Fall Travels 2: Bologna and Padua

Piazza Maggiore, the main square in Bologna

This is the second blog covering our recent trip to northern Italy. The first part can be found here. 

         On to Italy: Bologna & Padua

We had taken this route, along the south coast of France into Italy, about a year and a half earlier on our trip to Lucca and Florence. It’s a demanding road with bridges and tunnels and tunnels and bridges. At least this time it was a Sunday; the traffic wasn’t too bad, mostly because trucks are banned on Sundays. Still, the lack of shoulders and the fearsome-looking guardrails required constant attention. 

Also, we were able to avoid the city of Genoa; I was very glad to turn north before we got to that mess. Another half-hour and we were out of the coastal range and into the Po Valley, the broad, open plane in the north of Italy that is drained by the river Po. 

This region, the province of Emilia Romagna, is one of the richest and most productive in Italy—and, indeed, all of Europe. In addition to its capital, Bologna, Emilia Romagna includes the cities of Parma, from which we get Parma ham and Parmesan cheese, and Modena, from whence comes the sweet, aged vinegar. 

So yes, a foodie haven. But Bologna is also home to the oldest university of Europe (founded in the 11^th Century), with its own history, fortifications, town walls, and ancient towers. And, on a more personal note, the birthplace of the grandmother of my sister-in-law. (My own grandparents came from further south, in the Tuscany region.) 

An intriguing doorway in Bologna...

...which led to this interesting courtyard!

The famous Due Torri, the twin towers of Bologna, built by competing families (mine is bigger than yours!!)

Bologna is particularly known for its porticos, or covered sidewalks, which seems to be a feature of many Italian cities. They are wide, and many contain intricate tile work on the ceilings and pavement. And, from a more practical standpoint, they keep the rain off those strolling and exploring. We did get some rain while there, but that’s ok, we stayed dry under the porticos!

 

Porticos! Nearly every street has these sheltered walkways on one or both sides.

A detail of that portico ceiling.

Our two nights in Bologna were clearly not enough, but we did want to get on to Venice. I could see spending a week or two here, which would allow for day trips to explore Parma and Modena, among other places!

 

Pasta tools, seen in a shop window.

Marijuana is illegal in every European country, but it doesn't stop people from dreaming about it!

 

Palazzo della Mercanzia as night is coming on.

Padua

The Piazza dei Signori as seen from Jim and Holly's window, on market day.

Some years back we spent a month in the southern Italian city of Lecce, where we met another American couple, Jim and Holly. Paula has stayed in touch with them, and we knew they’d moved to Padua, a city just west of Venice. We arranged to meet them for lunch, and they gave us some tips on what to see in their small city. As we emailed back and forth, a plan developed: we’d leave our rental car at the train station parking in Padua while we were in Venice, avoiding the whole hassle, and high fees, of parking in Mestre (the mainland town closest to Venice).

 

The Torre dell'Orologio.

Aside from Jim and Holly, the big draw in Padua was the Scrovegni Chapel and the extensive frescos done by Giotto in the early 14^th Century. These frescos, depicting the life of the Virgin and the life of Christ, are one of the few works that are known definitively to have been done by Giotto di Bondone. As this is the not-to-be-missed thing to see in Padua, we were careful to get reservations a few days before.

It was a short drive from Bologna to Padua, and we soon had the car in its parking spot. We headed towards the main square, the Piazza dei Signori, and the restaurant for our noon lunch. Along the way we passed the Scrovegni Chapel, crossed the river, and saw many students; Padua is home to the University of Padua, started in 1222 as a spin-off from the U of Bologna.

It turns out Jim and Holly live right above the restaurant, directly on the Piazza dei Signori, with a great view of the market, and all the activities of the city. (And Jim says their double-pane windows do a great job of isolating the sound, when they are ready for a little peace in the evening!).

 

View of Padua's covered market, near Piazza dei Signori

After a fine lunch in which we exchanged stories and compared experiences of life as ex-pats, Jim and Holly walked us through their part of town, expressing the joys of life in Italy, and Padua in particular (hint: it has a lot to do with the great market just around the corner, and the fine foods and friendly vendors there).

The Scrovegni Chapel, unassuming from the outside...

Then it was off to the Chapel, and our 15-minute time slot to view the frescos. We arrived in plenty of time, but were not particularly interested in the archeological excavations allowed with our ticket. The short movie on the frescos, though, was very worthwhile, given that we’re not art buffs, and sort of need to be told what to look for.

...and quite spectacular from the inside!

While marveling at his work in the chapel I could not help wondering at the time and effort, the commitment of the artist, to see this extensive work through. And the fact that at this time—the 14^th Century—all art had religion as its sole subject. I mean, it gets a bit tiresome seeing every canvas and statue representing Madonna and Child or angels in heaven or Christ risen… at least, I suppose it makes comparison of styles and the advancement of technique easier, since all the subjects are the same.

 

On the side walls of the chapel Giotto painted these representations of the Seven Deadly Sins with their opposite: here we see Injustice paired with Lady Justice; and Despair paired with Hope.

The back wall of the chapel: the final judgement, with the winners going to heaven on the left, and the rest to a fiery damnation on the right.

After the marvels of the chapel it was back to the train station and our car. We pulled our knapsacks out of the trunk (we had a suitcase in there too, but at each stop we just took what we needed for the next few days) and, now only lightly burdened, boarded the train for the half-hour ride to the city of Venice.

Shades of Hieronymus Bosch! (who actually may have been inspired by this fresco). A detail from the above judgment scene... and why does it appeal to me so much?

        Next up: we go to Venice!

Fall Travels--Part 1: Nice & Antibes

Nice, as seen from Mount Boron

 Whew! We’re back now, back home in Montpellier after almost three weeks on the road. I expect this tale will take more than one blog… so let’s get started. 

The plan was to start in Nice, a French city on the Italian border, where our friends Mark and Mary had been for almost a month. After visiting with them we’d drive to northern Italy, stopping in Bologna before spending a few days in Venice. Then back west through the Po River valley, visiting cities along the way and ending in Turin. We’d finish with a drive through the Alps on our way back to Montpellier.

 And that’s just what we did! 

 

         Nice

We’d first come here some 20 years ago, at the end of a six-week trip (during which we were obsessed with canal boats and the French canal system). Nice was not so pleasant, as I recall—hot and crowded in June, and old and tired. This time, though, we got an entirely different picture. 

Our apartment in Nice

Great produce market, right out the window!

We found the city beautiful, filled with interesting buildings, lively and engaging. And, then there were the blue blue waters of the Côte d’Azure! 

Some classic buildings in Nice; that's our front window just above the pizza shop on the upper left.

The drive in was a bit unpleasant, through kilometer after kilometer of high-rise apartment buildings, followed by endless construction through the city. But once we stashed the car at the parking garage we were enchanted by the beauty of the area. And our apartment was great; classic Nice.

Yes, blue blue waters, and rocky shores. If someone says the beach in Nice rocks, this is what they mean!

Love the earth, sky, and sea tones the Nice!

On this leg of the trip we were with our friend and frequent traveling companion Kate. We all got settled in the apartment, and were off through the city to meet up with our other friends, Mary and Mark.

 

Together again, in Nice. We're always happy to see Mark and Mary--Mark's long arm makes for great selfies...

Nighttime in the old city.

The five of us spent the next few days exploring the city, with M&M showing us all they’d learned about restaurants and places to go. One whole day was occupied in getting up (via bus) to Mount Boron—a huge park on the eastern edge of the city—and hiking back down through Villefranche-sur-Mer, a cute town surrounding the bay just to the east. The long, downhill hike and lunch under the trees was a satisfying respite from the city. After our explorations of Villefranche we were ready for a long apéro, sitting in a café and chatting while watching the sunlight glinting on the water. Afterwards, it was a quick train ride back to Nice, and our apartment near the train station.

Villefranche, seen from Mount Boron.

 

The bell tower of Villefranche...

...and the bay that really gives life to the town.

Relaxing after our long hike.

Soon enough it was time for us to move on; M&M, though, would be staying a bit longer in Nice. The farewells were not without a touch of sadness: Mary and Mark had their travel plans, and we had ours; our paths will certainly cross, but it will likely be a goodly while before we met up again.

 

Sunset over Nice

         Antibes

Kate had a hankering to see Antibes, a small town just to the west, so we loaded up the car and made the half-hour drive. While our thoughts were trending towards our Italy trip, Paula and I did spend a day in Antibes with Kate. It’s a sweet little place, a beach town with its own long history, although these days it’s known as yet another destination on the fabulous Côte d’Azure.

 

View from the old walls of Antibes; Nice in the distance.

The market in Antibes.

Spices at the Antibes market.

We explored the small town, and found a market impressive both for its size and the quality of its produce and prepared products. Kate had plans to explore more of this coast on her own, but Paula and I were eager to get on to Italy. We parted company, Paula and I heading for Italy, knowing we’d all be back in Montpellier soon.

A romantic evening in Antibes (thanks for the photo, Kate!)

                     Next up: Italy! Bologna, and eventually, Venice.

Now We're Legal!

Yes, we have permission to stay in France for another year.

 

There is a ritual we must go through every year: request permission to stay for another 12 months. Today we submitted our documents, and were told we’ll have our Carte de Séjour in a month or so. Yah! To celebrate we went to one of our favorite Places in Montpellier, Place de la Conourgue, and had a glass of Prosecco.

 

The newly-renovated Place de la Canourgue on a quiet weekday

This annual ritual can be quite stressful. The worst part is setting up the appointment, which can only be made on-line. Appointments are doled out in a rare and seemingly random fashion, so snagging one requires checking often. Not so hard, until the weeks slip away with no available appointments as the expiration date of our visa approaches.

 

It wasn’t bad this time around, and we moved to the next step, collecting documents. Financial records, proof of residency including our rental contract, copies of various official documents. Exactly what will be required is a bit of a mystery, and the fear is always that something will be required that we don’t have!

 

The appointment itself is sort of a cross between going to the DMV and visiting the dentist: dull bureaucracy mixed with fear of what might be found.

 

But this time all went well. We’d been in the building for a total of about 25 minutes (half of that spent waiting) before we were out with door with our récépissé, the receipt that will serve until our cards are ready.

The slightly famous unicorn statue in La Place de la Conourge

             Our Night at the Opera

And that night we furthered the celebration at the Concert de rentrée, marking the end of the summer and the return, or rentée, to “normal” (i.e., post-vacation) life. Traditionally, everyone in France goes on vacation in August. These days there’s quite a bit of vacation action in June and July, as well. But come the first week of September, folks are back, the kids are in school, and the routine begins again.

The Opéra Comédie/Berlioz in Montpellier

 

So this concert was a sort of tip o’ the hat to the September return, and the first event of the season. This concert was held at the old opera building, and I must say we went not so much for the music as for the chance to see the inside of the opera. It is a mainstay of Montpellier, holding down one end of the city’s main plaza, the Comédie, but we’d never been past the foyer.

 

Just for comparison, the somewhat more ornate Palais Garnier in Paris (image from Google Images)

Built in 1888 (according to the date over the stage), the building has an almost-opulence that shows a good effort with limited funds. Once over the initial amazement at the rich interior, our first thought, as we took our seats on this warm September afternoon, was that air conditioning had not been invented in 1888. It was quite warm inside! But we were thrilled to be there as the seats slowly filled, the musicians came on stage and tuned up, and the conductor’s baton fell.

 

Interior of the Montpellier Opéra Comédie

 

The fabulous ceiling and chandelier of the opera building

                    

                    Around Town

COVID is still big news here, as it is everywhere. A few months back Emmanuel Macron, président de la République française, announced that cafes, restaurants, museums, concerts, and other events would open again, but no one would be allowed entry without a pass sanitaire, a health passport, showing they were either vaccinated, or had a negative result on a COVID test no more than 72 hours ago. Over 114,000 people immediately took to the streets to protest; nearly a million more signed up to be vaccinated.

 

 The protests are on-going; before COVID the Gillet jaune protestors had Saturday afternoons reserved for their increasingly-violent protests against new taxes and things in general. The lockdowns shut off those protests, but these days they are back, now full of anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers. In fact, we get weekly emails from the US Embassy in Paris warning us of potentially-violent manifestations (demonstrations) all over France.

 

It makes France seem like a violent place, but as we learned in Paris during the COP21 talks in 2015, street protests are a sort of national sport in France. We just avoid the appointed spot for the manifestation around the stated kick-off time and go about our business.

Meanwhile, we noticed a line forming outside one of the tents set up for COVID testing; mostly young people. And I realized the strategy: if you can't or won't get vaccinated, just get a test before going out for the night: a negative result, and you're allowed in! Starting October, through, the tests will no longer be free. So the test will add another $30 to a night out. Vaccination, on the other hand, is free...

 

A COVID test tent on a main street in Montpellier

 

 

The weather is still warm, but cooling, with no danger of the feared canicule (heat wave). But summer is clearly ending, with shorter days and quicker twilights. The leaves haven’t started to change yet, but some trees are looking rather tired. And the calendar of events here in Montpellier, both musical and cultural, is filling up.

 

There is an upcoming guitar festival, lasting a month with venues both here in Montpellier and in surrounding communities; next weekend is Les Journées des Patrimoine, a celebration all over France of culture and heritage. Many municipal and some private sites that are not normally open will have a sort of public open house, inviting us common folk in to admire gardens and architecturally significant buildings that normally are closed off. We have a map of some 30 or more places; we’ll have to select them carefully, as there certainly won’t be time to visit them all.

 

 

 

Beyond that, towards the end of the month we’ll be going to Nice (the French city over on the Italian boarder) to see our expat friends Mark and Mary, who are considering moving there after several years in Paris. We were going to take the train down, but we’re hatching another plan: rent a car, and after Nice, keep going east to Italy… and Venice. Maybe stop in at the lakes (Lago Maggiore), re-visit the Dolomites? Plans are forming, stay tuned!

 

Expect to see some changes in the blog! We will be changing our hosting from Blogger to WordPress, which I expect (hope?) to give more flexibility in formatting and presentation. The good news is, we expect to see some interesting changes; bad news is, transitions are always hard! 

Stick with us though, and we’ll work through it.

 

From France to California... and Back

 

Looking across the Elfin Forest and the Back Bay to Morro Rock in the far distance.

Yes, we are now back in France. Perhaps we will be seeing these blogs more regularly! 

Our visit to California was full and rewarding. We got some stuff done, we saw family and friends. We reconnected to this place where we’ve lived for so many years. 

And I was struck, all over again, by the physical beauty of the Central Coast—the open space; the view across the Back Bay; the rocky peaks, both close and far. And the “golden” (which is to say, brown) hills, empty of human-made structures, rolling off into the distance, fronted by the vast expanse of the Pacific, with its rocky shores and extensive beaches. 

Montana de Oro State Park

And all this just a short walk from our house! 

While in Los Osos—the small town where we’ve lived for a dozen years—we stay in the apartment on the ground floor. In the past we’ve had this apartment rented out, but now with the house on a long-term lease we keep it for family and friends. And for us. It gives us flexibility in our comings and goings.

We wanted to keep a low profile for our first few days back—COVID, for one. Jet lag, for another. And, to get some things done around the house. One task was to reduce our extensive collection of old photos. We filled the trash with old prints and negatives, and endless slides (remember those, a bit of 35mm film in a cardboard frame?). And I thought, However good a photographer I am now, I was much worse then… what are all these pictures, anyway??. 

Shortly after we arrived, though, was the annual Great Salmon Sale. A local fish market brought in tons of salmon from Monterey Bay and sold it in the parking lot on Sunday morning, $10 a pound, cut as you liked it. We waited, in a line stretching around the block, for almost an hour.

 

Waiting in line gave us  a chance to reconnect with this part of Morro Bay, with its small commercial fishing fleet tied along the dock, the sailboats moored out in the middle, and the massive, iconic Morro Rock in the near distance, mostly obscured, as it often is, by the fog lying lightly on the bay.

 

And it tasted as good as it looks...

Indeed, this fog—or, rather, the cool weather which brings it—was a prime reason we’d come back in July and August. Montpellier tends to be hot, with the so-called canicule (heat wave) driving the temps into the 90s for days at a time, with little cooling at night.

But in Los Osos we didn’t have that problem! Normal highs were 68° (20°C), and cooler at night. Humid, but cool. For sun we needed only to drive a few miles inland. In fact, after a few hours in the “big city” of San Luis Obispo, we were glad to head back to the coast, and always celebrated as we drove into the fog bank (technically, the “marine layer”), leaving the heat behind.

Mostly, we stayed home, working on the tasks we’d set for ourselves, and catching up with friends. Paula’s brother Mark stayed with us for a week, and we drove up the coast to Big Sur… but not very far, as the road is closed, again. (It washes out every couple of years, in spite of all the major improvements constantly being done by the State). 

We stopped at Ragged Point Inn for lunch, where our meal was accompanied by a band playing outdoors. It was wonderful, being the first live music we’d heard for, what, two years? And we reveled in the beauty of the rolling California coastal hills, fronted by the gorgeous rugged coastline.

Mark  and Paula enjoying the music at Ragged Point Inn

 

The start of the rugged Big Sur coast.

A few weeks later we had another visit from some long-time friends and travel companions, Sue and Alan. We headed to the south part of the county, to the Oceano Dunes, with its sand dunes stretching for miles. I think to get the real impact it’s necessary to arrive in the morning and spend all day. But we were there for only an hour or two, climbing and sliding, enjoying the sun on the warm sand. To the north we could see civilization: the encroaching suburbs; to the south it was empty to the horizon.

The Oceano Dunes stretching to the Pacific Ocean

Paula with friends Sue and Alan in the dunes; like a day at the beach but without the water!

We slowly make our way home...

We spent a few days in the city of San Luis Obispo, and I began to see it as another place to explore and appreciate, like so many other cities we’d visited on our travels. I was glad to see many restaurants had added outdoor seating. One of the joys of meeting and eating in Europe is the outdoor lifestyle. Of course, COVID has moved a lot of things outdoors, but perhaps this is one trend that will continue on after the pandemic.

 

Where it all began: Mission San Luis Obispo, established1772; one of the many missions in the chain started by Father Junípero Serra.

Much of downtown SLO retains the charm of its 19th century origins.

Now this is new: outdoor dining! A traffic lane has been given over to restaurant customers. I hope this idea carries on past the pandemic!

Then there was the family reunion. We hadn’t seen my many brothers and sisters for… well, a couple of years, at least. We’d agreed to meet in Phoenix, never my first choice of where to be in August. But our brother who lives there just couldn’t get away, so Phoenix it was. 

Yeah, it was hot, but not as overwhelming as we’d imagined. A few minutes outside was actually a relief from the over-refrigerated restaurants. Then we got in the air conditioned car and went back to the air conditioned hotel, to float around in the pool and chat!

 We survived, and were glad to leave the massive hubbub of Phoenix's Sky Harbor for the quiet tranquility of San Luis' own tiny airport, where we were off the plane and out to street in a minute and a half!

Social Distancing at the San Luis airport, explained in terms folks from the Central Coast can understand: the size of a wine barrel, the length of a surfboard...

And yes, we’re back in France now, and mostly recovered from our long flight. But more on that later….