CHAPTER 17. SOUTH EAST FRANCE CONT.

On May 24, 1989 we come back into SE France after four weeks in Italy, driving from Lake Maggiore into the French Alps. The entrance to France is more than the usual wave thru; visas are required in ‘87 and ‘89, and the border guard doesn’t like ours. With a half hour wait he let us go, after photocopying the visa and grumbling that the San Francisco consulate didn’t know what they were doing. (We had a two year visa and had used it in ‘87 to enter France from Andorra with no problem. At no other time did our trips to France require a visa). We stop at the Vauban Hotel in Briançon; noting a Laundromat nearby and snow capped mountains all around, we decide to stay two nights.

We had trouble finding reasonable laundries in Italy, so the first thing we do after breakfast is use the new equipment in the Laundromat. After dropping the clean clothes at the hotel, we drive up to see the Haute Ville.

The Haute Ville is an old walled city protected with a moat, probably a major defense point on an ancient route between France and Italy. Back at the hotel for lunch we eat a good French menu; we haven’t had so much and such tasty food for a long time! After lunch we ride south to L’Argentiere-la-Bessee and up to the end of a side road along the Gyronde River to Vallouise, as suggested in the Michelin Green Guide. We see really rocky and rugged pretty peaks with snow and glaciers.

After cleaning off some shaving cream kids sprayed on our windshield, we leave Briançon and drive up to Col du Lauteret with rocky mountains and glaciers on the left; stop at La Grave for a good view of La Meije peak and its’ glaciers. At le Bourg d’Oisans we eat a trout menu for lunch. We don’t stop at Grenoble, but it seems a very pleasant place, with trees and parks and nice yards. We stay at the very pleasant Hotel La Chaumiere in Voiron and get snack foods at a Prisunis supermarket in town.

It is sunny and hot as we drive north from Voiron thru pretty and green hills with some good views of distant alps and of valleys below, then turn west to Lyon.

Before entering Lyon we call the Le Residence Hotel and reserve a room. After lunch we follow our maps into Lyon with no problem. The hotel is very nice with a good location on a pedestrian mall. We leave the car in a garage and find the Herald Tribune available at two locations near the hotel.

When we were last in Lyon in April of ‘86 we didn’t pause to see anything because it was cold and snowing; today it is quite warm and we walk a little too much enjoying the sights. We go by St. Jean, then thru old Lyon, and the Museum of Beaux Arts, before a long walk back to the hotel.

In Lyon there is only one restaurant on the mall open Sunday and we have an only fair lunch there. After a rest from our morning walking we go across the Rhone and up a funicular to the top of a high hill to Notre Dame de Fourviere. It is very interesting and pretty inside with lots of statues and modern mosaics.

At a 50th high school reunion last year a classmate told Glenn her favorite place in France is Chez Nous in Dieulefite, so we try that after Lyon. We ride south to Vienne, then east and south on the secondary D538 road thru pretty green country; some farmland, and some wooded hills with hairpin curves, all the way to Dieule-fite. Chez Nous is indeed very nice, with a small kitchen-ette in the room, and not many other guests. We go to the Supermarche and buy food for a special breakfast, then watch French Open tennis on a color TV.

We dawdle over our breakfast featuring a delicious Cavaillon melon and dry cereal before starting out to drive a Michelin green lined (scenic) road circle nearby. It is very pretty foothill country, with field after field of lavender plants (none in flower). We eat an excellent lunch at the Relais de Serre and return to the hotel for rest and TV.

We reluctantly leave Chez Nous and its’ pretty garden where we pick a few delicious bing cherries, drive near Nyon where we see roses blooming at the end of each row of grapes, and on thru Vaison, Carpentras, Cavaillon, St. Remy (get HT paper), and Arles to Stes. Maries de la Mer. The hotel where we stayed in ‘86 is now converted to apartments for sale, but we find a good room in the small Hotel Marques.

We stay three nights in Stes. Maries, resting and enjoying the beautiful Camargue (delta of the Rhone). Each day we make the 1/2 hour drive into Arles for delicious menus at the Arenes Restaurant and to buy a Herald Tribune. We drive to the harbor and watch a big rig pick up a boat and launch it, we explore back roads near the Petite Rhone, watch flamingos, and generally have a quiet, restful, and enjoyable time.

Now it’s time to leave SE France again. We drive to Quillan to visit our friends, and continue our ‘89 trip in SW France (#16).

As mentioned elsewhere, we return to Stes. Maries for a final time in 2000. Besides having expanded and developed so it is hardly recognizable, there is a gypsy reunion there, with parking lots and fields crammed with house trailers and motor homes. We stay in a deluxe big new hotel on the water front, but decide that the Stes. Maries de la Mer that we loved so much has gone forever and now lives only in our memory!