We are closing in on our first complete week of French schooling. In one more week, we will be let loose on the French countryside to ply our newfound skills as Francophones.

So, how are we doing? Recall those conversations when someone says something to you and perhaps hours later you think; ‘you know, I should have said such and such’?! Well, that’s what conversations in french are like! Someone asks you a question or just says something and you are immediately at a loss for: “what did they say? “, and “what do I say back?”. If only you had 5 minutes or so to figure out what they said and how to respond, our French would be so much better! Well, it doesn’t work that way.

Here are a couple of examples of speech-gone- wrong:

1. This morning, a woman cleaning the stairs at our apartment complex asked us (in French), “are you going for a hike?”. Bill’s response: “Yes, we have an apartment up there!”. She smiled, thoroughly convinced that Americans are really dumb!

2. Yesterday, Bill was asked, “where do you come from?”. Bill’s response? “We leave next Saturday!” Once again, that universal look of “dumbness” broke out on the French person’s face.

Seriously, everyone we’ve met have been very gracious and patient with our efforts to speak French. But, boy, do we have a long way to go!

Jelly update: On day one (when we first noted Bill’s jelly sting), it was a painful nuisance. Yesterday, it caught fire. Much swelling and welting. A visit to the local pharmacy (using our newfound French skills) put us on the path to relief! It will be a while before it goes away, but at least it is not continuing to worsen. 

Hope all is well with our family and friends back home.

With the weekend at hand, it’s time for some adventuring! Monaco is but a 45 minute train ride to the East, so off we went.

Had I remembered to pull out my phone, I could be showing you all of these amazing coves we passed by on the train. Unfortunately, we were too busy enjoying the view to think about photos.

Once in Monaco, we remembered the phone and took photos of another kind of beauty, the opulent kind. Here’s Diane showing some of the nicer things available in Monaco: 

Actually, where this Rolls was parked, there were probably another 6 or 8 more Rolls and Bentleys.  Now, if you started counting the Ferraris and Lamborghinis, you might be there for a while … seriously.

And, of course, if you’ve got these kind of goods, you simply must go to the Monte Carlo casino, which is what Diane did. Tomorrow, we are planning a hike, then dinner over some newfound friend’s home. They are Germans, living in Liberia, and studying French at our school.

Au revoir.

On Sunday, we’re decided to take a hike along the Sentier littoral Cap d’Antibes. This is a beautiful hike along the edge of the cape. From our home, around the Cape and back, it was just about 10 miles … a good warmup for next week. Like all the coastline around here, it was beautiful! 

Sunday evening, we had the pleasure of joining a German family for dinner. He works in Liberia, as a professor of school administration and she is a teacher. They have adopted a Liberian orphan, who is now 16.

Monday was back to school and learning about partatives, conjugations, vocabulary, and how to interact in the: train station, store, post office, etc. Very useful skills!

Before school, we try to get our exercising done as it is too hot and humid in the afternoon for that kind of work. The photos below are Diane’s running route and Bill’s swimming route (the water, to the left). It is so cool to be out here as the sun is rising.

At school on Mondays, they receive new students. All morning, these students take placement tests.  On Tuesday, the students join the appropriate classes already in progress … like our class. We’re now have 12 in our class; 2 from Spain, 3 from Germany, 2 from Italy, 1 from Switzerland, 1 from Norway, 1 from Latvia, and of course, 2 from the US. And the international language is ..  English. A very helpful language to know.

Today, we did interviews in French and learned how to read (and place) classified ads. It was actually very helpful, as the classified ads have a whole lot of useable words in a short space.

After class, we typically go to the grocery store, then the boulangerie. We must have fresh baguettes every day!

This afternoon, a visit to the local Picasso museum was in order. Seems Picasso spent a few months here and, well, that requires a museum. It was really pretty cool. Some of his paintings are below

Bill clearly could use some help in understanding these. He typically looks intently at the painting, tips his head right, then left, nods in appreciation, smiles them moves on. Why? He has no idea! However, others around him think he is really appreciating the work of art! Maybe Micah and Alex can help him here …

Dinner and a later evening walk finish the day for us students. So ends a day in the life!

Here on the Cote d’Azur, predicting the weather has been straightforward. It will be sunny and 90 F. Done. Except today.  At 12:30,  there were clouds filling the sky and the question  of rain  entered the conversation. This was important because we were planning on going to Ile St. Marguerite, a beautiful local island, in the afternoon.

Our U.S.-based weather app suggested the possiblity of rain on the horizon. Some of our European friends offered their preferred Euro- based weather app, as it had “local knowledge”. That app said rain was possible, but not probable.

So, we went to the island.  It was really beautiful! Here’s a photo of the island interior: 

What you can’t see in the photo is the lightning storm going on overhead. It was impressive! The next photo shows the anchorage. Again, beautiful. Within 5 minutes of this photo, you could not see the boats because of the rain. It poured! And it continued for another hour-plus.

We have a friend who sailed in Mexico at the same time we did, Doug Brownell. He had the most fool-proof weather app available. It worked like this: Stick your head out the port (window). Look around. What do you see? Trust your eyes, not the ‘experts’. Doug, we’re still learning those lessons!

Fair winds and following seas, all. We miss you.

Three trains and nine hours moves us from the coastal beauty of the Cote d’Azur (Antibes), to the very hilly interior region of Le Puy. A small example of the “hilly” can be seen in the photo, below, of Bill bringing the suitcase to the hotel. 

Over the next several days, we will photograph this area; today we’ll focus on the church and our hotel room.

Or room is at La Demeure du Lac de Fugeres, a small B & B located in a 15th century building in the old city. It is exceedingly charming, but a bit difficult to find! Here’s a photo of the sleeping area: 

As we have spread all our backpacking gear over the other parts of the room, this is the only photo we’ll share.

Like most European villages, the local church here is beautiful. It is built on a hill in the center of the old town. Here is Diane standing in front: 

The amazing thing is what happens at night! The entire church facade becomes a projector screen for some amazing animation. We will try to upload some sort videos:

Hopefully, these work as the show was phenomenal.

Today, we’re have a bunch of housekeeping chores and finalizing our backpacks for tomorrow’s walk. Not the least of our chores is to insure that our plans to have our suitcase shipped to the finish line (St. Jean Pied de Port) really are set. Just details.

Thank you, all for being part of our journey. Tomorrow the French Camino (chemin) begins!

Today has been our day of chores and explores here in Le Puy. The old town area and church date back to the 5th century and perhaps earlier. There are several tall volcanic plugs that, over the centuries, have become sites for religious sites. Like the statue of Mary and Jesus: 

Or the chapel of Archangel Michael: 

And of course, the main church, Notre Dame de Le Puy:

One thing we want to pay attention to is the local cuisine. Last night, Bill had Saucisse and Polenta, while Diane had local trout (the Loire river is here), both of which are very popular here:

Tonight we sort of, kind of, kept the local thing going, with Bill having a burger (local beef) and Diane opting for a Chevre salad (she was thinking of you, Willow):

Tomorrow, we start walking. 80% chance of rain, all day. We seem to start every Camino with a rainy day.  We guess this Camino will be no different! Bon Marche!

Okay, on Sunday evening, before our Monday start, we found out that there were more of the large scale Le Puy projections. Recall the prior post where we showed the projections onto the massive Le Puy church? Well, they’ve done it one better! Onto an isolated rocky spire (250′ high) where an old church is built, they project an AMAZING video production. On it, the spire becomes a live volcano, spewing lava and forming the spire. Then dragons come (hey, why not? ), then men. Over time, the church is built on the spire by hauling materials up by pullies, etc. Wars, winters and celebrations then follow. It looks remarkably real!

We took several short videos, but none of them came out with any real quality (sorry). Nonetheless, we still post one to give you an idea.

No doubt, a short search in google or YouTube will provide better videos but, hey, we were there.

Day one, done! Well, actually Day 2 is also done but we had some major trouble with the internet yesterday.

Day one: We chose to start the day by attending the Pilgrim’s service at 7:00am. Though we are not Catholic, it would be truly a loss to not attend this beautiful service to send off the Pilgrims. It has been done for a thousand years before. We attended and we’re blessed. Definitely worthwhile.

The hike was 15 miles of winding up and down through some very beautiful French countryside. 

Oh, and it did rain. Maybe 90 minutes. Enough to require the rain gear, but nothing to cause problems.

In the Le Puy region, famous for lentils, every meal will have lentils. Here’s our lunch on the way: 

And with a full stomach, more hiking: 

And then we arrived! Laundry, food (including lentils) and sleep awaited.

Another day, another 12 miles, for a total of 27 miles to date. Today was stunningly beautiful! The countryside was spectacular, the weather was accommodating, and the food was, well a picnic!

Here are some shots of the countryside:

While difficult to see without expanding the image, the second bridge (the smaller one) was built by Gustaf Eiffel. Also, just moments before we took this picture several groups of rafters passed down the river.

On arrival into Sauges, we were greeted by this wooden carving of the Beast of Givaudan. The wolf was responsible (reportedly) for killing over 100 people during a three year period in the 1700’s. Bill actually remembers reading the story as a kid.  Well, here’s where it happened. 

Dinner and sleep await!  More tomorrow!