Adventure of the month

October was coming to an end and with it, so was my four month workation in Rotterdam. With just one break and diminishing funds remaining, I left the final destination up to chance. Whatever flight was cheapest on my days off, that's where I was going. A couple of searches via cheapoair, skyscanner, momondo and finally Kayak later, fate determined that I was going to Bergerac, France. With that decided, I had a new, more pressing question. What was I going to do in Bergerac for five days? The town is best known for two things: wine and a large-schnozzed romantic. I like wine. I vaguely remember Steve Martin playing this guy, Cyrano de Bergerac in a movie a million years but nothing about this combo sounded interesting enough for five days.  I expanded my search a bit and saw that Bordeaux was less than a two hour train ride away. C'est le done. This was going to be a wing it (and wine it) kinda trip.

My last day in Marseille. Time to squeeze in all the things I had been meaning to do but had put off in order to explore the rest of Provence. I had booked a late flight so I had enough time to finally do the self-guided walking tour that I had picked up on day one. In theory, this should have been easy enough, since the city had been thoughtful enough to draw color-coded lines on the sidewalks to match the tour route. For the most part, this worked like a charm.  The problem was that the particular tour I had must not have the only version available and certain intersections had multi-colored lines vectoring off in each and every different direction. I was never fully able to ascertain which color I was supposed to be following.  By default, I ended up doing my own hybrid version of multiple tours.  As a result, I got a great overview of the old part of town.

With the hopes of seeing fields of purple now dashed and having followed in Van Gogh's footsteps as far as I could, day three brought new challenges. What to do?  I had heard of Aix-en-Provence.  I knew Cezanne was from there.  I was now privy to the zone tickets allowing you to traverse southern France for next to nothing.  I could almost pronounce Aix.  The decision was made. Had I done a bit more research and found out just how proud they were of their fountains, I might have rethought this.  I would have known that the principal thoroughfare is a shopping street with ornamental spouts gurgling every couple of blocks. Not in a Bellagio, choreographed along with lights, pretty manner...no, just regular fountains. Some were made of stone, others were mossy blobs kind of dribbling away...none of them particularly remarkable but there they were, the pride of the town.

It was day 2 in Marseille and the word around the hostel was that the lavender fields were no more. It was towards the end of the season and some fields had already been plucked of their little purple bounty. I could not find anything online to confirm or deny this and the hostel staff was exceptionally useless so I figured I would head in the general direction of the fields and investigate. I was planning on going that way anyways. After at least a dozen visits to Amsterdam's Van Gogh museum, I wanted to go to Arles and see the city that (along with a healthy dose of absinthe) inspired such frenzied creativity.  If I could pair the visit with a ride out to the scenery found on every single Provence postcard, that much the better.

My plan at the beginning of the summer was simple enough. I would be based out of Amsterdam for two months, therfore I'd have the opportunity to knock off two more countries from my dwindling European list. July, I would hit Lithuania (#98) and August, I would spend some time in Barcelona and use it as a base to get to Andorra (#99). As you may have noticed from my last post, the first part of this plan went off quite well. I loved Lithuania and the very cool people I met there. The problem arose when I began to research things to do in Andorra. Had it been winter, I could have watched people skiing (note: Cubans raised in tropical climates are not genetically engineered to put planks on their feet and careen headlong down snowy surfaces. To paraphrase Lucille Bluth: I don't understand this and I will not respond it. But I will hang out in a lodge like nobody's business). But this was August and all I could find were suggestions for duty free shops. I envisioned ...

EZES The Exotic Garden MONACO The Monte Carlo putting every single Vegas casino to shame. A few wee dinghies The harbour The Royal Palace CANNES At this moment, I am sitting in a motel room in Jacksonville, trying to put myself back in the frame of mind of someone lounging on the French Riviera. Strangely enough, it is not working. I know I could try, most likely in vain, to express the thrill of walking around the hilltop town of Ezes, looking down upon some of the world's choicest real estate and the majesty of the drive that got us there. I could try to recall how fabulous we felt sipping cocktails at the Hotel de Paris, watching caricature-like women with tiny dogs and frightening tans walking in and out of the Monte Carlo casino. Or lunching on the beach in Cannes, after having walked on the red carpet at the main screening theater. I could write about all the mental notes I was making as I was devising my plans to return. But the truth is th...

The view from the Chateau The Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Niki de Saint Phalle's angels enjoying a lovely day I'd like to start this post by thanking everyone who through posts, e-mails, phone calls, etc. shared their kind words and remembrances about my baby, Amber Starr. It is tough being home, looking towards her favorite chair and finding it empty, but it is good to know that she touched so many of those who knew her. Now back to the travel business on this here travel blog. The scene: August in Amsterdam. We had just enough time for one more European jaunt before having to pack our bags and return to a land without last minute cheapo flights. We decided we ought to make it worthwhile, we wanted somewhere relaxing, yet glamorous, but it had to have things to do and see, and we wanted good food. Nice wines wouldn't hurt. I, of course, wanted to hit a new country. The answer to all our demands came via one of Amsterdam's wonderful discoun...