France 2019
We visited France for the month of June in 2019, traveling from Paris to the southeastern-most corner of the Cote d’Azur, near the border of Italy. I chose a small 3” x 5” watercolor sketchbook to document the our experience of the architecture through color, proportion and light. Here is my travelogue described through drawings and a few photos.
Our first day / night in Paris: we spent our time at the Residence Henri IV, a boutique hotel in the Latin Quarter near the Panthéon. The hotel fronts a dead end street facing a tranquil pocket park, with Haussmann-style balconies decorated with red geraniums. This was the scene after we had unpacked our bags and got settled in, the kids reading before we headed out for dinner.
Later that night, we went to the Panthéon to see La Cour des Contes, a troupe of storytellers. At sunset and suspended above the rooftops of Paris, we climbed the stairs toward the dome and sat in a secret vaulted space. Here we discovered the legend of the Panthéon during a moment of storytelling, where music, humor and poetry and enchantment of these wordsmiths revived more than 250 years of history, myths and legends.
Our favorite public space in Paris is the Place des Vosges, where we ended up as the sun was casting long end-of-day shadows. Commissioned by Henri IV in 1605, the perfectly square, symmetrical courtyard has matching facades of red brick, stone quoins, and steep blue slate roofs with alternating dormers of round and rectangular windows. We took a stroll around the granite paths to the sound of the fountains, playgrounds and birds.
We took the TGV from Paris to Aix-en-Provence, ready for our next leg of the trip on the Côte d’Azur! We stayed in the small town of Roquefort-Les-Pins, conveniently located between the coast and the small medieval villages dotting the southern tip of the Alps. As we drove onto the rental property, the gravel crunching under tires and hum of bees encouraged us to slow down to the pace of the surroundings.
We stayed in a gîte named ‘Lou Messougo,’ a great example of vernacular architecture featuring a three-tiered stepped tile ‘Genoise’ eave, apricot-hued stucco, and periwinkle blue shutters. The simplicity of the building sets off the garden blooms: lavender, mimosa, pine trees, cistus, jasmine, vivid red bottlebrush. At bedtime we opened the windows and closed the shutters to let in the cool air as well as the sound of croaking frogs.
Our host tipped us off to a few fun events going on that weekend in Antibes: Les Voiles d’Antibes (yacht show) and Déantibulations (acrobatic performers). We wandered along the fortress like sea wall to find the beautiful classic sailing boats and yachts, many of them antiques that had meticulously cared for by their owners and set out to sail for the weekend.
At last, we reached the Mediterranean Sea! We passed through the fortress wall to the Plage de la Gravette, a fun urban beach located right next to the medieval ramparts of the old town. We swam and sunned (or not, if you wear a huge hat like me) and painted till dinner.
Another day, we visited the hilltop village of Mougins, where Picasso lived and painted for some years. The streets wind spiral-like toward the top, all made of gorgeous native stone accented by shutters and doors painted in lively colors of periwinkle, lavender grey, duck egg blue, or glossy black. The kids loved finding local cats to follow around.
Our day trip to Nice did not disappoint! The largest city on the Côte d’Azur, with so much life, color and action. The kids loved cooling off in the water playground of Miroir d’eau, with the colorful buildings of Place Massena beyond.
During our second week, we visited the town of St. Paul de Vence, which was mostly overrun with tourists by the time we got there. But we detoured off on our modern art pilgrimage to Maeght Foundation, and along the way found these two small chapels built of native stone and tiny bell towers. On the way back to our gîte, the curving, perilously steep roads demanded another impromptu stop! We toured the hillside village of Tourrettes-sur-Loup, where we sketched and then shopped for violet soaps, vintage books and postcards.
Our next stay was at Villefranche-sur-Mer, the most beautiful coastal village at the head of a very deep bay off the sea, between the Cap of Nice and Cap Ferrat. The water here is so deep that cruise ships can anchor overnight, but the real benefit is the depth of the azure sea contrasted with the gold, ochres and reds of the hillside houses and village. I should mention the rond-point, a traffic round-about that was a tricky but fun thing to learn in our French rental car!
Our stay at Villefranche-sur-Mer overlapped with the Fête de la Musique, a night of music and dancing celebrated throughout all of France. The event highlights both pros and amateurs of all types of music, playing in public squares and free to all, and we were lucky to have this jazz trio playing just steps away from our apartment.
Back to Paris for our final four nights! One highlight of our Parisian experience was a tour and ballet at the Garnier Opera house. An exhibition on the history of opera showed this staging of prisoners appearing to hang from scaffolding while singing, but they had been cleverly disguised with black suits and white makeup.
Playing while we were in town was Mats Ek, a modern Swedish choreographer. Even the 12-year-olds loved his modern renditions of Maurice Ravel’s Boléro and Liszt’s Sonata in B minor, danced by the incredible Garnier Opera ballerina and director Aurélie Dupont. The performance ended as Aurélie and Stéphane drifted away from the audience toward the backstage wall, which lifted to reveal the golden mirrored Foyer de la Danse, seemingly into an endless horizon.