In the deep south--of France

Southern France is as distinct as all the other regions of France. To some extent it is more than one region because of the variations in dialect—sometimes a whole language—Occitan , for example, as different from French as Catalan is from Castilian Spanish.

On a trip such as ours, we are always traveling in a linguistic fog, with never enough time to adapt to the sounds (or to wrap our own tongues around the phonetics). So we depend on smiling a lot and trying what little remains of my long-ago high school French, which is very bad, apparently. All too often I get more puzzled looks from my attempts at pronouncing French than I do from saying things in English. Of course, my southern accent is another block to understanding.

Ah, well, on to the visit to the deep south of France. We went from Barcelona to Perpignan, with the plan to stay four full days, thence to Cahors and the cave paintings at Pech Merle, another four day stay. Last, down to Nimes for a week where we would do day trips to Arles, Avignon and the Pont du Gard.

Despite my more recent culinary adventures in Paris, a good meal is always easy to find. The wines were consistently excellent without any two being alike, especially in the Cahors area. My friend, Jim Ayres, says the wine from that region is called "black wine" and it is easy to see why. Under good light the wine is the deepest purple you can imagine, in romantic lighting, of course it is black.

After seeing the 700-year-old bridge, the Pont Valentre at Cahors, Saint Bénezet bridge --also known as 'le pont d’Avignon' and the Pont du Gard and various other Roman bridges, plus the two amphitheaters (that we would think of as "coliseums" and Roman buildings and ruins from Barcelona onward, I thought I might just play with the claims of the towns:

Nimes: My Roman Amphitheater is bigger than yours.

Arles: Mine is prettier.

But each city was a revelation all its own, even if there were similarities. Perpignan had a nicely kept up fortress, part of which was open to the public as a museum, the rest was closed off because it still a military installation. In fact, on the side opposite from the tourist part is a barracks and a French Foreign Legion recruiting office.

In Nimes we often saw exceptionally fit young men, with shaved heads, colorful tattoos and white kepis on the town. I presumed there was another Legionnaire station there.

Walled cities, especially Carcassone and Avignon. Ancient wandering streets in Arles and Tarrascone, a harbor filled with yachts in the center of Beaucaire. Flowers and gardens and vast fields of sunflowers and grape vines. As a photographer, I’ve been in hog heaven.

Finally, there is the human element. I can appreciate the strong faces and hardy physiques of the men and, even more, the beauty of the young women that I’ve seen, as well as the variations from cute toddlers to weathered octogenarians, but I haven’t taken many candid pictures of people because in the back of my mind is having read that there are new laws regarding "man-on-the-street" photos in European countries which forbid the
use of images, even on a personal web site, without the express permission of the subject.
There were times when I couldn’t resist some group or scene and I have a few good images of human nature at play and work but they will have to be saved until a later time, perhaps after enough photojournalists have complained about the laws.

All in all, there is nothing I can say that can compare to seeing and tasting the real thing. You’ve never been so cognizant of the difference between cultures as when, for instance, you go to swim at a Mediterranean beach and discover that it is topless and nearly all of the bare torsos belong to German grandmothers.

One’s perceptions are guaranteed to change.

Paris Food

Funny, I've successfully avoided eating odd things all over europe--but now, in the most civilized city in the world (by their own estimate), I've gone down new paths of cuisine inadvertantly--twice.
On Sunday we went to a museum in the north of the city which, surprise, was not near a cafe, restaurant, brasserie or kebab place, so we backtracked to the last one we saw. I should have been alerted by the white tablecloths and cloth napkins, not to mention the wait staff's suits and ties, that it was pricy. It was also the kind of snobbish place that pretends not to understand English. The result was that I ended up with finely sliced raw beef.
Now, I knew not to order tartar, which generally looks like raw hamburger and appears to make it possible to digest all the gristle that French beef seems to have--at least in the cuts I can afford.
As it turned out, sprinkled with lemon juice and lightly scattered with basil, the slices were easy to eat. And I now know what "aguilettes bleu" means. Combine that with thinly sliced frites (french fries) and a yogurt dessert and a cup of coffee for me, three nicely done (barely cooked, I thought) boneless lamb chops and french beans with little mushrooms and a lemon tart for Connie and two glasses of wine and we had a lunch that was a mere $126.00.
Tonight, at the unpretentious little restaurant at the hotel next to where we are staying, I ordered what I thought was some version of veal--"rognons de veau saute avec champignons."
Now, I know that champignons are mushrooms and saute (with the accent) is stirfried, so how risky could it be?
I knew from the outset (or the down set of the plate) that what I was about to eat was some sort of organ meat and I felt I had to give it a try. It wasn't too bad, just a slightly liverish taste which I can tolerate with spices and in certain sausages and preparations, so I kept eating.
It took a long time to finish, however, because the rubbery texture wasn't what I usually chew and there were an awful lot of the little rounded pieces of whatever--in fact at one point, I thought they were multiplying on the plate.
After the meal, back in our hotel room, Connie looked it up in our pocket French-English dictionary--Mes enfants, mes amis, "rognons de veau" means little calf kidneys.
I'm carrying that damn book on me for the rest of the trip in France.

Barcelona--A Love Poem

Barcelona
Is a love song
Barcino
Barça

It is a hymn sung by the Mediterranean Sea breeze
Over the rounded hills and through the limbs of trees
Intertwined as lovers kissing

Barcelona is a lover’s kiss
A passion for life and beauty
A stroll down La Rambla
A long evening meal with old friends
A child’s laugh as water
From a mosaic iguana runs across her fingers

They say Sitges is romantic
And Tarragona is historic
But the Romans built the foundations
Of Barcino to last through the centuries
The weight of the city is carried on ancient stone
And today fills the land between mountain and sea

Out of that stone is borne a special people
Catalonian to be sure
Independent of mind and longing to be free
Of any flag but their own
But Barça is more than part of Catalunya
It is its own passion and spirit
Open arms for embracing
Many kisses for friends and family
And for the welcome stranger
Who is bade to feel at home

To Barcelona they come to be seduced
By warmth and passion and love
To bring dreams and dreamers
Who make dreams come true

Barcelona is a city that remembers
How it once treated its greatest dreamer
The man Antoni Gaudi who built dreams
In stone and concrete and mosaics
So large and so grand that it seemed impossible
They could be the work of one shabby old man
For so he had become
impoverished at the end
Living under the open arches of his dream
The stone poem La Sagrada Familia
Where his bones now lay while his dream rises still
And the world comes to marvel at his cathedral and all his works
Scattered like shining threads throughout the fabric
Of Barcelona

There is magic in this
Unexplainable
That every day in Barcelona
You will find couples kissing
In a park or by a bus stop
On a train or in a café

If this passion is fueled by wine or fine coffee
Or tobacco or chocolate is hard to determine
For all pleasures are entwined
With mild vices and temptations unresisted

It is its own song this boulevarded city
Lined with trees as well as dreams
Sun soaked beaches and dark mountain ridges
Where wild boars roam eating figs
Beneath the shade of Tibidabo

It is Barcelona
The love song of my heart
The lover’s kiss that never ends

Charles Griffin

For Jim and MaryLou, for Ariadna and little Anna,
And all my favorite places and people of Barça.
6 Sep2007 Paris/Grigny