The matador was suddenly knocked to the floor. He rolled desperately between the bull’s horns and hooves and the banderilleros returned, urgently trying to distract the bull. It reluctantly moved away from the helpless target and stood frustrated, dazzled by the return of three forgotten capes.
The matador stood. He had lost one of his shoes. It was small and dainty, for dancing.
Provence
I sat in a poolside chair on terracotta tiles, the silver handles of the pool’s steps glinting into the pale blue water. Beyond the roof of the house, the tops of cedar trees were sparsely spread between thick flowering bushes, abuzz with stripy bumble bees. I heard only the noise of the cigalles in the garden, the strange chirping creatures that resemble a small piece of bark, and chirp strictly when the temperature reaches 25°C. I felt relaxed and content, inspired by my surroundings. The simplicity of the comfortable life I languished in for a week made me long for a piece of it myself. Although my desire to continue moving was still present, after the flurry of Paris, I felt incredibly relieved to be able to exhale.
We had arrived in Cabrieres d’Avignon the evening before and were kindly being put up for the week by friends of Iain’s mother, Rosie and Carlo. Rosie, who has lived mostly in London, between various travel adventures (such as an overland trip through Africa), relocated to France three years ago with Carlo, who considers himself South African despite Belgian origins. They have since become the ever-welcoming hosts, often offering the tranquillity of their home to their friends. A friend of Rosie’s, Mel, was staying there for the same week as us. Their house, named Voix des Cedres (Voice of the Cedars), was a sanctuary in which we could relax. Weary from having moved around every few days since the trip began, we now had no agenda, no expectations, and no must do obligations. It was bliss. Continue reading Provence>>
Montmartre de Paris
Paris is the world’s most photographed, most written about, most visited city. More than 30 million people arrive on the banks of the Seine each year, only 45% of them French. “Paris,” according to my literary guide to the city, “comes to us second-hand. Our imagination has been there first, worked upon by the imagination of others. It is through the filter of their memories, desires, dreams, descriptions, lies, gossip that we experience the city. What we respond to is an imagined place.”
Claire and I did the things so obvious that guidebooks needn’t bother to mention them. We dangled our feet in the fountains outside the Louvre, before entering through glass pyramids to see people seeing the Mona Lisa. We sat in the Parc du Champ de Mars, below the Eiffel Tower, and sketched swaying oak trees against the building’s complicated network of steel. We got rude service at a Parisian café when I was moved, still in my chair, from the edge of the pavement.
We went to the Musee D’Orsay and I watched Claire dance between her favourite paintings before a picnic on the banks of the Seine. At Notre Dame we joined the thick, fast moving queue, and once inside were pushed forward, past altars and scattered stalls, selling paraphernalia. At Père Lachaise we joined a hunt through foreign names for the graves of the famous. We laughed at a packet of rolling paper and a lighter placed considerately below Jim Morrison’s modest headstone and read Oscar Wilde’s name below his mock Egyptian tomb, through the lipstick marks of thousands.
In my fondest Paris imaginings, I sat sipping cold beer at a Montmartre café, absorbing an atmosphere relished by generations of artists. Renoir, Degas, Hemingway, Toulouse Lautrec, Picasso, all spent time here, and remembered the many cobbled streets that wind slowly uphill to the Basilique du Sacré Coeur in their work. Continue reading Montmartre de Paris>>
St Malo
Our bags dampening our backs, still close to St Malo’s station, Iain and I spotted three bright awnings, a red, a green and a blue, all advertising “Hotel”. We split up to find the cheaper of the closest two, and agreed to meet back at the third.
The blue and the red establishments out of our price range, we entered the last of the three, Hotel l’Europe. “Bonjour. Combien ça coute pour… une chambre pour… deux personnes?” I attempted, eyebrows raised meekly. “€30 pour une chambre sans douche” he smiled, inspecting us from under his eyelids. I agreed, as he ticked the room off as occupied in his diary, repeating the type of room, “Sans duche”. Iain looked at me as if to ask, “What does sans douche mean?” to which I chirpily replied that that the room simply would not have an ensuite shower.
We tackled the five storey climb to our “duche”-less room, perspiring heavily by the time we reached the top. We were met by an unpleasantly familiar smell, seemingly embedded in the coarse carpeted walls. Iain sat down to finish off an article while I braved the “supermarche”, to buy us some lunch.
The simple act of going to the supermarket in a foreign country cannot leave one bored or complacent. The absolute mystery of the signs, the foreign brands on often foreign looking foods, and the speech that hums around you, faster and faster, can leave one quite giddy. New stimuli are everywhere. Even the ordinary becomes intriguing. Continue reading St Malo>>
