Leeses Loose in France - Part 1

Greetings from our rental apartment in St. Remy-en-Provence. Lizzy and Matt are off doing their own thing, so I figured I my as well start writing blog posts about the trip as I've got my laptop with me and, unlike my phone, it manages to stay on the WiFi. This'll be a long post, though I'm only going to yammer about the first 48 or so hours here. While our plan for the day is to relax, we also want to take advantage of the sun. After two days of mostly drizzle that sometimes turned to rain, we're happy to see it. Whether it'll stay this way is anyone's guess as weather predictions are not amazing around here, tending to lean towards more rainfall than more sun.

The Plan

Matt is the planner of the two of us. Well, he's the one who plans our trips. I would get totally overwhelmed with all of the options for towns to stay in, restaurants to eat at, sites to see, and, well, all of it. It's too much information to sift through and I get plenty of that at work. Also, he loves to do it, so why get in his way?

We're here for Lizzy's spring break and have already taken her out of school for other things (cough visit to LA for a wedding cough) so wanted her to miss as little school as possible. I'm sure he also looked at flight prices to shift things a day or two. He eventually chose a total of 9 nights: 6 using St. Remy as a base to explore Provence then 3 nights near Nice for Lizzy could be near the beach and we could explore the French Riviera. While Matt and I'd visited Provence, in 2011, the French Riviera would be totally new to all of us.

Getting There

Lizzy and I wound up flying on our own as Matt happened to need to be in Paris for work a few days the week prior. He came out a few days before that to explore Alsace which we enjoyed when we visited in 2007.

Flights from the US to Europe aren't anything exciting so I won't bore you with that part. I slept a little, Lizzy slept a little, I did some knitting on a sock for my MIL, she played on her tablet, we both watched things on the in-seat entertainment system.

Our route took us through the Copenhagen airport with a nearly 5 hour layover. Of course, passport control and customs took less than 10 minutes in total so we were left with a ton of time to kill. We wandered, sat on a bench in an atrium where you could get assistance if you were disabled, wandered more, and sat on another random bench until it was 3 hours before our flight. Why the 3 hours? That's when we were able to enter the Carlsberg Aviator Lounge (thank you, fancy travel card!). We found seats then helped ourselves to the variety of foods and drinks available. Lizzy, unsurprisingly for anyone who knows her, snacked on cheese and crackers and drank some herbal tea. I had bread, cold cuts, cheese, coffee, and non-alcoholic Carlsberg (good, not great, but amazing for being included). Eventually, headed to the gate where there wasn't half the seating needed. [A lack of enough seating is very common in European airports where security screenings are quick enough to not need to arrive at an airport hours early in order to not miss your flight.]

While we certainly missed Matt for that week we were home without him, this meant he was able to pick us up at the airport when we touched down in Nice at 7:30 pm. We grabbed dinner nearby before he drove us the 2.5 hours to St. Remy; I'm sure Lizzy and I were both asleep by the time he made it to the highway. No check-in needed at our rental as he'd already done so hours before, even putting cold drinks in the fridge and bringing in his suitcase and camera backpack. We parked the rental car in the garage, brought everything into the apartment, and basically went straight to bed.

Arles

Our first full day of vacation was spent exploring Arles, where Vincent Van Gogh was inspired to paint many of this most famous works. (More about his time in Arles can be found here from the Foundation Vincent Van Gogh Arles.) We happened to be visiting on the first day of a month-long art festival focused on drawing though chose not to visit any of the galleries or exhibitions. There were a ton of carnival games and rides just waiting to get set up all over the main part of town, many of which seemed to be bumper cards - maybe the French really love bumper cars?

We wandered around the town's market - why we went to Arles that particular day - and picked up a bunch of fruit and veggies. Carrots, asparagus, strawberries, oranges, and peas. Also three cheeses which is quite a feat given we tried way more varieties than that.

Matt is a devout follower of the Rick Steves travel books so, of course, he needed u to take the walking tour of the Arles old town from the book. The tour took us to a bunch of Roman ruins - an arena, a theater, fountain, underground caverns made to make the forum area nice and flat- and the cathedral with a cloister nearby.

Lunch was at a restaurant that Matt had booked us a reservation at in advance. We decided to order the appetizer sampler which included not only cheese, meats, bread, and olives but also panisse, fried chick pea fritters which are a Provcence specialty (recipe from David Lebovitz is here that I've not tried but will soon). I wasn't super hungry so ordered a seared tuna with rice noodles starter. Matt got the special main of the day, cuttlefish. Lizzy finished her meal with the cheese plate.

After we were done touring Arles, we went back to the rental apartment to relax. Matt made us dinner of roasted chicken with all of the veggies and some bread we'd picked up. Lizzy, of course, added cheee to her meal. Matt and Lizzy wandered around town after dinner, somehow stopping at an ice cream place (imagine that!). I also went out with Matt late to keep him company while he took sunset photos, though I was paying more attention to my book than the view so didn't take any pictures.

Where We Went

• Carlsberg Lounge at Copenhagen airport: Information here, part of the Priority Pass membership or you can pay for a day's access (currently 219 DKK, approx 33.50 USD)
• Dinner near Nice airport: Restaurant Le Romarin (2 Place de la Halle aux Herbes, 06300 Nice France) - reservations available online
• Roman ruins of Arles: See information here on the local tourism board site. The Liberte site pass gives you access to one museum and four sites for barely more than the price of visiting one of them.
• Arles cathedral and cloisters: Formally, the Saint-Trophime Primatial Catholic Church. Information on location and visiting here. Cathedral is free to visit though the cloisters require a ticket.
• Lunch in Arles: Le Gueule du Loup Restaurant (39 Rue des Arènes, 13200 Arles) - reservations available online
• Dessert in Arles (not pictured): Arelatis (8 Place du Forum 1 Rue Jean Jaures, 13200, Arles)

(This post was scheduled for posting at a later time though it was drafted as described above. I've tried to update anything that changed prior to posting though you may find an error or two. Please let me know in the comments if this is the case as I try to be as accurate a possible.)