Sensual South

The colonnade of the Grand Theatre.
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Ever hear someone say they were in or were going to the "south of France"?  Did you wonder where the "south" was?  I hadn't contemplated this until I tried to reserve a train ticket.  Imagine going to a ticket counter and just giving the destination a direction.  Embarrassing.  Since I didn't know if the "south" meant southwest, southeast, or just due south, I tried to sample them all.  The "south", it seems, has sandy beaches and rocky cliffs, cuisines of fattened duck livers and sweet white wines, and accents as noticeably different as the two coasts of the United States.  However, there is at least one commonality between the SW, SE, and S:  they are all places of sensory indulgence.

At the Monument aux Girondins, a memorial to the Girondin officials who fell victim to the Reign of Terror following the French Revolution.
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I began in Bordeaux for an experiment in the olfactory and ol' taste senses.  The region has long been known for fantastic wines, so, as a semi-wine enthusiast, I knew I could not leave without sampling a few.  As ill-timed luck would have it, had I stayed three or four days longer, a "few" would have turned into the many because the summer wine festival was beginning.  However, other opportunities were knocking and the prospect of drinking all that wine alone was not that attractive, no matter how tasty it may have been.  Instead, I traveled to two five-generation vineyards, learned some of their sharable secrets, and tested some of the excellent varieties.  Bordeaux is much more than just wine, though.  The town, specifically the old city, deserves brief mention.  One year ago, UNESCO combined all of Bordeaux's heritage sites into one, the Bordeaux heritage region.  In simpler terms, this meant the churches, gates, and even streets have significant historic value and are therefore worth at least a one-day walking tour.

Or is red more your 'cup of wine'?
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Between the larger cities of Bordeaux and Toulouse sits the small town of Nerac.  It has no national railway system, and I doubt it is listed in any guidebook.  It does have two points of interest, however:  Andre and Josette Ducasse.  Twenty years ago while on vacation in the southwestern U.S., this couple randomly met an old Indian painter, my grandfather, and began a fierce friendship.  For five days, I concerned myself not with maps, museums, or monuments, but learning more about this couple my grandparents love and, in turn, learning more about my grandparents themselves.  I had met them once before more than ten years ago, and little has changed.  Time had turned black into gray and firmer into softer, but their warmth decreased none.  Despite protests to kick up a fuss, they prepared elaborate meals of gratton de canard, cassoulet, and foie gras, always supplemented with a new local wine and culminating with a platter of cheeses and fresh fruit.  Tableside conversations and intermeal photo-sharing covering many topics but inevitably gravitated to my grandparents.  I heard new stories and relived old ones through a different teller.  They painted new colors on a old face while mine gave them a new one on which to paint old memories.  Thanks to Andre and Josette, I woke to church's chimes, walked in wheat fields, and dined on the region's delicassies.  More importantly, I paid homage to a man I love and miss by initiating a new friendship with his old ones.

Vineyards are easy photo subjects.
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Succumbing to my football fanaticism, I left France at this point for a two-day stint in Barcelona.  More on that to come, though...  When I returned to France, it was to sample the French Riviera and the Cote d'Azur.  Marseille was home base, but my tendrils stretched eastward to Nice and westward to Montpellier.  Since I came for the cote, or coast, I tried to stick to just that.  My hostel was removed from the city centre yet centered perfectly for beach and water leisure.  Situated just 200m from an unpopulated strip of chalky sand, I used it as often as one uses a front yard.  It had been more than four months since I was graced with this luxury, so whether it acted as a jogging path, dinner table, or thinking ground, I was glad to once again neighbor the sea.  Just to the east of town, the geography changes dramatically from soft sand to rocky cliffs.  The Calanques are an ominous yet inviting hiking terrain for anyone with moderate ability and desire.  My original half-day plan morphed into a full-day one once I found a private cove too inviting to leave.  Having no suit nor towel, I birthday swam and limestone dried but regretfully have no photos of either activity...:)

One of my grandfather's gifts to Andre and Josette, a mural on their home wall.
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Nice was...well, just that.  Montpellier, however, was even Nicer.  In Nice, four-star hotels and star-advertised retail stores fight for visitors' attentions with the lovely and always popular pebble beach.  There is an handsome old city as well, but one must search for its old culture.  Much has been converted in hopes of profit and some of the charm that was is no longer.  Montpellier, on the other hand, has inescapable culture, class, and quality.  The old city is its heartbeat, while its newest neighborhood, Antigone, blends in fluidly thanks to tasteful, classical architecture.  The narrow alleys of the old city have accents from top, hanging flower pots and converted oil lamps, to bottom, bronze medallions dimpled in the street.  And even the town's lone hostel has a stained-glass window likely older than my country.  Both Nice and Montpellier were worth the single days I spent in each.  There is plenty to see, eat, and soak up, whether it is cobblestone character or surf and sunshine.  It all depends on which definition of 'Nice' one desires.