Whether We'll Weather the Weather

We've broken out the sandals, the sundresses, the sunglasses, and the sunscreen. Springtime in Paris seems to have come and gone, and now we're into early summer. It's lovely, but dangerous, since the wind picks up a lot while I'm wearing flouncy miniskirts. That and walking over subway grates has let to a few Marylin Monroe moments, and let's just say I'm having to be more careful about underwear selection.

The wind is dangerous for my eyes, too, having been told last summer by an opthometrist that I am a "bad blinker". Before this, if you had asked me to list everything I was not good at, the list would have been long, but it wouldn't have included blinking. Now I know why I always get schmutz blown into my eye when it's windy. In Paris, it can really blow, and San Francisco is practically a windfarm. So I either need to pick different places or learn to blink better.

(Complete aside: on a camping trip in college, a bunch of us were sitting outside a tent of freshmen boys who apparently believed that thin layers of nylon are soundproof. They were, of course, talking about sex, and one of them claimed (complained? boasted?) that he got a hard-on every time the wind blew. At which point another boy asked, "Wait, aren't you from Chicago?")

But our confusion is not just confined to the merry month of May. All year we've been surprised and fascinated by the weather. Perhaps this is because we are so used to San Francisco, where there are two seasons: rainy and foggy, with a chance of fleece and jeans.

Paris has rain, too. But it's different. It's French rain. There's a figure, called the Zouave, who is on one of the old bridges that is used as a marker for flooding. When it hits the Zouave, you know it's gone too far. That happened about a hundred years ago, and apparently there was so much flooding at the ground floor in some neighborhoods (like ours, in the middle of the Seine) that people boated around from building to building.

Well, it certainly doesn't hit the Zouave this year, but it does rain enough in early January to flood out completely the pedestrian walkways along the Seine. P spends this period saying that she doesn't like living on an island surrounded by water, because she is afraid our building will float away.

We are here for a cold snap in February that is not record-breaking but certainly note-worthy as the longest, coldest cold snap since one in the mid-90s -- about three weeks of negative temperatures. We break out the ski jackets and ski mittens, when it turns out our regular gloves and mittens just won't do the trick. I don't think my fingers have numbed up this quickly and frequently since I lived in Minnesota. Brrrrr.

Finally, in April, we put our winter clothes away. Well, the girls and I do. I tell Anthony that we've boxes up our winter clothes and taken out our spring/summer clothes, and he looks at me with genuine surprise. "You mean, you have other clothes? All of mine are hanging in the closet!" Most shocking to a San Franciscan is that we don't need to bring jackets with us in the evening, because if it's warm during the day, it's warm at night. And the hottest part of the day is around 5pm, right when my body expects the fog to roll back in and send the temperature plummeting.

Now that the weather is (mostly) glorious, our big issue is not the temperature, however, but the light. It is light so late into the evening, I'm beginning to feel like I live in the Land of the Eternal Sun. For example, in the photo below, you probably can't tell if it is morning or night, and the only clue that it's not mid-day is the shadow over the lower part of the buildings. I can't tell if it's morning or night either, except that the time stamp says it's about 9pm, and it is taken on our way home after an evening outing.

The bigger problem is that we can't tell what time it is when we're actually living the day, either. I look out the window and assume it's 3pm, so I don't think of starting dinner, when in fact we all suddenly realize we are starved, and it's already 7:30. The girls are wide awake most evenings with that feeling that there are hours to go before bed-time, and suddenly, we're rushing them to brush their teeth and get in PJs. It's hard to convince a 6 and 8 year old to go to bed when it looks like it's about 4pm. The sun sets around 10pm now, and we're not even at the longest day of the year.

Once we're thoroughly used to four seasons, real summers, and 15 hours of sunshine per day, the real question becomes whether we'll weather the weather when we return to San Francisco.

[Editorial weather update: Click here to see a video -- in French, but the images say it all -- of a snowfall in Savoie, France, on June 1....At least it's not Paris.]

Dordogne Undone

For such a small region, I am quite floored by how much there is to see and do here. And so, after four packed and fun days, we feel like we could easily come back for another four days, or a week, or two weeks even, and have just as much fun doing completely new things. If we were going to return, I think we'd probably aim to stay closer to Sarlat, to avoid the vomit-inducing winding drives. Having said that, I enjoy our time in Périgueux and there are some things in the area that we don't squeeze in. For example, l'Appel de la Forêt is an excellent-looking ropes course in nearby Thenon, but it seems to only be open in the afternoons, which does not work as well for our schedule. (And yet another, Airparc Périgord, which looks like it is for bigger kids only.)

Another thing I might do differently, now that I know what I know, is to do our canoe ride on the Dordogne itself, in castle country, instead of on the Vézère river. However, the Vézère has its own charms, and it works out fine for us since we at least get to see La Madeleine from the outside. 

The next time, we would actually like to see the inside of La Madeleine, and so perhaps we'll set aside a few hours to tour the troglydite troglidyte trogladite troglodyte village. We talk about it several times on this trip, but it just never seems to happen. Well, no use griping about what we missed; it's ancient history (rimshot, please...).

And speaking of ancient history, we also manage to miss the Grottes de Font de Gaume, where one can see genuine prehistoric cave paintings, as long as one knows well in advance that one will be wanting to go on this tour. When we make our phone call on Thursday to see the cave on Friday, we are directed to send in an e-mail. And when we send in our e-mail, we are sent a reply that all reservations are booked through the end of August. Given that it's just May, that's a lot of advance planning required.

We could go instead to the Caves de Lascaux, which are the most famous of the cave drawing sites, but a) we do not have time for it either and b) Anthony is less intrigued by Lascaux since what we would be seeing is not the original but a carefully reproduced faux cave. The authorities decided Lascaux wouldn't survive so many tourists and created what is reputed to be a very elaborate and thoughtful reproduction. I still have a small soft-spot for visiting Lascaux, genuine or faux, given that I remember studying about it with my first fantastic French teacher, Mlle. Joan Brim, at Bay Trail Middle School in Penfield, N.Y. I loved her class so much (and was, apparently, so much of a dork) that I once spontaneously wrote a non-assigned epic French poem in which I rhymed Lascaux with....what else?....Moscow.

Though we make it to the lobby, we don't even have time to visit the Museum of Prehistory in Les Eyzies. We miss getting into the museum by about half an hour, and despite Gigi being very interested -- having just studied prehistory as part of the third grade curriculum -- we never make it back during open hours. Down the hill in town, there's a magical-looking fairyland of a garden restaurant where I would eat the next time I visit, too: Le Restaurant au Vieux Moulin at Le Moulin de la Beune. Given that it's a hotel, I might even want to stay here, just because of the almost unbearable cuteness of the setting. You would need a more convenient rental-car arrangement (hint: don't arrive or depart on a holiday or Sunday), however, since there's no train station in town.

For a different sort of cave experience, on our next trip we would also like to visit the Gouffre de Proumeyssac, an immense underground "crystal cathedral" of a cave. This and others in the area boast of tours through beautiful stalactites and stalagmites (mneumonic device: StalaCtites, C=ceiling, so they hang down from the ceiling. StalaGmites, G=ground, so they stick up from the ground).

For slighly more modern history, we could visit le Village Bournat in the town of le Bugue, which is a resconstructed historical village showing life in 1900. It's considered one of the biggest family attractions in the region, but just this past summer, we went to Old Sturbridge Village in Massachusetts (whose time period is more like 1800), so we give it a miss this time.

There remain many towns on the "Plus Beaux Villages de France" list that we have yet to visit: Saint-Amand-de-Coly, Saint-Leon-sur-Vézère, Belvès, Limeuil, Monpazier, Monflanquin, Turenne, Saint-Robert, Collonges-la-Rouge, Carennac, Loubressac, and Autoire, all ranging from 20 - 70km from Sarlat. And in and near these towns are hosts of other castles that look fabulous, and gorgeous gardens including the famous -- but as yet still unvisited (by us) -- Hanging Gardens of Marqueyssac. So perhaps I should have titled yesterday's posting "The Penultimate" since it looks like we may need to go back.

The Ultimate

This is not an ironically titled posting. It's our last night in la Dordogne, and our dinner tonight at Le Clos Saint-Front in Périgueux is so extraordinary -- specifically because of the best children's menu in the history of the world -- that it deserves the title "ultimate". As usual, we failed to make reservations in advance, but we luck into a table at Le Clos, the second restaurant we try. And it makes me glad the first one turned us away.

To get there, you must first wind your way through the cobblestone medieval labyrinth of the old town, till you find this charming 16th century stone building with a magical garden. The highlights of our adult meals are my dessert -- a caramelized apple millefuille with speculos (like graham cracker) ice cream -- and the appetizers -- scallops and aspargus in a morel cream sauce for me and, for Anthony, foies gras three ways (in case you're wondering, that's 1) confit with a mango jam 2) sautéed with a mango sauce, and 3) in a warm soufflé with green apple).

    

But the pièce de résistence is the children's menu which is carefully crafted during a thoughtful, sincere conversation between our server and each of the girls. What they come up with is this:

For her courses, Pippa selects beef with caramelized potatoes, and one scoop of surprise ice cream -- the surprise being that it is three scoops, of cassis (black currant), salted caramel, and mint chocolate chip. She gets to help slice the meat, in a purely ceremonial way of course, when it arrives at the table. Gigi chooses canneloni stuffed with smoked seafood in a cream sauce, and lychee panna cotta with raspberry sauce. To top it off, the desserts come on huge, showy platters elaborately decorated with their names in raspberry coulis, melted chocolate geometric designs, and battery-powered, changing-color glow sticks.

 

The adult three course meal is 40€, which is a perfectly fair price for what it is (and, from a Paris perspective, actually seems like quite a bargain). But the kids menu is an amazing 12€. Honestly, I myself would be thrilled with the kids' menu, which comes with the same 2 amuse bouche we receive, one of which is a tomato-coconut soup with blue cheese. Pippa loves it, despite the fact that she officially does not like tomatoes, coconut, or blue cheese. Go figure. It is so filling, the girls can't even finish their meals. But desserts, naturally, get finished down to the last drop.

And while we're talking about the best, the most, the ultimate: Here's La Cathédrale Saint Front de Périgueux, alternatively referred to as Saint Etienne de la Cité. She's from the 12th century roughly -- having been built and destroyed several times since the 6th century -- is protected by UNESCO, and I feel confident calling her one of the most beautiful churches I have ever seen. I think the only other ones that might compete for sheer loveliness are Sacré Coeur in Paris and St. Basil's Cathedral in Moscow. Of course I'm partial to Notre Dame as well, given that it's now in my backyard, and it's impressive. It's grand. It's elegant. It's iconic. But I don't think it has that soft and lovely quality the other three have. In case you're wondering, yes, I called this church a "she". In my mind, Sacré Coeur is also a "she" (whereas St. Basil's would be a "he"). Perhaps it's because of all the boob-shaped cupolas.

 

 

 

And finally, the ultimate photo on the ultimate night of our time in la Dordogne, and it's a picture of the ultimately bizarre house, spotted in Périgueux. It looks like the ultimate interior design nightmare: Whatever you do, don't put the furniture against the walls.

 

Lemony-Scented Adventures

On these curvy roads, it was bound to happen. But the surprise is that it's not me or Gigi but rather Pippa who gets car-sick and vomits all over the interior of the rental. And I do mean all over. She manages to hit not just her entire outfit, but also her booster seat, the car seat under it, the floor, the seat in front of her, the window, and even the ceiling. The road has no shoulder, so despite the warning she gives us, we have no choice but to keep going forward till the next turn out. Gigi goes into a nearby store and buys tons of bottles of water, and they also give her some paper towel and a sponge. Once Anthony and I have gotten the car (and her) relatively clean, I have the brilliant idea to use a travel-sized bottle of moisturizer I carry with me in my backpack. It is an old hotel-freebie to be used in dry-skin emergencies only, since Anthony nearly gags at what he calls the "lemon balm". Or is it "lemon bomb"? I'm not sure what he's been calling it, because both are apt. In this case, we moisturize the car seats with it, assuming it will improve matters. But this is putting lipstick on a pig, and now -- let's face it -- we're driving around in a lemony-vomit-scented rental car. In desperation, we each smear a little bit of the lemon balm/bomb beneath our noses. I'm not sure if this is an improvement or not, but let's just say that we drive with the windows open.

Pippa changes into an extra sweatshirt we brought with us and wears my fleece jacket tied around her like a skirt. But as we are driving, we come across this Defimode store. At which point angels start singing. I find out just how heaven-sent (and heavenly-scented) it is when I realize it is basically a French equivalent of T.J.Maxx or Ross Dress for Less. Fourteen euro later, the Pipster is wearing comfortable and cute lavender pants, and we are -- finally -- ready to make it to our destination...

...which is the Indian Forest Acrobatic Park. This oddly-named place is one of several ropes courses in the heart of La Dordogne. The courses are labeled like ski slopes. Officially, the red and black courses are meant for ages 12 and up, but Gigi (age 8) is allowed to do them because she is 50% monkey, 50% mountain goat. And 100% fearless. Pippa (age 6) is allowed on the blue course, whose posted minimum age is 9, because she is also a monkey-goat hybrid, but not tall enough to move up to the red and black courses. As it is, she is on tippy-toes for a few of the passages, and Anthony or I have to try to pull the ropes down for her. Some of these things are really quite high up, and we keep saying that my mother would be having a heart attack if she were here.

Between the delayed start and the fact that we have a blast on the ropes (the girls pronounce this their favorite part of the trip and predict, correctly, that this will be what they remember the most of La Dordogne), we don't get out till about 3pm. This throws out the window some of our plans to see a museum or another attraction or two. But that's OK, because we are also quite content just to explore a few villages that we've had on our list.

We like la Roque-Gageac, with its view of the Château de la Malartrie at the end of the road. We are a little extra partial to this town because it has a) more of those houses built into cliffs and b) good ice cream.

The smallest of the towns we see has the biggest name: St.-Félix-de-Reillac-et-Mortemart, which takes longer to say it than to drive through. And that's not an exaggeration. You see a sign indicating you are entering St. Félix; then about 10 tightly clustered houses and an inexplicably large church (photographed through a rainy windshield, so excuse the droplets) that looks like it could hold several hundred people; then the sign indicating you have left St. Félix.

 

Domme is quaint, and a fine place for lunch, but it is the town of Sarlat (officially called Sarlat-la-Canéda) that really steals our hearts. The medieval section of it is hilly and twisted and cobbled, just as you would hope. It's got great old architecture, (yet more) good ice cream, and the largest doors we've ever seen -- replacing a huge stained glass window in an old church that's been converted to a market. We're not the only ones who think so: Sarlat has been named by the government as one of the "Most Beautiful Villages of France". The others we've seen here are Domme, La Roque-Gageac, Beynac, and Castelnaud.

Sarlat is also home to what may be the cutest house ever in recorded history. I mean, seriously; If you saw this house in a movie, with it's dormer window, tiled roof, stone walls, colombage details, pointy-capped tower, rose bushes, and ivy-covered trellises, wouldn't you roll your eyes in comtempt at how fake and over-the-top it was? My only disappointment is that it's a private house, and not open for tours. I would love to see inside it (but just hope it isn't decorated with IKEA).

The Castliest Castles

Our first stop of the day is Château de Beynac (in Beynac-et-Casenac), whose most famous resident was Richard I, a.k.a. Richard the Lion-Hearted, King of England, who lived here from 1189 till his death in 1199. Though open to the public for viewing, it is still a private castle -- first inhabited by the Baron Maynard in 1115 and owned by Lucius-Grosso et Dionysia-Uxor Sua since 1961. A plaque at the castle proclaims that Lucius-Grosso et Dionysia-Uxor Sua -- name notwithstanding -- is one person who still resides in part of the castle; however, one can imagine he'd need the money from tourists to pay for the upkeep, since he can no longer raid, pillage, plunder and tax the local serfs for this purpose. He'll also take your money if you want to use it for your major motion picture; in 1998, it was used as a location for Luc Besson's Joan of Arc. And with good reason. The castle towers over the town and, from every angle and every distance, looks, in Anthony's words, "like the most castle-like castle ever."

 

 

 

 

Anthony is also dead set on seeing the Château de Castelnaud (at Castelnaud-la-Chapelle) which contains the Musée de la Guerre au Moyen Age (Museum of Warfare in the Middle Ages). (I was about to translate that as "Middle Age Warfare" but it sounds too much like Anthony and me having a series of big arguments....). I think it is a lovely coincidence that the family that owned the castle was named Castelnaud. On the grounds, they set off a trébuchet with a small bouncy ball, and Anthony has to correct me when I translate trébuchet as catapult. Apparently a trébuchet is a trebuchet, and a catapult is something else. Who knew? Well, Anthony did, obviously. You can say what you want about gender differences being artificially manufactured, but I suspect that's the kind of thing most girls wouldn't know (or care about) and most boys would.  At least the girls and boys in my household...

  

  

Anthony has had a smile on his face and a bounce in his step all day. I feel like I'm seeing what he must have been like at age 12. And no wonder: As he says, this day is every young boy's dream, involving castles, trebuchets, crenellated fortress walls, drawbridges, crossbows, knights, chainmail, armor, and Richard the Lionhearted. And the girls and I enjoy it too. So, yeah, I guess you'd call it a success.

A Visit to the Penises

We've just about finished unpacking from Morocco. So, obviously, it must be time for our next trip. Yet another long weekend (that makes three in May), so we're off to La Dordogne, as the Périgord is more commonly known.

We arrive mid-day in the region's biggest town, Périgueux, and are able to rent a car only because the person on the phone with me a month ago made a mistake and booked us for this day without realizing it is a national holiday. When, this being semi-rural France, you cannot rent a car. We also cannot return it on Sunday, when we want to, because, this being semi-rural France...you get the idea. Evidently, in a tourist town in rural France, you would best be advised to rent cars only on business days, not on weekends or holidays, when you might actually want one.

Rental car sorted, we drive down to the town of Les Eyzies (short for Les Eyzies-de-Tayac-Sireuil) which, when pronounced, sounds exactly like "les zizis", meaning "the penises". Well, actually, it is more a funny slang word for penises along the lines of weenies or willies. Or broomsticks, dongs, dingle-dangles, holy porkers, fiddle bows, jacks-in-the-box, kielbasas, Misters Goodwrench, one-eyed trouser trouts, pocket rockets, rolling pins, steaming hot kangas, or wingles. And if you noticed those terms were in alphabetical order, that's because they come from the same Department of Translation Studies list from the University of Tampere, Finland that I discovered while writing a posting about pornographic puppetry in India. The name of this town has Pippa in stitches, and she keeps repeating it over and over -- sometimes in full glorious song. She even buys a postcard celebrating its wonderful nomenclature. For a six-year old, it could only get better if the streets were called "Poo-poo" and "Stinky Fart".

Our main activity here for the afternoon is a two-hour canoe ride down the Vézère river, past La Madeleine. This is not, as the name suggests, a large butter cookie, nor a village where said butter cookie originates, but rather a prehistoric cave village for troglydites troglidytes trogladites troglodytes.



The town itself is fabulous, and we happily wander around after our canoe ride. We knew nothing about La Dordogne before coming here, and only booked the trip on the recommendation of many French friends. And since we have been so focused on Morocco, we haven't had any chance to research what we would do here. It makes our wandering slightly less efficient, but it also makes everything we do feel like a surprise or a happy discovery. One of our favorite things about the region turns out to be that Les Eyzies and many other small towns here are built into huge overhanging cliffs. In this case, when I say "built into," I mean it quite literally. Rows of houses use the overhang as both back-of-the-house and roof. Having paid for some major house renovations in San Francisco, I can see the benefit of that. It must cut construction costs in half.

We stumble upon the restaurant Au Coup de Silex ("at the stroke of flint"), just across the street from the Museum of Prehistory, which we are too late to see -- both the prehistory and the museum, that is. Our dinner here is one of the best deals we've had in France. That's partly because we're out of Paris, and for the 22€ prix fixe menu (nearly always the way to go here), we get a lovely view, and good food, including some excellent foie gras, the specialty of the area. There is even a vegetable on the plate. One lone baby carrot, candied within an inch of its life. But still, a vegetable. This trip is looking promising...