Home sweet home francais

While I was in school, I stayed with a host, Francis Jullien, in his home, which he operates as a chambre d'hote.  I had a lovely room and bath, large windows overlooking the Rue de la Republique, with breakfast and dinner included most days.  Plus strong wi fi signal--a critical item.  Francis is a fine cook, with a kitchen to die for, and I ate very well.  His house is on the historical register; it was the Judicial Hall in an earlier time. Francis's apartment, with the dining room, was the courtroom and had a tiny back stairway that was used for bring up prisoners  It's a very grand building which retains its grandeur.

But when school ended for me, I had to move out.  I had rented a gite for the month of Oct. from Francis (another property he owns in St.Sat.), so I packed up and moved across the street to the other side of the tracks.  The Rue de la Republique is stately, large town houses. My house is across the street from there, through the Passage de la Combe, a partly open, partly covered pieton that goes  through the block between r. d. l. Republigue and the smaller parallel street Rue de la Combe.  It is built back against the point of the rock outcropping on which the now ruined 11th century chateaux stood.  The walkway is somewhat like an alley, but with houses fronting on it.  My place is quite small.  There is a small sitting area, efficiency kitcen and dining area in the space into which the front door opens.  This is the entire rez de chausse, or 1st American floor. (pardon my spelling--don't have my dictionary with me and my mastery of french spelling is vague.)  Up a half floor is the bathroom, which is efficient--has all the necessary equipment with no wasted space.  My only real complaint is the shower.  It is one of those pre-fab guys.  The doors open in the corner and a large person could not get into it.  But the water is hot and it gets you clean.  On the 1st floor (2d american floor) are 3 doors and 3 bedroms. The one I chose is a decent size, has a window opening on the passage, and a walk in closet which has a stool to get you up to its door level.  The second room is similar, but no closet, the 3d is smaller and narrow. They are simple, spare, and fine.

The kitchen has a sink and draining board combo unit, circa 1950, a small bottled gas operated stove, a nice refrigerator, good sized pantry, plenty of utensils and, oddly stuck between the sink and stove, a teeny clothes washing machine.  It is the traditional french machine.  It is cabinet depth and very narrow.  The top opens on to another door, that opens on to the perforated metal drum that is positioned to spin around from front to back.   It holds about 1/4 of the load of my washer at home and takes more than an hour to finish one load, but the clothes get clean.  Then they go onto the drying rack and either into the spare bedroom or to the small terrace outside that fronts on the passage.  On a positive note, almost all clothes are hung outside to dry which contributes to the Europeans using less energy than we do. Here's a look at my home sweet francais home.

My bedroom

Dottie, standing in the kitchen and pouring our evening glass of rose.  The walls of the house are more than a foot thick and the wooden shutters are thick slabs of wood that close tightly and latch---every time I leave the house. 

A votre sante--an aperitif on the terrace

The main room.  The 2d complaint I have, after the shower, is there are no really comfortable chairs.

Looking through the kitchen window

Stairs from the main room.  Bath is to the right of the landing, bedrooms up to the left.

The first few days after I moved were spent in setting up the house, grocery shopping, etc.  There is a small epicirie (grocery) here in the village. 2 boulangeries, a bucherie/charcuterie (unfortunately closed right now for vacation) and a market on Tuesday mornings.  For big shopping, there are 3 super marches in Apt, including a leClerc, which is really a hyper marche (think of Wal Mart on a diet).  That's where I found the soap, detergent, bleach spray that the shower needed, and my shopping bag which doubles for a clothes basket.

Apt is also home to Sylla, the local wine cooperatif.  Grapes are brought there by the farmers, crushed and made into wine.  There  are private domaines in the area that do their own crushing, but many growers use Sylla.  There is a tasting room here for all local wines, not just co-op members.  Not all the wine is bottled, either.  You can buy either a 3 or 5 liter plastic jug, or bring your own, and have it filled from the pump hoses coming out of the wall from vats of the different co-op wines.  In the picture above, you can see Dottie pouring from one.  I got 3 liters of Luberon Rose, plus the vrac (bottle) for under 10 euro, and it makes a fine vin de maison.

My long time friend from NC, Dottie Blanchard, arrived on Oct 3 from her daughter Suzanne's, in Amsterdam.  They had spent the previous week on a nostalgic return to Sardinia where they lived when Suzanne was small.  Since she was already in the neighborhood, she flew down to Marseille, about an hour and 3/4 drive away, and I picked her up.  It is on the way home, so we decided to stop in Aix coming back.  Bad mistake.  Aix is a city, with an old center that has the tiny cramped streets of a village, but city traffic.  I was trying to navigate through it all and find a parking place in the area of the Cours Mirabeaux, turning right onto Ave Victor Hugo from an unknown side street, when I heard a loud, nasty, heart stopping screech/scrape/thud on the passenger side.  I had obviously scraped something, although neither Dottie nor I saw anything.  It was impossible to stop in the traffic and inspect the damage until I found a parking lot at the gare, several blocks away.  My sweet little Clio no longer had its black, rubbery, plastic door bumber strip.  There were really minor scratches, but that was it---cosmetic and no apparent mechanical damage.  See for yourself:

Because it's a lease, I have complete insurance coverage, no deductible, from Renault.  I called them the next day to report and their only concern was whether I wanted the car repaired immediately or replaced.  I assured them no, and was asked to send the incident report with that statement to them by fax.  That's more easily asked than done here.  Finally discovered the nice lady at the Tabac will send a fax for 1 euro, so Renault should be happy. And my car now fits in with all the other cars in the village.

I have to admit that driving here has ranged from hair raising scary to feeling like I'm in the 24 hours at Le Mans.  As you see, the Clio is tiny (I seem to be using that word a lot in descriptions.  it's not negative, just relative to home and usually a positive) It's 4 cylinders and when we were on the Autoroute to Marseille with a 130 kmh speed limit, she had a hard time keeping up.  But she has a really small turning radius, can park in a lot of unbelievably tight spaces, and fits on the narrow roads with a full sized tour bus coming toward you.  And on the narrow, twisty departmental roads through the Luberon, I am getting a kick out of the curves and shifting up and down. That is going to make Buck's hair turn whiter!!!!

More later on what Dottie and I have been doing.