walking around downtown Dusseldorf for awhile, we drove on to Cologne. Since we’d already been to Cologne, we knew the basic layout of the city. We were able to hit 2 of Cologne’s markets before heading back to Voorburg. Cologne’s markets were much larger and more crowded. The first one we walked through was right next to the massive cathedral. They had a brass ensemble playing Christmas music nearby. It definitely put us into the Christmas spirit. We didn’t purchase much, but it was really fun to walk through all the stands and see what was there.

The one thing that surprised us was that we didn’t buy more. We saw a lot of neat items, but didn’t purchase anything. This suited Dustin quite well, but left my Christmas list a little empty. Next year we’ll have to pick out a couple of other towns to check out.