Gathering

We've been home 10 days, so it was time to get back into our gathering mode.

This morning, we caught the early low tide to gather varnish clams and cockles.  The limit of varnish clams is 72 per person, and we came home with about 130.  Not bad for our first serious dig for varnish clams.

We also brought home some cockles (the dark grey bivalves below).  We have kept both the clams and the cockles in chilled seawater all day, to encourage them to flush out any sand in their guts.

Then later in the day, I headed out looking for mushrooms, and came home with 5 ounces of chanterelles, my first of the season.

Greenland from 37,000 feet

Yesterday, we flew over Greenland.  The sky was clear so I saw lots of ice and snow.

Now we are home and this adventure is over.  Enjoy the summer!

Last day in France

This morning, we walked out the hotel, and turned left, and voila there we were almost on top of the Centre Pompidou.

It is a modern building built with all the function parts on the outside (i.e., the escalator, the heating ducts, pipes), leaving lots of room inside to display modern art.

We rode the external escalator up to the 6th floor, and worked our way down, but most of the great modern art was on the 5th floor.  We saw many paintings by many great artists including Picasso, Braque, Chagall, Matisse, Kandinsky and Klee.

Here is a sample of the art.

Kandinsky

Klee

Picasso

Sculpture with the Paris skyline behind

Chagall

Today's odd encounter was a digerdoo player on the sidewalk outside Pompidou.

A direct train to Paris

Sounds great right?  However, at the first stop, in Avignon, the train station experienced a major electrical problem when someone shorted out a major transformer.  Three trains were in the station at the time, and none of them could move.  So after about 30 minutes, we were told that a bus would take us to the other TGV (high speed) train station in Avignon.  A young Frenchwoman named Juliet was kind enough to explain things to us, and lead us to the bus stop, which involved crossing a major road, with all of our luggage.  After about 10 minutes, and no bus, and lots of people in the same position, Bori negociated with a taxi to take us and Juliet to the other train station

Avignon city wall

Gate in Avignon wall, as seen from the bus stop

Bus stop to the Avignon TGV station

We were able to get on the 10:39 TGV train to Paris, and it was non-stop.  We found seats, and felt lucky to be making progress towards Paris.

A box lunch on the train

View out the window, at high speed

Cows, safely grazing, as seen at high speed

After we arrived at our hotel in Paris, we went out walking in the neighborhood to the Hotel de Ville, which is the city hall of Paris, and a beautiful building.

A few blocks away from the Hotel de Ville, we came upon a man cutting a woman's hair on the street.  Always something interesting going on.

Sidewalk stylist

His publicity materials

O'er the ramparts

As we bid adieu to Arles, I headed out to photograph part of the ramparts that surround the old Roman city.  These amazing walls rise out of rock strata.

The closest rampart wall to our apartment is at the SE corner of the old city.  I walked around the bottom and up through a set of stairs to Place de Remparts, a very small plaza at the top of the ramparts.

The Place des Remparts

We have enjoyed visiting all the historic sites, the lively markets, and many sites that Van Gogh  painted while he lived here in 1888.  Including, the night cafe scene below.

We are off to Paris tomorrow.

Art

We had the pleasure of visiting a distinguished, highly productive, multi-dimensional artist, Albert Masri, in his home and studio in Montferrier sur la Lez, north of Montpellier.  He is the father of a friend of Bori's son, Rick.  (Thanks to Rick, thanks to Gilles, and thanks to Albert and his daughter Barbara who showed us around.)

The house is solidly built from part of an old castle.  As you approach the house, art is everywhere.

Inside the house, there is even more art.  He has worked in various types of sculpture, ceramics, pastels, and collage to name a few.  He has lived in the same house for over 50 years, and continued to produce art the whole time.

This is only a taste of his vast body of work.  We enjoyed visiting this talented artist and very warm, kind gentleman.