Paris - Photo of the Day (May 25, 2009)

French Open - Day 2. Jon cooling off with the Perrier-provided mist at the "Point Fraicheur".

Paris - Photo of the Day (May 24, 2009)

French Open - Day 1. Kristi enjoying a great perspective on the Annex Courts.

Paris - Photo of the Day (May 20, 2009)

Inside the Palais Garnier (one of two Paris Opera Houses)

Paris - Photo of the Day (May 18, 2009)

L'Institut du Monde Arabe.

Paris - Photo of the Day (May 15, 2009)

Six month wedding anniversary at the Eiffel Tower!!!

Paris - Photo of the Day (May 14, 2009)

Le Penseur.

Paris - Photo(s) of the Day (May 13, 2009)

Highlights of our day trip to Versailles, with our good friend Stefan Voglis.

Paris - Photo of the Day (May 12, 2009)

Patriotic Kristi enjoying the scenery in Paris.

Paris - Photo of the Day (May 11, 2009)

Paris - Photo of the Day (May 10, 2009)

Appropriately named deli in the Jewish Quarter - love the barber poles.

Paris - Photo of the Day (May 9, 2009)

La basilique du Sacre Coeur.

Paris - Photo of the Day (May 8, 2009)

Flowers for sale at the Marché Avenue President Wilson.

Paris - Photo of the Day (May 7, 2009)

Reliving childhood memories at the Petit Nicolas exhibit.

Paris - Photo of the Day (May 6, 2009)

The best way to protect your old Fiat from damage.

Les Gorges du Verdon

The final stop on our tour of Provence last week was the incredible Gorges du Verdon. Also known as the European Grand Canyon, this is the world's second largest gorge and an incredible natural wonder.

We started out with a hike en route to the Gorges, outside the town of Sainte Laurent du Verdon. Our hike took us along a winding river with some incredible cliffs, but certainly just a prelude to the Gorges themselves.

We stayed at a cute inn just outside the town of Moustiers Sainte Marie and had a great time hiking around Moustiers, a unique site in itself (above).

The Gorges have to be accessed by car, which induced some perilous driving on the Route de Cretes, an incredibly windy scenic road that works its way around the Gorges and provides some breathtaking views.

Although it wasn't quite warm enough for rafting on the river, but we were fortunate sure we arrived before tourist season so the roads were relatively empty and we were able to cruise at our own speed, enjoying the many lookouts along the way.

One of the other interesting features of the area are the lakes, which were man-made over the past 80 as part of an electricity scheme. The lakes shimmer an unnatural bright blue, more like the Caribbean than a man-made reservoir.

Finally, we encountered quite a bit of the local wildlife, from hawks soaring over the Gorges to mountain goats, feeding on the surrounding hillsides. These animals seemed completely nonplussed by the cars / humans around them.

We definitely would call this a "must see" sight. Also, Moustiers is a wonderful town with some great restaurants and a great way to explore a different part of Provence.

South of France (Provence / Cote d'Azur)

We are currently in Paris (arrived on Friday) and will be here until May 27. Prior to Paris, we were in the South of France (Provence and the Cote d'Azur), the subject of this post.


After a week-and-a-half of traveling around the South of France (by car), we have already started planning future visits. A combination of trips to the beach , incredible hiking, visits to local markets and the beautiful countryside scenery left us never wanting to leave.


We spent a perfect day on the beach in Cannes. With the weather already in the high 20’s (that’s Celsius), it was even hot enough to dip in the Mediterranean. The seemingly never ending stretch of beach was busy with locals, but not yet packed with tourists. Taking a break from the lounging, we walked around the city and saw the Palais des Festivals and docks full of incredible yachts. We also spent a day exploring Juan-Les-Pins and Antibes, which took us to some more beautiful beaches and the incredible peninsula Cap d'Antibes, home to some incredibly palatial homes and hotels.


Away from the waterfront, we picked up a couple of hiking maps at the local tourist office and embarked on some of the most phenomenal hikes.

Our favourite was a hike that started in the Massif d’Estrel and took us along cliffs and beaches in St. Raphael - some of the most spectacular scenery we have scene anywhere.



We also visited the perfumeries of Grasse (above) and toured their facilities. A bit of an overrated experience, but fun nonetheless.



We also loved the food in the region and have consumed almost exclusively local produce. Even at this time of year, the markets are full of wonderful food, with every vendor eager to give you a taste of what they have on offer. They are so proud of their produce that one vendor even remarked to another vendor (in French) “I wish there were a way to give away samples of eggs”. Some of the delicacies that you might have found in our reusable market bag over the past two weeks ncluded: apricot nougat, fennel salami, duck ravioli, a bouquet of purple artichokes, a smorgasbord of local cheeses and always a baguette.


Getting around to the beaches, hikes and markets has been almost as exciting as arriving at our intended destination. Some of the roads have led us through “Villages Perchés” (literally tiny villages that are perched on the top of a mountain), through rolling green hills, past fields entirely covered in bright yellow flowers and along streets lined with overhanging trees that make you feel as though you’ve entered a tunnel.

We visited tons of small towns like Fayence, Seillans, Mons, Callas, Moustiers Sainte Marie and Foncalquier all of which looked like just small dot on a map, but took on lives of their own as we walked around cobblestone streets and visited small markets and bakeries.



A natural extension of our time in Provence was a visit to the L'Occitane en Provence factory, where we saw how they make soap, candles, fragrances, etc. and also learned about the history of the company. Naturally, Kristi was enthralled with this visit and we were able to pick up a few products at the factory store after our tour.

Although we are now in Paris, we are still working on a post of our visit to the European Grand Canyon - stay tuned.

Nice / Monte-Carlo

Side note: This blog post comes a little bit late because it has been significantly trickier to track down free WiFi (often pronounced weefee in many of these European countries) in France than it was in Estonia. Though only free from communism for the past 17 years, Estonia has one of the highest internet penetration rates in Europe and free WiFi (the Estonians use the North American pronunciation) can be found virtually anywhere in the country.

Since we were looking to warm up after two weeks in a still somewhat chilly Estonia, we headed to Nice (that’s niece, not nice), France on April 15th. We were greeted with warm sunshine on day one and took advantage the much needed vitamin D boost.

The Monte-Carlo Masters Series tennis tournament was taking place while we were in Nice and with Monte-Carlo being only 20 minutes away by train, we decided to take the opportunity to see some of the tour’s best players in action. Very sadly, it was pouring rain on the day we had tickets. As avid tennis fans and eternal optimists, we set out from Nice to the Monte-Carlo Country Club anyway, with umbrellas in hand. We quickly learned that Monte-Carlo does not get a lot of rain, since there was only one covered area at the whole tournament. Luckily we had arrived early and were able to secure two seats in the covered section, where there were approximately 1,000 seats at a tournament that hosts over 10,000 fans daily. After what seemed like ages of waiting for disorganized ushers to seat soggy fans, Jon finally remarked that they would be better off using the more experienced ushers who seat people in synagogue during the high holidays. Though we were excited to watch some of our favourite players, including Federer, Nadal and Djokovic, warm up, we quickly realized that the relatively low canopy providing shelter from the rain was too low to accommodate an actual match. We finally decided to head into Monte-Carlo for a look around, since there would clearly be no matches played in the ongoing pouring rain.



Monte-Carlo is a surrealistic experience. Virtually everyone in the city is at least a millionaire (literally) and every car on the road is incredible (other than those with an F or I designation on their license plates, which single out the French / Italians just passing through). The architecture is beautiful and the setting of the city overlooking the water is spectacular; however, beyond casinos and very expensive shops, there is not a whole lot to do in Monte Carlo on a very rainy day. Fortunately for us, by the time we had eaten a sandwich for lunch, the sun finally started to peek through the clouds and we decided to make our way back to the tennis tournament, hoping to see the first match of the day.



Back at the tournament, we were excited to find that the sun was out, the weather had warmed up and Federer was getting ready to step out onto centre court. Being a Masters Series tournament, the men only had to win two sets to take the match (as opposed to winning three sets in a Grand Slam tournament). Federer’s performance was surprisingly weak and he just managed to lose (6-4, 7-5) to his fellow Swiss countryman, Wawrinka, before it started pouring rain again. Unfortunately that was the only match we wound up seeing that day, as it continued to rain after the Federer match, and they wrapped up the tournament for the day at that point.


Inspired by the athletics and muscle we had seen in Monte Carlo, we decided to take on a little physical activity ourselves and on April 19th we joined approximately 10,000 other joggers in running the Nice Semi-Marathon (as previously noted). The Semi-Marathon is a pretty bid deal in Nice and most people in town know that it is going on. Luckily, for this event we got clear sunny weather and we both had a great time running 21.2 kilometres, most of which was along the waterfront. The support throughout the city, including all the people that hung out their apartment windows to cheer the runners on, was much appreciated and made for a fun event. Though still a little bit sore from the run, we pulled ourselves together and were back out hiking in the French countryside a few days later.


We will be back in Nice briefly on April 30th, which is lucky, because there is one restaurant that we didn’t make it to on our first trip through, Chez Palmyre. The menu changes daily, and the old woman who does the cooking runs the restaurant as though you are eating in her home - can’t wait!