FRANCE February 2012: Part 1

Greetings from Avignon – February 13, 2012

For those who didn’t know it, I had been planning a short trip to Provence which happily was coinciding with a project the office is doing that involves a program in London.

Anyway, I arrived early in London and settled into a great little hotel in East London (Hotel Zetter, where I’ve stayed before) — the new hip section of town where everything is gentrifying so fast it’s hard to keep track. As planned, Carol (a long time friend from LA) met me later that day. My early arrival was great because I brought a lot of work with me and I didn’t finish as much as I thought I would on the plane trip over. Once Carol arrived we took a stroll for a few hours. London was cold (about 40 F) and overcast, but ok and bearable.

Met up with Mike’s niece and boyfriend for a great dinner near the hotel (Modern Pantry)… and then started at 6 am (today) to head to St. Pancras to catch the Eurostar and then change to TGV to Avignon where we were to pick up a car and head to Vaison where we would stay for a few days before heading back to London (and my meetings).

There’s a lot of construction going on everywhere in London — some due to the Olympics.

Anyway, even at 6 am there was a lot of traffic, but we made it to the station and on to Paris’ Gare du Nord where we exited and had to take a taxi to Gare du Lyon to catch the connecting train to Avignon (not really quite so connecting given that the two stations are about 10 kilometers apart). We had opted for business class seats on Eurostar which was good, because we got fed a really nice breakfast and could relax. But the Eurostar was about 30 minutes late, making the connection to the other train a bit tricky. We got to the other station (Gare de Lyon) with about 30 seconds to spare and were panting as we ran with the bags..

The trip from Paris to Avignon was pleasant, but we were really surprised to see all the snow on the ground during the entire distance of the trip. As the train pulled out of the station in Paris, I got an email from the woman who owns the house we would be staying in Vaison… She wanted to alert us to the fact that the pipes froze and so there was no water at the house and we couldn’t stay there. It was too late to just toss it all and head for a nice hotel in Paris.. .The train goes direct to Avignon — no stops. On the train I made good use of my global iPhone service.. looking up potential hotels in Avignon. We considered not picking up the rental car, but then realized we’d be lost since we really no longer had a destination.

As we left the station to get to the rental car place we realized just how cold it was… much colder in Avignon than in either London or Paris.. about 28 F and then 40 mph winds.. definitely not the tourist season. We picked up the Peugot, attempted to figure out the GPS system (and also how to get the gear shift out of Park) and headed to the Centre Ville to get some lunch.. It was about 2:45 by now.. we navigated ourselves to the center of town fairly well — into the ramparts through one of the many “doors”.. but parking was a challenge. Eventually we headed towards Les Halles which had a garage above (hidden quite well by a “growing wall”.. The Peugot was one of the larger cars so we (I’m the designated driver) had to do a lot of maneuvering..  I had been in Avignon about two years ago so I remembered that there were many restaurants from which to choose. What I had forgotten was that 3:00 is really the cut off for lunch in France and they are pretty persnickety about that timing. So we wound up with the equivalent of French fast food on the main square and I will make the following pronouncement — It is possible to get bad food in France.

Anyway, we are now comfortably situated in the Hotel Cloitre Saint Louis – which is  a 16th century building that was originally a Jesuit seminary (I think they lived pretty well!), and was later a military hospital. It was restored and modernized and turned into a hotel about 20 years ago. It’s a pretty pricey place in normal days, but having this freezing cold weather we were able to cut a really good deal on rooms..but they also put us into rooms on the top “garret” level… sort of like living in a wonderfully charming loft space.. in the eaves of the building. To get to our rooms (there are 4 like this)… you take the elevator to the top floor of one side of the building.. and then midway on the floor you walk through some arches and climb a flight of stairs..and then there are doors.. When you open each of these four doors there’s another flight of stairs (with a landing and turn)… and then you’re in the room. It’s totally great with a big circle window that looks out on the courtyard… bathroom is on the lower level.. shower on the upper level. All modern amenities and very design-y. Apparently the modernization was done by Jean Nouvel, the Pritzker award winning architect who designed the Arab World Center in Paris and the Torre Agbar in Barcelona and the Musee du Quai Branly in Paris..  So we sort of lucked out in spite of all the problems… We are likely to stay here in Avignon through tomorrow night, and then — depending on the situation in Vaison — decide what to do for the next few days. Weather prediction is not good. Coldest, snowiest, windiest winter in decades.

OK.. I have to get back to work; still have deadlines.

Bon Soir…

Fern