Europe, Episode 6: The bridge at the end of Avignon

While I was ambivalent about Paris, I fell in love with Avignon pretty quickly.  I'll get to the cobbled streets and friendly people later on.  First, I thought I'd write about one of my favourite moments - when we discovered the famous bridge of Avignon.

Pont Saint-Bénézet isn't even technically a bridge anymore; it's been ruined and reconstructed several times since the 12th Century and only boasts four remaining arches now.  It does, however, make for cracking pictures in the sunset.

We spent the afternoon strolling through the old city with the aim of reaching the bridge by sunset, not realising that said sunset would be a couple of hours long.  Rebecca and I ended up parking ourselves in the long grass till ten at night.

Before I went on this trip, a colleague pulled me aside and asked me if I'd ever gone travelling with Bear before.  When I said no, she shook her head in wonder.  "You're very brave.  What if you end up falling out?"  To be honest, the closer we got to the trip, the more this thought had crossed my mind.  After all, while we "knew" each other from work, we didn't exactly know each other and we would be spending no less than thirty days, together twenty-four seven.

When you're with someone as chilled as Bear, though, travelling is far easier than it might be with someone else.  During the planning stages of the trip, we listed our desired activities and only three things made the list: photography (her), obssessive journalling (me) and coffee drinking (both of us).  I knew we'd be just fine.

Up until this point in Avignon, however, we hadn't really spent time just sitting around and doing nothing.  And now, as the sun began to set, we settled ourselves on the cool damp, bank and started a long conversation.

As the evening began to turn chilly we huddled and chatted about our dreams and friends and our feelings about the situations around us, the conversation punctuated by the click of camera shutters at a sky striated with soft carpbelly clouds.

You know how sometimes you're not sure what you can talk about with a person?  And then you realise that you guys can discuss pretty much anything and you both feel yourselves relax and open up?  That night in Avignon was just that.

Bear and I were the only two people on the bank just then.  We talked and laughed and snapped away and when the sun started to really show off, we fell silent, filled with awe at a sunset that seemed to be made just for us.  And as I always am when confronted with the majesty of nature, I was filled with an overflowing gratitude to the universe; with the feeling that I was, at the same time, unspeakably tiny and glowing and immense. 

Eventually, it got too cold and dark and we started to get hungry so we quickly and quietly packed up and walked back into town.  We got to know each other even better over the days that followed, but I think it really started that evening at what felt like the world's end.

PS  This was the last picture I took that night, standing on a street corner outside a church that had caught my eye, while Bear waited near me. 

A waiter came out of the restaurant behind me, crept up with his tray of drinks and yelled in a jokey attempt to frighten me.  I was so engrossed in taking the picture that I didn't even jump and apparently, he and Bear exchanged grins at my obliviousness.  As he walked past, she grabbed my shoulder and pointed him out and that was when I snapped out of my daze and realised that he was actually... pretty cute.

But that's another story, and shall be told another time. 

Europe, episode 5: Un bon moment

Tipsy with busyness, I thought I'd take a moment to put these pictures up.  They remind of an afternoon that we spent not doing anything but wandering around the long avenues of the Jardins des Tuileries, taking pictures and sipping on hot chocolate from Angelina.  

Good times.

Contemplation

"You know how sometimes you know nothing about someone, really, and you don't know if you could sit through a dinner with them or see yourself hanging out at their house regularly; or you don't know if they would like you at all or think you were massively ignorant and lose patience with you or enjoy your idiot sense of humour; or in fact if you could ever end up even remotely getting along... but... right there and then in the moment, you just really, really want to kiss them?

Yeah."

Hier

Among the random things that are making me happy recently are a very girly, spontaneous manicure and round two of French lessons.  

The nails, well, I'm enough of a magpie that looking at something sparkly every day makes me smile.  And French?  Well, apart from loving the language and enjoying the daily interaction - every lesson is a revelation -, as a teacher, I relish three hours of not being the one at the front of the class.

Instead of exercising the eyes in the back of my head, I'm quite content to open my books, lean back and let someone else take the reins.  

(Plus, one of the teachers is pretty funny and I have an entire secret sidebar in my notebook for his daily jokes, for example, "When you use the reflexive, you are doing something to yourself.  Like I bathe myself, or I dress myself, but there is one verb you are not allowed to use on yourself: to argue.  Because you can't argue with yourself.  Unless you're Gollum."  Oh, you!)

Europe, episode 4: Montmartre

Cheesy and narrow as it may sound, Montmartre is like the Holland Village of Paris - chilled, quaint and artsy.  We spent an overcast morning wandering round the Basilica and the artists' market and although the sun only came out after we left for the Louvre, it was pretty charming anyway!

Before we even made it up the slopes of Montmartre, we found a chocolatier called Georges Larnicol and, of course, we practically ran in and threw a mix of pralines, nut clusters and beautiful painted-egg chocolates into a takeout bag.  (The ones called cormorant eggs were splashed with olive and brick speckles and filled with a heavenly dark ganache.)

Eating our loot, we got to the base of the Sacre-coeur and admired the famous carousel for a little while.

It was quieter than usual, a solitary couple on skates wobbling over for a few photos.  We picked our favourite horses then started the climb up to the top of the hill.  I love how there is always music in the air, people lying casually all over the grass.

The inside of the church was cool and dark and subtly tipped with stained glass.  It's an interesting church because when you enter, it looks a little subdued but as your eyes adjust to the light and you walk in towards the dome, a surprisingly bright and ornate ceiling reveals itself over the nave.  I can't quite tell if I like the ceiling or not; it feels a bit out of character with the rest of the building.

On the whole though, it's a wonderfully peaceful basilica, and like I do in every place of worship I visit on holiday, I stopped to say a little word of thanks to the universe.  I'm not religious but I think houses of worship are good places to gather feelings of gratitude and appreciate life.

After our stop at the Sacre-coeur, we walked around the back streets to look for food and found ourselves in a colourful, lively tangle of cobbled ways and wandering people, everything screaming to be photographed.  Rebecca firmly steered me in the direction of lunch - one thing we'd realised was that we both get exceedingly grumpy when hungry - and we decided to leave the photos for later.

It was a very French lunch with onion soup, escargots, confit de canard, beef bourguignon and a large creme brulee that we slowly, richly licked off our spoons at the end.  Once we'd nibbled a few more chocolates with our coffee, we forced ourselves to our feet and staggered over to the artist market which was in full swing.

I love the market with its elderly men in paint-stained aprons and bouquets of canvasses and we strolled through stalls pointing out our favourite pictures, mine daubed with pastel window boxes, hers more rich and real.  Time slowed then, people waiting only for portraits and pictures and the whole world was scented with oils and the chill spring wind.

One of the artists had a dog, a compact black creature sleek as a seal.  He would click rapidly round the market sniffing the air and looping round easel legs, then come back to his master, leaping at him on his hind legs.  Suspicious at first, he ran just outside my grasp, but eventually let me scratch his back. 

As we snapped, we drifted away from the market and into random streets to watch the scruffy-handsome hipsters and girls with almost unreal peaches-and-cream skin.

Rebecca took her favourite portrait of the whole trip right here (her portraits are incredible so believe me when I say this one was the creme de la creme) on a street corner, as a lady reminiscent of Audrey Tautou came out for a cigarette.  We were both taken by her gamine elegance, the way she brought her hand lightly to her mouth.

So often thoughout our journey, we were torn between taking natural candids, like all good street photographers must learn to, and asking for posed portraits.  More than once, I stooped quickly to my viewfinder only to find my subject staring right back at me through it, catching me red-handed.  Luckily for us, most Europeans were amused by this and flashed obliging smiles.  Rebecca and "Audrey" had a little moment and eventually, Bear snapped a beautiful portrait. 

On the way back to the train station, we found an attractive pair of buskers setting up shop and we made a large donation for the pleasure of standing on the street corner and smiling at them for an abnormally long time.  That their music was sublime (and it was, harmonies and all) was just a bonus.  I mean, look at Mr Blue-eyes up there... Hello!

Filled with good food and good music, we took a few more shots and started the slow stroll back down to the bottom of the hill.

Don't ever change, Montmartre!  I know you'll continue be a great place for portraits; a slightly warmer, gentler Paris. 

No outing is complete until I make my (very unwilling) partner-in-crime pose for some cool-street-hipster-wannabe shot...

... aaaand proof that "we wuz here".