Arles is the city where Danita and I took our first ride from the back of a police car. We were lost, and having a hard time finding street names. This isn’t at all unusual for us. We saw a police car, pointed to our tourist map, and asked how to get to our objective. The police didn’t have any idea where it was. But they offered to drive us there. So we hopped in. They drove all around the historic part of town while I offered happy friendly waves to every pedestrian we saw. It took them 15 minutes to find the objective that was a few blocks away, and we all had a blast.

Where is the tower?

Yes, it was a real police car.

Yes, it was a police car

Arles was a Roman town. As such, it had a Forum, Crypts, a Colosseum, and a theater. We saw all that stuff. The Colosseum and theater were repaired and are still in use today. The Colosseum is used for bull fights. The theater is used for plays. Here’s a shot of the Colosseum as seen from out lunch table. (The potato, cheese,and ham crepe was delicious.)

The cool thing about Roman theaters is that the Romans liked cool tech toys. So did the audiences. They had ropes and pulleys to raise and lower backdrops. They had trap doors under the floor and cables from above for a dramatic entrance or exit. They use smoke and other special effects. Most fun of all, they had a retractable (cloth) roof for protection from the sun.

Arles is also the town where Vincent Van Gogh spent the last years of his life. After cutting off his ear, he was committed to the local mental hospital where he continued painting. One of his more famous paintings is of this garden, which today looks exactly as it did when Van Gogh painted it.

Aix was a bust.

There are things to see and do in Aix, but not a lot. The plan was to pick up a rental car, drive for an hour, arriving in Aix around 10. We could see some things, then drive to our hotel in Arles. This would let us stay 3 nights in Arles and spend less effort packing and unpacking. The city centers in Europe are old and are not designed for cars. We decided to use a park-and-ride lot outside Aix and take the bus into town. These were reasonable ideas, and nothing went wildly wrong. But we arrived at the Aix visitor center at 12:30.

We still had some time. We still had a list of things to see. The first was Cezanne’s studio, a 25 minute walk. We decided to take the # 5 bus. We’re sitting on the bus, with my phone navigation on so we know where to get off. Half way through the trip, I saw the bus was going the wrong way. We got off the bus and started walking. A few minutes later, the bus passed us — it was did some strange loop-de-loop. We should have stayed on the bus. No matter, we walked to the studio and paid the entry fee. We saw an old building with a bunch of old stuff. We were given a laminated sheet with very little information. If we walked 15 minutes up the hill, we could see an overview of Aix and some reproductions of Cezanne’s paintings. It was time to cut our losses. We took the #5 bus through the loop-de-loop and back to the visitor center.

There were two more things on the list. Both were 10 or 15 minute walks. Both were in different directions. We were getting a little bummed. Maybe a better plan would be to have a crepe and a coffee, and move on to Arles. My Grand Manier flambe crepe was really good, but not very wise. It set me up for some low blood sugar later on in the day.

Back at the car, I was trying to convince the GPS to route us to 5 Voltaire Avenue in Arles. In the US, the GPS would let us set the state. In France, it did not let us set the provence. After a lot of fiddling, I got the route set up, and we were off on a 1-hour ride to — well — not Arles. We drove into the city center. Went on a very wild ride through very narrow streets that nobody bothered to mark as one-way. When two cars meet going in different directions, one of them has to back up. We arrive at 5 Voltaire Avenue to see a woman working in an office with the door open to catch the breeze. We were astonished to see her. She was astonished to see us. We don’t speak French. She doesn’t speak English. After some pointing and gesturing, she showed us our error. I set the GPS for Arles city center. When we in Arles, I pulled off at a Burger King to set the GPS to 5 Voltaire Avenue. Even the Burger King has good coffee in France.

The GPS announced that I wouldn’t be able to drive there — the streets were blocked for car traffic. A quick call to the hotel told us where to park. We arrived at the hotel and learned the only free place to park was at the railroad station a short walk away. Unfortunately, a lot of people want to park for free in Arles. The lot was packed. Cars were parked on sidewalks and in spaces reserved for buses. Just cruising the lot, we had to back up, and others had to back up for us, multiple times. We could pay park on the street or in a city lot. The meters don’t announce the cost. Somebody told us it cost 50 euro to park overnight (about $70). One meets a lot of delightful, interesting people while trying to solve life’s little problems in a foreign country. Fortunately we had encountered so many delays that commuters were starting to come home. We got a legal parking space and moved into our room. The dinner was mediocre, but very well appreciated. And everything looks better with a little red wine.

We could have done Avignon in 2 days instead of 3, even with adjusting to the time change. We went to a spectacular light show in the Pope Palace called “Vibrations”. We were in the courtyard, standing on a platform that filled the entire courtyard. There were projections of amazing images, music, and as the name indicated, the floor vibrated. It was the best light show I have ever seen. I don’t have any idea how they projected the images on all four walls of the palace. I never saw a seem or a misalignment of an image.Here’s a couple of pics from the show, plus a couple of extra pics from Avignon.

Light Show

Light Show

Outside the Pope Palace

We took a free ferry to the island. On the way over, we saw this tower which was part of the Cardinal Town. I thought it was on the island, but it was much further away than it looked. We never made it to Cardinal Town.

We found out that yesterday was museum discount day. We decided to spend the day viewing the museums. The most well known landmark is the bridge from the song Sur le pont d’Avignon, On y danse. This bridge is unique for several reasons. For one thing, you have to pay a fee to go on the bridge. Once you pay the fee, you can’t cross the river, because the bridge broke apart in the 1600s and was never repaired. This may be the only bridge in the world where one pays a toll to not cross the river.

Broken Bridge

Another unique feature of this bridge is that nobody danced on it. It was so narrow that two people could barely walk by each other. It was replaced with another, wider bridge later on, but people didn’t especially dance on the larger bridge either. The bridge connected to an island on its way across the river. The island became a popular recreational area. The dancing people did was near the bridge, or even under the bridge, but not on the bridge. Another reason the bridge is unusual is that the purpose of the bridge wasn’t to cross the river, but to collect tolls from barges going up and down the Rhine river. Still another unique feature of this bridge is that it has a chapel. Most people wouldn’t think a bridge was a particularly great place to put a chapel. But the folks at Avignon just do things their own way, I guess.

Avignon Bridge Chapel

We spent quite a bit of time at the bridge, because it has a unique and interesting history. And also because we wanted a relaxing day. The other really cool thing in Avignon is the Pope Palace. Not all popes lived in Rome. They lived in Avignon from 1309 to 1374. Of course, popes need a palace, so Avignon has a Pope palace. The Avignon bridge was important because Avignon was a stinky town back in the day. The bridge let the pope and cardinals build their residences across the river where it wasn’t so stinky. Popes need is to live in their own sovereign territory, because a pope can’t be ruled by a king. In 1374, the popes were invited to leave so Avignon could become part of France.

Pope Palace

The palace was restored but not decorated or furnished. The tour came with a tablet that had a very nice program. When we entered a room, it would play a few minutes of audio. It displayed what the room looked like when the popes were using it. As we moved the tablet around the room, the display changed so show a fire place over here, a table with monks over there, a painted ceiling overhead. We weren’t permitted to enter the Pope’s chapel, but the tablet let us view the chapel as if we were inside the room. One could press icons on the display to get additional information. It was incredibly well done, and available in 6 languages. The tablet included one feature that backfired for one family. There was a game: find all 8 hidden gold coins and win a prize. We met one 3-year old boy who was inconsolable because his family found only 7 coins.

The weather in Avignon is delightful. It’s warm and sunny with a high around 25 (that’s 80 in Fahrenheit). Avignon is a wonderful city with great food, wonderful people, interesting stuff, old buildings, and everything else one would expect to find in France.

We made it to Avignon. We took the red-eye flight from Dulles airport to Paris. There was a 4-hour lay-over waiting in the airport. Then we took the high-speed TGV train from the airport to Avignon. They say the TGV train travels up to 200 MPH. What I can say for sure is that the train traveled 460 miles in 3 hours. Considering it had to crawl slowly through Paris and Lyons, and stopped twice, I’d say we probably got pretty close to 200 MPH.

The first part of the ride was very smooth and quiet. We traveled through mile after mile of farm land. All the cows we saw where pure white, with no black or brown markings. I saw very little that was painted John Deere Green. The fields and buildings looked very well maintained. I didn’t see a single derelict building. Of course, I didn’t see everything. We were both incredibly tired and were desperately trying to keep our eyes open until bed time. After Lyons, the area changed. There were more hills, with mountains frequently visible. There was less land suitable for farming. The farms we saw were maintained just as well. The ride was still good, but noticeably rougher.

Our hotel is in the heart of historic Avignon. The area is all narrow streets that form an incredibly difficult-to-navigate maze. Outdoor dining is available everywhere. Many of the smaller streets are closed to motorized vehicles — except motorcycles, of course. The French seem to accept that motorcyclists can drive and park wherever they wish. We had a delightful dinner at a table in a pedestrian-only cobble stone street. We were interrupted by motorcycles only twice.

The time zone changes affected both of us quite a bit. In spite of having .had an exhausting trip and staying more-or-less awake for most of it, I woke up and was wide awake at midnight, which is 6 AM in Maryland. I forced myself to stay in bed, and finally fell asleep about 4 AM for another couple of hours of shut-eye. We plan to take it easy today, exploring the area and visiting a couple of museums, and acclimating ourselves to the local time.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

Before I start the news … We will be traveling from Monday, Sept 24 – Thursday, Oct 25. The best way to contact us is to send me an Email. Or you can call at 410-417-8854 and leave a voice mail. We will receive the voice mail by Email. Every place we are staying advertises internet access. I will check Email daily if possible. I will also post frequently while we’re traveling.

There’s no hurricane effects around here, but it was a wet week. The forecast was “cloudy with a chance of rain” almost every day. Thursday, the forecast changed to “cloudy with no rain”. I took a 2-hour ride. The rain started half an hour after I got back. That’s a lot better than a half hour before I got back. The rain broke Saturday. I was able to ride, but had to start a little later than planned because the overnight showers hadn’t ended yet. Today is nice, but we are looking at more rain Monday and Tuesday. Here’s hoping the forecast for sunshine for Wed – Fri holds.

I put LED bulbs in the our ceiling fans. The fans in the two master bedrooms have remote controls. The remote controls don’t turn the lights off. They let just a little current trickle through, and that’s enough for the LEDs to light up. That means we can’t run the fans at night. I don’t like having rotating machinery over my head when I sleep, so I didn’t care that much. But Rick and Suzy wanted a fan. We got out an old, ugly, noisy box fan for them. It was time to fix the fans. I called the manufacturer. Their advice was to put incandescent bulbs in because their fans “aren’t compatible with LEDs”. That’s a bunch of bunk. The problem is their remote doesn’t turn the lights off. I looked around Amazon. It turns out that lots of people buy inexpensive fans with two chains — one for lights, one for the fan — and later decide they want a remote. And there are companies who want to make these people happy, for a price. I found a $20 remote that controls the fan and the lights, and turns the lights off. I ordered, received, and installed two if them. End of problem. Almost. The way these remotes work, if one turns the wall switch off, then on again, the lights always turn on. You can turn the lights off with the remote, of course. But if the wall switch is off, and somebody is sleeping, there’s no way to turn the fan on without waking that somebody up. The world isn’t perfect yet.

We had a neighborhood party Friday. We have a dinner party Sunday. It’s called “Farewell to Summer”, but Danita and I are calling it “Farewell and good travels”. We leave for France the next day. I think it’s nice of the neighborhood to send us off like that. ;-)

That’s it for this week. I hope this finds everybody doing well.

We had an unusually hot week last week. Highs were in the 90s Monday through Friday. Some schools in Baltimore and Baltimore County that aren’t air conditioned either didn’t open or closed early. Tuesday, during the hottest part of the day, a small shower came through. I happened to be sitting at my desk and looked at the deck. I saw snow. There were very large, widely dispersed drops of very wet snow. By the time I got downstairs to take a closer look, the snow had melted.

From Friday afternoon to Saturday, the temperature slowly dropped to 60 and stayed there. This is usually the hottest part of the day, but the temperature is still below 65. We’ve had continuous rain, and it promises to continue to rain continuously through the rest of the week. My joke is that I’m not riding to get ready for France. Its a perverse kind of anti-training.

Other than that, there’s not a lot to report. We started planning for a new phase in our financial lives. I will start Social Security in January, and have to start taking distributions from my 401(K) next year. Danita starts her retirement pension next August. There are significant changes to the tax laws for 2018. (Significant to us.) We are collecting facts and asking questions. There are QCDs, DAFs, survivor/spousal benefits .. the list appears endless. We could go to a financial planner, but it’s more fun to do some research and figure it out for ourselves.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

Rick and Suzy came up from Texas for a visit. They stayed at Ed’s house for a couple of days. Friday they brought Bud up to visit with us. Danita made sour beef, which was pretty darn good. Saturday Rick and Suzy cooked a family dinner at our house. Ed & Lynne joined us, as did Lynn and Gene. We had excellent lasagna and an outstanding bread pudding desert.

The Schmauses: Lynn, Ed, Bud, Danita, Rick

Ed, Lynne, and Gene