Discovering Arles May 12, 2011

Victor Hugo's birthplace

We spent the next morning wandering a bit more around Besançon, checking out the birthplace of Victor Hugo (you can only view it from the outside), as well as The Museum of Time. It was an interesting museum that we essentially stumbled upon while heading back towards our hotel to leave the city. The timing was perfect as they offered free entry on that day, and I wanted to use a restroom. We spent a half hour or so wandering around the museum and enjoyed fantastic views of the city from the top floor where a Foucault pendulum is housed. After our brief tour, we grabbed some lunch at a nearby cafe (where we learned that you seem to need to pay waiters inside the restaurant and not at your table) and then headed back to the hotel.

We arrived in Arles some hours later, unfortunately at night. Arles isn’t a particularly large city, but still, we had no real directions to our hotel so we did a lot of driving around trying to figure out exactly where and how to get to the river as our hotel was essentially on it. Eventually we did find the right road to get us there, and called the hotel owner to tell him we had arrived (we knew we would be a little later than the 10pm check in time, so we had phoned to tell him.) We went up to our room and discovered what I think must be the smallest hotel room in western Europe (I’m sure they probably have smaller ones in Tokyo, but still…it was impressively small.) We struggled to find enough space for all of our stuff and still be able to walk around the bed accessing the bathroom. It was fine for a night, but I think if we had planned an extensive stay it would have felt pretty cramped.  We decided to head out and explore the town a little, although at this point it was past 11pm. The town was pretty quiet, with a few bars and restaurants still open but definitely no wild night life (at least not on a Sunday night at this time of year.) Maybe it’s a different story in the high season.

The next morning, we loaded up our things into the car and checked out and then searched for breakfast. We discovered some very tasty fresh brioche from a local bakery, and set off wandering.

The promenade along the river is sort of romantic, and provided inspiration for the artist Vincent Van Gogh (he lived in Arles for some time and painted many of his works here.)  We then headed towards the Roman colosseum in town, and snapped a few photos from the outside. As we only had a couple hours to sightsee, we also chose to not go inside the ruins of the Roman amphitheater, either. But I put my camera through the fence and snapped a few photos.

Arles is a nice city to just wander around in. Like in Besançon, there are plenty of narrow, winding streets that you can just enjoy following to see where they take you. I’ve sort of fallen in love with the window shutters and balconies of France and Italy, so I snapped lots of photos of those.

We finished up our tour of the city by grabbing a coffee at the cafe Van Gogh made famous in his painting “Cafe Terrace on the Place du Forum.” Well, I should clarify: I had a coffee, and had to beg, bribe and practically threaten the Mr. that he should accompany me while I enjoyed said beverage. He wanted nothing to do with the “tourist trap” cafe, and couldn’t fathom why I would want to have a coffee there. Men. Men who didn’t study art history, actually. Anyway, I’ll be darned if  I didn’t hear French voices come from the table next to us;  so it wasn’t just us and the Asian tourists! Still, I did find myself getting slightly annoyed with the wait staff that they kept asking me if I wanted to eat. Yes, it was around lunchtime, but it wasn’t like every table was full and people were standing around looking for a free one. I get the pushiness in those circumstances, but not when it’s mostly empty.

After the coffee, I grabbed a veggie sushi pack to go from a little cafe just on the corner of the square (she made it right in front of me, and it was sooo delicious.) We then headed to our car and towards our next destination: Spain!

Besançon, France’s “secret city” May 9, 2011

So as I mentioned in my previous entry, the Mr. and I recently took a vacation to France and Spain.  I was a little nervous about the trip considering neither of us speaks particularly good Spanish or French, but this didn’t seem to bother the Mr. Some of my basic high school Spanish did come back to me, but I never learned any French so apart from “please” and “thank you,” I had pretty much no idea how to say anything. (We finally did learn the phrase for “the bill, please.” The Mr. initially had no idea so asked one waitress “péage?” which I am pretty sure means “toll.” She must have had a laugh over that.) I always felt slightly guilty that we asked pretty much everyone we had to speak to if they spoke English, but I consoled myself with the  fact that English is, for better or worse, the default universal language that most people know. Sometimes we’d be asked, “English or German?” And I’d quickly say “German!” just so I didn’t feel like the loser English-speaker who doesn’t know another language. Not that I’d get very far with German if the Mr. wasn’t there….

Besançon, France

Anywhoo, the first stop of our vacation was a city I just sort of stumbled onto, and had actually never heard of before. I was searching for a city somewhere in France where the Mr. and I could spend our first evening, that wouldn’t take any longer than 5 hours or so to reach. We wanted to keep the driving to a minimum on that first day partly because I knew we’d get a late start out the door (we always do), and partly just to keep from driving too much in a straight shot.  Having had my wallet stolen back in December, my Indiana driver’s license was unfortunately in that wallet and therefore has not been replaced. Even if I did still have it, I’m past the point where I’m legally allowed to drive here in Germany without passing a written driving test and getting a new license, but without any license at all it’s certainly not worth the risk to drive.  So we knew from the get-go the Mr. would be doing all the driving for the trip, and I was keen to try and make sure we didn’t do too much in any single day as I’m sure statistically that raises the risk for an accident. And one really doesn’t want to have an accident, especially on the autobahn. Anyway, I was googling places and came across Besançon, France. The distance was just right, and after reading this article from the Guardian, I was pretty much convinced.

Well, I’m happy to report that you can believe the hype: Besançon is really lovely. We arrived in the late evening and checked into an Ibis Hotel located a short 10-minute walk from the city center. I chose the Ibis because it was very central and also offered parking. (The underground parking was another adventure all to itself; I’m still always amazed when the Mr. successfully navigates unscathed through the extremely tight parking garages of Europe.) After we checked into our room, (which was very clean but sparse and featured a sort of “pod” bathroom…literally, it’s like a separate small room you step up into) we headed into town to try and find something to eat.

By the time we had walked along the river from the hotel to the city center and had snapped photos, it was already getting a little late, close to 9pm. We wandered along the narrow, winding streets, drinking in the lovely old architecture of the historic center and people-watching while they dined with sidewalk-seating at an impressive variety of restaurants. We checked out many menus at many restaurants, with me longing to feel a little hungrier so I could justify a huge steaming bowl of moules marinière, steamed mussels. The problem was that neither of us were particularly starved and therefore didn’t feel we could justify a big, expensive meal. Finally we spotted it, a Lebanese restuarant whose menu boasted some of my favorite foods; hummus, falafel, chicken skewers…and the photos accompanying each dish looked so appealing.  After a quick discussion outside, the Mr. and I agreed that what might make the most sense was to order maybe four appetizers instead of entrees so we could have a bit of several things that sounded good. It was the perfect plan.

We stepped inside and were greeted by an older woman who said something in French we didn’t understand, and then proceeded to figure out pretty quickly that English was better. She spoke English really well. She seemed very busy as many tables were full, but was friendly. We took a seat. There were two menus on the table that featured bright, colorful photos of various appetizers you could get, like hummus and falafel. She also came by and handed us more extensive menus, but we could readily see everything that appealed to us on the laminated colorful appetizer menu. We wanted to order a glass of house wine for me, and a bottle of beer for the Mr. She informed us she didn’t have the beer he wanted, but that they had a lovely Lebanese wine which we could share a small carafe of if we’d like instead. I didn’t care either way, and the Mr. agreed to sharing the wine. He knew it was pricey (14 euros for the carafe), but it was the beginning of vacation and we wouldn’t be spending that much on the meal with the four appetizers, so it seemed okay to splurge a little on the wine.

She came back with the drinks, and the Mr. explained to her that we’d like to order four appetizers instead of entrees as we aren’t that hungry. She then told us about a shared platter we could have for 22 euros each (44 euros total), and all the delicious things we would get on it. The Mr. explained again that we really weren’t that hungry, and would just like order the four appetizers. She took down our order and disappeared to tend other tables. Within 10 minutes, our falafel (small deep-fried patties made of highly-spiced ground chick-peas) and tabbouleh (diced parsley salad with burghul, tomato and mint) arrived. Both were delicious. I was in food heaven. After we had cleared those plates, our chicken skewers (with hummus…hmm..bonus…hadn’t expected that!) and the Mr.’s kofta (fingers, stars or a flat cake of minced meat and spices that can be baked or charcoal-grilled on skewers) arrived. Those, too, were absolutely scrumptious. We started to eat, and at some point, one of us remarked that “these plates are bigger, aren’t they?” and “hmm, yes…and this is an awful lot of food, isn’t it?” Actually, it was a TON of food on each plate…more like an entree-sized portion. The more we ate, the more we began to realize that there was no way these portions could be just appetizers. And sure enough, when the bill came, she had charged us for two appetizers and two entrees. With the pricey wine, it ended up being a very expensive meal, indeed. What happened was clearly a clash of cultures as her English was fluent and we don’t think there’s any real possibility she just misunderstood. But now we’re lefting wondering which culture we clashed with: French culture, where perhaps the idea of ordering four appetizers instead of entrees in a restaurant is tantamount to blasphemy, or Lebanese culture, where perhaps the restaurant owner “knows best” what’s good for you, even if you didn’t order it? If anyone has any insights to either French or Lebanese restaurant culture, I’d love to hear those thoughts!