School hols in Cassis

Ye Olde Fishing Porte de Cassis

For the school holidays, Marie, the boys, her buddy Simone, and her 2 kids went to Cassis. Simone's husband, Peter, and me were going to meet them for the weekend there. I assumed we'd take the train, since it's 200km, but luckily, my compatriot friend is crazy, so he suggested we ride it.

 Finding a way was my job. The choices are direct over the mountains, the scenic route further in the Alps with more mountains, or the long way wiggling along the coast. I was worried about any bad climbs or the famous winds, eating enough, drinking enough (I didn't), or mechanical trouble in the middle of nowhere.

 We went the direct way and it all went fine. We only got lost a couple of times. The scenery was great. All the villages were the same but different. When we arrived, the kids wanted to play chasings in the garden. I walked menacingly.

Cliffs overlooking the village

The village is an old little fishing port, which is now touristy as anything. Most of tourists are locals though. We went on an hour long boat trip to see the tall white cliffs nearby, and the Calanques (creeks I think).

 Me and Marie got to go to dinner solo, and the other 2 did too.

The chicken bus to Marseilles was spectacular.

It rained all day in Marseilles until the arvo. We got Ollie some gumboots so he could splash in the puddles with the rest of them.

Paparazzi snaps the next Top Models just
outside the gate of a very glamorous spot

Easter. It wasn't that long ago was it?

Egg hunt no.1 with the kids next door.

We didn't go anywhere for Easter. But we did have three egg hunts, yeah. Marie was smart though, and minding the kids eggs after they'd gathered them, then recycled the same ones for the next hunt. They still ate barely enough...

Egg hunt no.2 with Fred.

If you want to get the eggs, better run!

For some reason, Fred's common area in the pictures, is OK. It's a really large area, big enough to kick a ball, with lines of olive trees. We had fun playing hide and seek after the egg hunt.

Louis and Rafael getting excited.

Egg hunt #3 was with our new English speaking friends from England, Gayle and Matt, who have 2 boys Carter and Fletcher. We're in danger of having English speaking friends only. 

One happy camper.

Menton and Gourdon

The boys at Villeneuve Loubet on the
forest trail.

The church at Menton. Another village perched
up on a hill, with a nice view over the sea.

View up to the church at Menton.

Romain is from the building next door. We try to yell out to them, but with the background noise, it usually ends up being a phone call instead. We're off for a picnic again tomorrow.
---
Menton is the last stop before the border. Italy rail was on strike, so that's as far as we got that Sunday. The boys enjoyed some puzzles on the way back, plus food, which made it a lot better than the trip there.

Gourdon, Provence, at 960m high.

---

To visit Gourdon, there's a bit of a drive uphill. The views are the best in the area; all the way to the sea, and over the surrounding areas. It is tightly packed on a hill, like all the other villages. Not as nice as Gordon NSW of course.

Getting a drivers license in France

We finally applied to swap over our drivers licenses.
To get a French license, all you need is to provide a separate ID with a photocopy, your long term visa with a photocopy, 4 photos but they only need 2, a currenty valid license, a stamped official translation of it, and a stamped self addressed envelope. Then you go to the sub prefecture in Grasse, 33km away. Parking is about a k away if lucky, or closer if you pay. There's a queue out the door to get a ticket to be served, and finally you get to wait.
Eventually getting to the counter, the lady looked over my translation for a while, but eventually there must have been a clanger in there, and she asks who translated it? I admitted a friend at work. Things really stop when she says you need your electricity bill. It wasn't on their list, but still, I can't believe I left home without that. Feeling like an idiot, I drive the 50kms to work, knowing we'll have to try again another time. Second time around, and a 100 euro trip to the translater, with Marie making a few panicked trips to the photocopier, while we're served, we got 2 hand written notes in exchange for our licenses.
A week late, we've received a note in the post saying that we need a statement from the RTA which gives the issue date of the license. You can just walk into a branch of the RTA, show you ID and pay for the statement. Or you can get it sent to your home address in 7 days in the post, then get your mum to post it over. It's normal.

Villeneuve Loubet

<-- Ollie is really getting the hang of it

Louis flies along well too -->

We went to a park near Villeneuve Loubet. After Louis woke up, we pulled out his bike, and joined Ollie and Marie. There are a lot of nice trails. Some of the dirt jumps looked scary, but they both went through there ok, with only a couple of stacks.


<-- old photo from the holidays. Ollie chases Romain, one the the neighbours, at Park Phoenix.

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Peter comes to town

<-- a nice walk on Sunday

no walk is complete without some rock throwing. -->

Peter stopped here on the way home from a work trip. I picked him up Friday afternoon. We had to drop off Ollie. School had a fancy dress day for Carnaval. He went as Spiderman, no surprises there. After lunch and a walk, it was not long before we had to pick up Ollie again, who was pretty excited!

It was a nice lazy weekend. Saturday we visited Cagnes Sur Mer castle, and St Paul de Vence village. Sunday we walked along the sea side. It was about 15 C, about 15 more than snowy Munich.

It was nice to have family visit. We finally bought a sofa bed. We are set up for visitors now, hint, hint.


<-- haven't left the burbs yet: still in Cagnes sur Mer

Milano

<-- Jelena, Marie, Danilo

Ollie, Anna Maria, Louis -->

Marie has been speaking with her cousin Jelena in Milan. Finally it stopped snowing enough for it to be safe to visit. 120 odd tunnels, and 4 hours driving got us there without getting lost (thanks GPS, sorry Steve and Ang).
Had a great weekend with family we'd never met. For Marie, it felt very homely. They spoke Croatian the whole time. We drank Sambuca, plum brandy, the delicious mystery nut liquor, and wines. Marie drove. We ate too much.
Anna Maria and Josipa entertained the boys, and spoilt them with toys. The boys really enjoyed themselves.

Snow!

3 weeks ago, we had a tiny bit of snow. No-one knows how to cope with any kind of snow here. It's a mass panic. Everyone at work explained that last time, the trucks got stuck on the freeway in the snow for 2 days or so, before they could dig them out.
I got a cold from the boys, so have been catching the bus. One fellow at the bus stop eventually told us there were no buses today. They cancel them in case they get stuck. So I went back home, got the car, took Ollie to school, and Louis to daycare. At work half the people came in very late too. At 2pm I got a call to get Louis asap as it was still snowing. So got to go home early, and all for naught really, since the snow melted immediately on the ground. Yesterday was about 15-16degrees.

The red spot special

We went to the local Myers here (Galleries Lafayette) to get the boys some things at the sales. There were Converse All Stars sneakers. 44 euro normally, these had a Red Dot. Each colour dot represents a different discount. There weren't many sizes left, but one pair fit Ollie, with Batman on them, oh yeah. I couldn't see the price, but who cares eh? After we got out of the store, we saw we'd been charged 60 euro. So I went back to check it out. The check out girl said yep that's right. So I showed her the stand, and the red dot. Oh yes, that means no discount. But I pointed to the colour codes. Look the biggest discount is red! Oh no, that would be pink, not red. Yep the red spot special is very special: it means that there is no discount. In most other stores here though, a red dot means 50%.

This misunderstanding ranks up there with the others. Like when I opened up the door to the shower room at work. All the lockers had gone, with all my clothes. Or the time I thought we had 10 grand in the bank and bought a car, only to discover a couple of days later that we were about 3 grand behind. I had a long conversation with a guy yesterday, who said he was off for a ride on his bike, which he had in his car. Then he hopped in and drove off. Not sure what he really said. Then I almost smacked into a fence on the way home, as it was cyclone mesh, dark, and was right across the path. Last Thursday I almost lost a tooth on the ceramic crown stuck in the king cake thing. You find out about it all, just after you actually need to know.

At least I won't be losing sleep over this one.

<-- finding out ahead of time! They will be spraying the garbage bins at this time.


Cheese notes:
Roquefort: the search for awesome blue cheese is over. On bread, it's like the tastiest chicken you've ever had.



<-- from the building next door Romain, and his mum Silvie at "the beach".

leftover shot from Christmas, the rink at Carpentras -->

Ollie's first report card

At the end of the school holidays, all the kids were moaning about going back to school. Not Ollie! We must have bored him a bit too much with all the ruins; he raced back in there.
We got his very first report card. It was colour coded like traffic lights. He got greens for colouring in, doing puzzles, craft, hanging his coat up, washing hands, counting up numbers. He got reds for language skills, knowing the days of the week, and knowing what number to write down when they call it out. We're working on it at home.
Last Sunday, we went for a ride with the kid in the building next door. Ollie has made great progress. Learning from his buddy, he can now take off and stop by himself. No more aching backs! I've got a video from a week or so back below (on right). Louis is enjoying his balance bike, trundling along at his own speed and still breaking my back a lot.

Arles

Arles is pretty! Apart from the new buildings, holy hell, how did construction get so ugly!

<-- More ruins

Nativity scene in church. Every town has one. -->

<-- when you think of a house in Provence, it's this kind of stone, and shutters in blue.

<-- the boys get some time

exploring -->

Gordes and Glanum

<-- Glanum was a quick stop to wake Ollie up. We didn't want him to sleep for too long. Sadly it was late in the afternoon, so we only saw a bit of it. It seems like it was a decent sized town, with a heap of ruins to see.

quick stop at Glanum -->

Gordes was voted one of the prettiest villages in France. As a result, they get heaps of visitors, and the local hospital is made from the same stone. Being a modern building with modern windows, doors etc, it looks weird. From the direction we came in, leading into town all the buildings looked weird, and obviously new, with proper footpaths etc, until you reach the middle. Leaving town though, we saw this.

<-- Gordes

the view from Gordes is over nice farm land -->

Nimes

<-- Here's the other end of the aqueduct, Nimes. It's amazing it's still here. On the far side of the shot, the water arrived after 30kms from Uzes. On the near side of the circular tank, are the outlets to feed different parts of the town.

The local theater, seated 24,000 apparently about 2000 years ago. Must have made some noise! -->

<-- wrestling with a wooden croc

Near Orange

I wish we'd kept some kind of diary. All these days blur together! Spent a lot of time walking around.

<-- The main attraction in Tarascon is easy to find! The good king Rene lived here. Not bad digs. Also used as a prison later. Nice views from the top.

Louis checks out the camera up close. -->

<-- Ollie enjoyed singing I'm the king of the castle, and you're the dirty rascal! The fireplace was pretty clean.

The aqueduct feeding into Nimes, still an important city today. There's another set of arches under the foot bridge. The Romans were damn amazing. -->

<-- Roquemaure (rock more!) was great to visit, as it seemed we had the whole town to ourselves. When we walked into the bar/cafe, everyone stopped playing cards and drinking to watch us walk in. I didn't know they still had those pit type toilets, but the cafe did. How to use these is a mystery!

In Orange

On boxing day, we went to the historical town (they all are) of Orange. It's about 3 hours away in Vaucluse. There's a theatre and a Triumphal Arch from Roman times.

<-- the boys were happy with the place

day 1, we give them some kid fun to make up for all the churches and ruins they will be forced to see -->

<-- the Roman theatre in Orange, built in the 1st century AD. Seats about 10,000. I'd love to see a show there - they still put them on.

on one of the main streets -->

<-- Nice arch. Louis checks out the Romans work, celebrating wars in Gaul.

Merry Christmas

Marie bought a real pine tree, and put loads of decorations + chocolate on it. Overnight Santa put 2 bikes under it, some lego, pencils, textas, books and an Etch a sketch.

<-- the lego cars were awesome. Even losing half a fair bit didn't stop Ollie from turning the remainder into a plane, a rocket etc

After a couple of years on the balance bike, Ollie could pedal along straight away for short sections. A couple of days later, he's really smooth. -->

<-- Louis's pretty stoked to have his own machine, instead of endless hand me downs. It's a tiny bit tall yet.

Winter is here!

<-- well at least, we thought it was. It looked a bit like snow, and melted on the road. There were still plenty of people out, one lady on a bike was wearing shorts.

Some days are almost 15 deg, perfect for a ride. The seaside path is at the end of our street, and runs 10km into Nice. -->