Cristina and I arrived in Tuscany September 27, 2013. We checked into the country apartment at the Localita Greppi Cupi (a vineyard) called Le Scuderie. Finally we had wifi coverage again, although it is on and off. Much has happened since I last blogged and I have much to catch up on and I will work on that as soon as possible. I will post blogs by date of the events as much as possible but will be producing blogs about days past after this one and they will get posted below this one and other blogs about more recent events. I hope you scroll down to find the new ones as they get posted and that the date of the blog will order them chronologically so that you can see better the order of events.
Our apartment in Tuscany is just outside the town of Donoratico in the coastal area south of Pisa and Livorno that is often known as Massa Marittima. We have a little 2 bedroom, 2.5 bathroom townhouse with a nice kitchen/living room area with a table with 4 chairs a sofa and 2 additional sofa chairs, fireplace, TV, dishwasher and modern air conditioning in each room. It is one of about 15 units like this.
There's a patio outside with a table, 4 chairs and 2 long chairs to sun yourself on. In other words, pretty much anything we would want. It is quiet during the day and even more quiet at night.
Our friends, Willie (on his birth certificate but "Guillermo" to me) and Margarita recommended the place and arrived there for a vacation the same day we did. We looked forward to spending time with them.
In Nyons, just 30 kms. south of where we were staying is a great summer market on Sundays, the Marche Provencal. It has all kinds of Provencal goods. Coloured shopping baskets and bags. Soaps and toiletries scented with lavender, verbena, almonds and all kinds of other natural perfumes. Pottery. Famous Nyons olives, olive products and olive oil. Fabrics with Provencal patterns as well as tablecloths, napkins, aprons, towels and all kinds of clothing. All this is in addition to the fruit, vegetables, meats of the normal weekly market (Wednesdays I believe). Chickens, guinea fowl and ducks turn slowly roasting on the spit. Cheeses are stacked in front of you with bits cut off to taste. Saucissons (dried sausages) of pork, wild boar, bull, donkey meat are sold. The pork saucissons are sold regular or flavoured with ceps (porcini mushrooms), blueberries, Provencal herbs and lots of other variations.
The colors are bright and attractive. The people are everywhere and in a good mood.
We bought some pottery, some lavender, some almond soaps and olive oil to bring back. We also bought some saucissons, roast guinea fowl, chanterelle mushrooms, ripe giant red tomatoes, big cloves of purple colored garlic. Fragrant scents and delicious tastes.
Saturday morning were were off early to see the sound and light show at the underground halls cut out in a former quarry in Les Baux de Provence. Here our host Paul and his uncle Guy lend perspective to the size of the quarries, a rough kind of sculpture in the side of a cliff that remind me of the more spectacular historic carvings in Jordan.
This might sound unlikely, but it turned out to be as spectacular a show as you will ever see.
It was so good that I managed to forgive being sucked into watching a short film by Jacques Cocteau (who is in the picture on the right and featured in the film) that was strategically located in a hall just by the washrooms or WCs where I start most of my visits to arts venues. This bizarre film deserved to be located there and I thought that I would have enjoyed it more if it was actually projected on the wall of the urinal I had used. It wasn't all bad as it featured a woman painted white with wings a nice pair of bare breasts, but she only go a cameo so couldn't save the whole film which included a number of apparently famous French actors walking about in ancient Greek clothing to no apparent purpose while Jacques Cocteau drifted through them and a narrator purported to make sense of the whole.
The main show was very different and frankly, quite fabulous. I took some dark video of it but can't seem to add it successfully to this post. So you'll need to make do with the (dark) photos I took with my IPhone.
Music from various centuries played in the dark while dozens of projectors cast fabulous paintings onto the walls and floor. The colors from paintings by Monet, Renoir, Chagall and others saturated the darkness. We walked around to take in the performance from various perspectives. There were some "balconies" and "ramps" as well as columns and wider and narrower "walls" of the quarry to walk, encircle and view.
The site of the quarry is also in a spot that is quite spectacular:
The site is close to St. Remy, a town made famous by the artists who painted there, Van Gogh perhaps most notably. St. Remy, is now a tourist destination catering to the well off and bargains are hard to find, but not totally absent.
We had a very good meal in St. Remy at the le Gousse d'Ail (the Garlic Clove). We had a delightful 2012 Chateau Romanin Alpilles from St. Remy de Provence, a local white wine that is biodynamically produced. I ate a pissaladiere (a tart with onions and anchovies) surrounded by lettuce leaves, anchovies and diced tomatoes. Cristina loved her vol-au-vent au fruits de mer (a patty shell full of sea food in a white sauce. Cristina then had a filet of Loup de Mer (Mediterranean sea bass I believe in English, a white fish that looks like a trout) with tomato sauce that was equally good. I had Dorade with a typical Provencal ratatouille. The fish had a lovely crisp skin and melted in the mouth. This meal armed us for the hour long drive home.
On the way, home, however we stopped at one of the huge supermarkets France is known for, Auchan. It was an utter zoo. All of the recent immigrants to France must have been in this one store on the outskirts of Avignon and the cues to check out were impressive. We didn't buy enough to warrant standing in one of these cues but did so anyway. I cased out the wine section and managed to find a nice Bordeaux, a 2007 Chateau L'Evangile from Pomerol that was exciting enough to make the cue something I could put up with.
When we got home we prepared a supper with our hosts and sat down to the table with them and their relatives, Guy and Monique. The lovely supper was washed down with a couple of excellent wines. The 2009 Domaine Janasse red Chateauneuf de Pape Chaupin was a super concentrated wine that was hedonistic and complex even at this pubescent stage in its evolution and me with the approval of all. We then followed that with a 2010 Smith Haut Lafitte red wine I had purchased from the "Somellier's Club" at a Casino supermarket under their house label. This Bordeaux from Pessac Leognan was a steal at 20 Euros under this label and an equally big hit with all around the table.
After sampling all these French arts it was off to bed to get an early start the next day.
It is topped by the barren moonscape known as the toughest climb on the Tour de France. It is a 22 kilometer unrelenting climb from the town of Bedoin to 1,912 metres of altitude with an average slope of 7.5% although it starts out fairly gently. The town of Bedoin is at less than 400 metres altitude so there are 1,576 metres of vertical to climb the top. The last 15.6 kms. are an average slope of 8.6%. It is Mont Ventoux, the Giant of Provence.
Cristina and made this climb with Mimi and his brother Claude on a perfect September day.
Claude watched Cristina and me get ready.
Cristina, Mimi and Claude had a coffee, while I had water and then we put on our helmets.
And got on our bikes.
And then we were off.
The first half of the climb is through the lush forest. Here Cristina, Mimi and Claude rode together while I was already off the back trying to get warmed up and get my legs going. A rider is trying to keep up with them but didn't manage to hang in very long with them.
Being the old pro that he is Mimi thought to shed his helmet first and here gives it to his wife Jacqueline. Soon Cristina and Claude too took their helmets off for the uphill grind.
I was too far back to see they had taken their helmets off and the idea never even occurred to me. I had tucked my sunglasses into the holes in my helmet, zipped open my jersey to stay cooler and pounded up the hill, alternating between standing up on the pedals and sitting and churning my legs.
Cristina was calling out for more water to Mimi's wife, Jacqueline, and Pascaline who supported our ride.
Jacqueline exhibits perfect form running before her to hand off a full water bottle to Cristina. Notice how professionally she holds only the bottom of the bottle so there is lots of bottle surface for the cyclist to grab. She too is a pro at this. She seems to enjoy it in fact.
Mimi was enjoying his ride.
Here I have climbed out of the forested part of the ride and am now in the sun with the increasingly more desolate landscape surrounding me.
Claude could not keep up with Cristina and Mimi and was in between them and me. Here it looks like he is looking behind him to see if I'm catching him. I was but I didn't manage to quite reel him back in before the finish. I ended up a couple of minutes behind him.
Mimi and Cristina topped the climb. The barren landscape is unmistakeable as Mont Ventoux.
I came up about 11 minutes later.
Here's the link to the details of my climb (control click on the link):
On the way down we stopped by the monument to Tom Simpson who died on the slopes of Mont Ventoux in 1967 in the Tour de France. It is about 1 km. from the summit. Mimi finished the Tour de France that year and remembers how hot is was. The Tour doctors considered cancelling the Mont Ventoux stage but let it go after taking some blood pressure samples from the cyclists. Mimi says Tom looked a wreck before the stage started, let alone later on. He was full of uppers and alcohol and with the heat just crumpled and fell 1 km. from the top of Mont Ventoux.
Mimi remembers looking at him as he passed and finished the stage. Mimi was back a ways in the race as he had flatted and rode the last 3 kms. to the top of Mont Ventoux on a flat tire. A helicopter was summoned to take Tom to the hospital but it took a while for the helicopter to arrive and the riders were all gathering around as the stage had finished and they watched Tom be loaded into the helicopter. But it was of no avail. Tom was dead. The next day the peloton let one of Tom's teammates get away and win the stage to honor Tom's memory.
After paying homage to Tom Simpson, Cristina, Claude, Mimi, Jacqueline, Pascaline and I shared a bottle of champagne and had lunch at the Chalet Reynard to celebrate the climb. The restaurant is 6 kms. from the top of the Mont Ventoux climb on the route back to Bedoin. The food was very good, most of us had huge plates of spaghetti Bolognese, one ravioli forestiere (with morel mushrooms) and one bavette frites (flank steak with fries).
It was also a great place to buy commemorative cycling clothing sporting Mont Ventoux in big letters and the 1912 altitude in sharp black, white or red with trim of the other two colors. The clothing was marked down 40% since it was no longer high season so we took advantage of the opportunity and loaded up. The owners were keen to talk to us since we were "exotic" Canadians and could speak French. We were treated very well.
After lunch we jumped back on our bikes for a fast downhill on a good road where you could see most of the turns and let it rip. I was amped up for this but there were cars on the road and cyclists coming up so I had to keep slowing down until I could pass the cars (who can't handle the turns at speed as well as bicycles but are faster on the straightaways if they accelerate). Here's my downhill ride from the Chalet Reynard:
We cycled into Bedoin and called it a day of cycling and went our separate ways. Separate, but united in the fact we had each climbed Mont Ventoux and knew what the Giant of Provence was to climb. Perhaps the toughest single climb in le Tour de France.
This is the story of my ride in the Cyclosportive Vercors-Drome and how I ended up with a trophy.
I was up at 4:30 a.m. to drive to the start of the Cyclosportive Vercors-Drome. It was billed as a race or ride, depending on how you wanted to do it. You had a choice of three courses. One was 50 kms. the next 90 and the final 140 kms. There was a 6:30 a.m. sign in and it cost 7 Euros to participate.
It was too early to bring others to photograph me. It was also too important to keep riding for me to stop and take selfies (what my daughters have taught me is a name for photos taken of yourself) along the way. So please forgive the excessive prose of this post. But like the Moliere's Malade Imaginaire I am pleased to know that all that I'm writing is not just garbage, it is "prose".
To prepare for the Cyclosportive I rode at 7:30 a.m. the day before. This meant I had to get up early and get ready, eat and get on the road and experience the weather (cold in the early morning but warming up rather quickly).
I got there before 6:30 and found the start without the help of the GPS. I was disappointed to find out that they weren't timing the ride this year so it was just a ride, not a real race. They said they had lost a bunch of money the previous year because they didn't get enough participants and were expecting the same because they had canvassed some of the field and participation was going to be down due to injury, conflicting schedules etc.
I chose to do the 90 km. route. No sense in blowing my brains out on the 140 km. route with the difficulty of the climbs that I had experienced when I pre-rode them with Mimi the previous week.
You could leave any time after 7 a.m. (it was dark before that). I headed out just after 7 a.m. with a few other riders that were friendly and we chatted as we rode along the flats and false flats to the first of the 2 big climbs that featured in my route. One of the riders was Daniel. He was about my age and seemed to be of similar strength. We rode to the beginning of the Col Jerome Cavalli together and then Daniel began to pull away. This Col averages 4.8% over 9.7 kms. and climbs almost 580 metres over that distance. I sat in the saddle and ground away at the pedals and then alternated with shorter shifts standing on the pedals in the technique the French "la danseuse" (the dancer). In my case my "danseuse" was like the Ballet Trockadero of Monte Carlo version. (If you don't know the Ballet Trockadero you really must watch this video and check out others on You Tube of this troupe):
After Daniel had faded away into the distance I started feeling better and better and fewer cyclists were passing me. Then I started passing some cyclists who had passed me. Then I saw Daniel in the distance. Soon he was pulled back and then I passed him and pulled away on the second half of the climb to the top. I rode the downhill cautiously as there were a few dangerous turns that were banked the wrong way and I had had a close call on my trial ride the week before where I had to come to a complete halt and put my foot down on the gravel soft shoulder just before a steep embankment. Daniel managed to pull me back on the downhill to where I saw him a switchback below as I started the second climb, the Col de Bacchus.
On the Col de Bacchus I pulled away from him again and didn't see him again for the rest of the ride. I was passed by a few strong cyclists and as I climbed I was more and more exposed to the strong headwind. It was a tough day, up from the Col de Bacchus to the Col de Limouches. I set a personal best on the Col de Bacchus but the wind slowed me down on the Col de Limouches. (Incidentally they produce some of the best charcuterie (i.e. meats) at the Col de Limouches. A delicious pork saucissons that is like a salami. A wonderful caillette which is like a baseball sized pork meatball with spinach, onions etc. in it for flavouring. Hams, cooked and uncooked salted ones. So, much as I dislike tough climbs, I still enjoyed passing over the top of the Col de Limouches.)
After that there was an equally delicious downhill, but it too was ruined by the headwind. Then a flat stage to the finish. All good but for the wind. And for the fact I missed a turn and added 4 kms. to my ride. For the details of my ride click on the following link:
When I pulled in the organizers and volunteers greeted me with a plate sporting a big slice of ham and a generous chunk of baguette, a typical French recovery snack as you step off the bike after a race or hard ride. There was also a chunk of chocolate on the plate and a Coca Cola was thrust into my hand.
Let me digress here about the perfect fuel that is Coca Cola for cyclists. This sugary liquid is jet fuel for glucose depleted muscles. Drink a Coke 15 minutes before the finish line of a race and, if the gas doesn't upset your stomach, you will be able to sprint without any effort. It is like the pedals start turning themselves. Pure magic. I never drink Coke but will make an exception when cycling. Those that do usually pour it into a plastic water bottle well in advance so that the gas has gone flat before drinking it, but I don't mind a good belch when the pedals are turning themselves. It is just proof of the explosive power you are putting out.
Back to my main story, however. I sat and ate the ham and baguette and chatted with the volunteers who had no one to talk to except each other. They interrogated me about everything. "Did you just complete the 50 km. course?" "No?" "The 90 km. course? Really?" Then they were running around and talking to each other. "Where are you from?" "If you don't mind me saying so you have a bit of an accent." "Canada? Really?" More running around and talking to each other. "What's Canada like?" "Do you have a democratic government?" "What is your retirement age in Canada?" "How many hours a week do you have to work in Canada?" "What line of latitude is Calgary on? Really?" I gathered I was exotic. I held court as another cyclist came in. Then another.
They then told me I was the first rider to come in to complete the 90 km. course. They then offered me a bowl of raviole, which are like little ravioli with fillings the French favour in the Drome province (Picodon fresh goat cheese, or Emmenthal for example). I declined saying I would have had the pasta for breakfast but didn't need it for lunch. They shook their heads in wonder. I was exotic.
Then from the table with 3 or 4 big trophies and 3 or 4 smaller ones an impressive older gent selected a smaller one and presented it to me. God knows what I got it for. On it was engraved UNFOLEP 26. I asked what that meant since I certainly didn't want to get a trophy that suggested I had finished 26th in anything. (This reminds me of the awards on the Wall of Gaylord in the Meet the Fockers movie.) But apparently UNFOLEP turned out to be the Union National Francaise d'Oeuvres Laique d'Education Physique which apparently organized the Cyclosportive. And 26 is the number of the department of the Drome which department's UNFOLEP was the organizer. Whew! Still the best I could explain what I got it for was that I was the best Canadian in the ride.
Although I asked, there was no Champagne to drink out of the trophy. Just Coke. But I brought the trophy back to Bourdeaux where Cristina, my hosts and some friends had assembled to visit with us. They treated it like a major award and I did all I could to not disabuse them of the idea.
Bourdeaux is a quiet little town but it has things going on. There are yoga lessons and the like. There is also some music. And we took in one evening of the performance at the Protestant church across the street. The dour trappings of the church did nothing to distract from the excellent acoustics the plaster covered walls and the wooden ceiling provided in the rectangular space with the end rounded off. This August evening we were treated to Couleurs Baroques by the Amaryllis vocal and instrumental ensemble under the able direction of Mr. Dominique Montel.
There were three pieces played:
Psalm "Super flumina Babylonis" by Marc Antoine Charpentier;
Cantate bwv 4 "Christ lag in Todes Banden" by Johann Sebastian Bach; and
Psalm 50 "Miserere" for 5 voices by Francesco Scarlatti (Alessandro's younger brother and the uncle of Dominico, each more famous than Francesco).
I can just imagine you singingin your mind to the tunes of these baroque hits as you read the titles above. However I needed the passed out lyrics. The first was in Latin and I have trouble remembering "Super flumina" in Latin for some reason. The Bach "Todes Banden" was in German and I find it just as difficult to remember this one in German despite the tune being so sing-alongable. And the Scarlatti "Miserere" needs the Latin to obscure the depressing meaning of the lyrics. But luckily I had the lyrics written out on paper for me to sing along and follow the bouncing ball. I was also delighted to brush up on my spoken Latin since I have so little chance to use it in my line of work these days even though I am a lawyer.
I know that you are all thinking how great this concert must have been and how you wish you had been there. I managed to record a bootleg couple of minutes but I just cannot figure out how to post them on this blog or you would be treated to breathing in the atmosphere of the Couleurs Baroque as I did. I will do it in the future if I figure it out, but for now you'll just have to imagine it.
The evening was not without some special moments. For example in the Charpentier "Super flumina" I just could barely restrain my enthusiasm at the final verse. It was splendidly executed, just wonderful:
Beatus qui tnebit et adlidet
parvulos tuos ad petram.
Let me translate that bit if your Latin is a bit rusty so that you don't miss the uplifting poetry of this song. Roughly it means:
Ecstatic is he who seizes his little children
and crushes them against a rock.
The choir just hit this bit out of the ballpark. What a performance! I was singing these words (in Latin of course) as I left the church, in fact as the townspeople in the streets looked at me knowingly as if they shared the concept and I thought I saw some humming along.
When the choir was just killing the Bach number in German it occurred to me that this piece was probably chosen as a cross-over number to bring in the German tourists in the neighbourhood. I guess for the other two pieces they hoped the composers would bring in their countrymen (French and Italian) and that between the two of them they would sweep in any Latin tourists that might also be building Roman ruins in the neighbouring area (God knows there must be lots of them in Provence judging by the number and size of the Roman ruins there.)
The Bach had lots of Alleluias, one to finish off each verse in fact. I think however that this version shows how those American Gospel choirs just can't hold a candle to Bach in German. It ended with:
Der Glaub' will kein's Andern leben.
Halleluja!
Now how can you beat that? You can clap hands and raise your hands to the sky but is that any better? I don't think so.
For the Scarlatti number the tremendous church organ was added to the instrumental mix. This was a highlight the audience had waited for. But that wasn't going to be all. There was drama too!
As the instrumentalists picked up the music and go a few bars in Mr. Montel looked to his left at a violinist and raised his hands to stop the orchestra. He shook his head barely perceptibly looking at a baroque violinist. This lady stopped playing with the rest, steadfastly kept looking at the music and then the violin as if waiting for the violin to start doing what it was supposed to. Then Conductor Montel raised his hands and they were off again. They may have got about 8 or 10 bars further than the first time before he looked up again, to his left and raised his hands to stop the orchestra. Again! The lady with the violin again took the stare of the conductor who muttered something softly that I didn't catch (perhaps it was in Latin). The violinist never looked up, or embarrassed or otherwise showed any expression and just looked between the music and her violin.
Conductor Montel started the music a third time. Surely we were off for a good crack at Scarlatti's "Miserere" this time. But just before the vocalists could get their voices on this piece the Conductor's hands were raised again to stop proceedings. The audience started talking in hushed tones. The Conductor looked to the left. The violinist did not look back. But it seems that she had no reason to, this time. The offending musician was the organist (or as the programme called it the orgue continuo). This prim middle aged lady with straight mousey brown hair and librarian glasses looked up at the Conductor as if to protest and he provided instructions softly to her (I'm almost sure it was in Latin). Everyone could see the Conductor was trying to save the lady embarrassment by singling her out so gently. She looked like she was surprised by what he told herm but she did not reply. In stead she looked hard at the music flipped to a prior page, back again and then to a prior page. Seems she and the rest were not on the same page. But now they were.
The fourth time the Scarlatti piece started up, believe me everyone in the audience was sitting on pins and needles and laying side bets on which instrumentalist would be responsible for bringing the piece to a halt next. The odds on violinist were a V to II if I made out the Latin bookmaking correctly. The organist was III to I. But no. No stop. They were off and playing, the choir was singing and the "Miserere" was about as exciting as it could get. Noone was drifting out of this performance!
But all good things come to an ended and so did this evening of Couleurs Baroques and the audience drifted away into the night reliving the drama and humming the tunes they had witnessed.
Bourdeaux was also on the route of the 15th stage of the 2013 Tour de France. It was 104 kms from the finish line at the top of Mont Ventoux to the South in Provence (and 138 kms from the start of that stage:
The profile of that stage featured the Cote de Bourdeaux at km 143 (from the start of the stage), just outside of town. This is where a lot of the painting of cyclists' names was done around here. See the profile of that stage here:
We plan to do most of the climbs on this route, including Mont Ventoux, but not this day. We had another ride planned.
Let me say that I did not feel very well when I got up Thursday Aug. 22 since I hadn't slept after getting up in the middle of the night. Jet-lag seems to bother me more than others. However it gave me a chance to get going on this blog in the middle of the night while Cristina apparently slept.
But we decided to get our first bike ride in and after checking out the market, OK after buying a bunch of stuff at the market, we headed off to Crest and took the harder route on the way there. Up the Col de la Chaudière which starts a handful of kilometres out of the town so there is really no where to warm up the legs. Warm up is probably the wrong expression to use because it was already 30 degrees at 11 a.m. when we chose to leave. It was hot by my legs needed to turn for a while to get them going. I didn't have the luxury of the time to do that. Cristina killed the climb and here poses for me once I made it up.
I had to take a selfie as Cristina wanted to get going and wouldn't reciprocate. Ouf!
Coming back the ride was beautiful through the Forest of Saou and over the Paz de Lauzon (the Lauzon Pass).
I'm trying to convince Cristina to use the Strava app on her IPhone to record her climb times as she is so strong this year she is sure to be the QOM (Queen of the Mountain or fastest woman recorded by Strava) on most of the climbs in this area. (There are a lot of strong male riders here but not many strong female ones, and in any event not many as strong as Cristina, especially taking her, um, ah, maturity into account.)
There's a patio outside with a table, 4 chairs and 2 long chairs to sun yourself on. In other words, pretty much anything we would want. It is quiet during the day and even more quiet at night.
Our friends, Willie (on his birth certificate but "Guillermo" to me) and Margarita recommended the place and arrived there for a vacation the same day we did. We looked forward to spending time with them.
