France 2008

Well, I'm back... and I kept a holiday diary. Before I begin what may be the longest post of my blogging career, let me just establish that I had a great time, and thoroughly enjoyed the heat, the country and the ever kind company of Mette's family. Southern France is very crowded, but friendly, moderately interesting, and some what sensual (the heat does remarkable things to one). Most of what is written here was written at the time, so the sense of continuity may be disjointed slightly.



Saturday 26th July 2008. ’Day one’

We left home at 11am. Drove to airport with Dad and were in good time. Soon discovered however that the flight had been pushed back by two hours so we spent four and a half hours in the most boring and expensive airport lounge I’ve ever encountered. After a long and sweaty wait we boarded a plane crowded with small children and their respective familes, only to be informed by the pilot that the flight had been delayed by another 30 minutes. Things weren’t looking good.
The flight took two hours and it was dark by the time we arrived (circa 21:00). Dark and hot. Really hot! Drove through the night and Freja, who had been good all day, fell asleep.
My shoulder is aching.

The view over the Reppe valley as seen from the roof top terrace.
To the left is the end of the gorge (read below)

Sunday 27th July 2008. ’The Heat’

Slept fitfully with strange dreams. My feet hurt a lot during the night (I’m not used to travel at all)
The house we are staying in, belongs to a friend of Mette’s father. Its a strange building, being a part of the old town/castle wall, apparently a tower or turret of some kind, with a dungeon/cellar, a kitchen/dining room, a bedroom with space for two children, and a bathroom. A shower/toilet room and a some what scary roof top terrace.

The heat is very oppressive. Denmark was about 25-30 C when we left, but here, it feels like its at least ten to fifteen degree’s hotter. I haven’t seen a thermometer yet though. The air is full of insect sounds, cicada’s and crickets and what not. Where ever tree's are in number the volume increases dramatically.
Kristian (Mette’s brother) arrived. The temperature continued to rise steadily as the day progressed and my skin began to melt. My T shirt was soaking wet and my arms had no traction against my body. I was soaking wet by midday, as if I’d been swimming. Around 3pm, Mette, her Mom and I went for a walk with the Snoos to a local minimarket. The shop had air conditioning and a thermometer, which read 29C.

Freja is in good spirits though some what perturbed by the neighbours two parrots which cry out continually. It sounds as if they are saying hello in a very polite Danish. I have a feeling we are going to get sick and tired of them before too many days have passed.
Jan (Mette’s Dad) has the TV on and the Tour de France is finishing. It looks like that cheating crook Bjarne Riis’s team is going to win, alas. What a joke, 200 sweating dope fiends all staring each other up the backside as they race through, and ignore the beautiful country side. So much for the sporting spirit.

Ollioule town square. There were markets and festivities held here, apparently at random

Ollioule is a very chaotic place. Even more so than some of the places we visited in Italy (12 years ago). The streets go up and down like a labyrinth and the buildings are a ramshackle mass of faded doors, crooked windows, shutters, electrical cables and facades, old buildings, new and some where in between. A lot of the houses here have obviously been renovated a great many times already. Unfortunately there aren’t many dates on the houses.
There is a lot of dog shit in the streets. To a degree that beggers belief.

Ollioule is a derivative of the word Olive, because Ollioule is apparently the historical centre of the French Olive oil industry.

I miss the internet already. I’ve already taken a lot of photographs, so many that I’ve had to reduce the resolution on the camera to 1200x1600 lest I run out of space.

I finished my first holiday book ’Captain Alatriste’ by Arturo Reverte-Perez 5/5.

Smug with my own happiness

Mette is so beautiful in her red summer dress.

Christian has a mosquito bite on his foot (from London) thats swollen up so much that he couldn’t go to the beach with us. Not sure what the name of the town with the beach is, but its the closest place to Ollioule with access to the sea. The town is pretty big and glitzy (lots of tourist crap), but the beach is tiny. Even smaller than the beaches we have in Århus. One thing is for certain, most of the tourists here are French. I only saw four cars with foreign plates (1 Belgian, 1 Swiss, 1 Brit & 1 Norwegian). The sea is full of jet bikes, yachts and paragliders.

The French seem very relaxed about their body’s. A lot of the people on the beach were old and/or fat, and to a degree which one just doesn’t see in Denmark. I never saw so many scantily dressed fat girls. French women certainly seem to appreciate the value of flaunting large breasts. Walking about the town, I was barely able to contain my enthusiasm, but with Mette’s parents in the vicinity, I kept my observations of appreciation to the barest minimum. Suffice to say, I appreciate, but I don’t touch, but I was continually amazed, impressed and on the verge of applauding.
I’m starting to like the French.
The water was nice but I kept remembering that the Med has some really huge Great White Sharks swimming about in it, but since I couldn’t remember ever reading about shark attacks in France I felt some what reassured.

Ollioule by night

Its funny how one falls in love with the places one visists, even if one isn’t really aware of it at the time. I still harbour a sense of romance with those places we stayed in Italy (and for Italy in general) and I’m sensing this place will be the same. Its very beautiful, even if there is an amazing amount of dog shit lying about the streets.
Although I grew up in the UK I’ve never felt the disdain so may Brits express with regards to the French. I’m no Francophile either but as with Italy, the place has seduced me. Not everything here is to my taste. Literally. The food makes little impression on me. I don’t drink wine, I don’t like olives and I don’t really like sea food much at all. Mette’s family rave about food (they are are more ’into’ food than I am, except with regards to suger products) but I am often left picking at my food in confusion.

Its mostly the ambience I’m enjoying. The heat and its effect upon the mind and body. The crumbling facades that hint at an understandable laziness, the plump women with flashing eyes who watch you in the market place. I could live here if only there was more food for my intellectual appetites. So many rich details highlight an over all indifference to the pedantic northern mania for perfection in construction. Provence is as to Jutland as a charcoal sketch of a recline nude is to an architectural diagram.

There is pride here too, it manifests itself in the flower boxes, the colours of the houses and the over-all manner of the people, but underneath all the pride is an acceptance of the reality of life that Scandinavians seem to spend so much time fighting against. Life decays. Age brings a beauty denied to youth. An old house, nurtured, like a woman loved, has a beauty that cannot be denied.

At night the insects shut up at last.

This unusual looking object was partially hidden in a thicket by the entrance to
the beach parking space in Savony. After we'd driven by it several times I was
convinced it was a diving bell on display, as it indeed turned out to be! According
to the placard that stood by it, this vehicle for exploring the sea bed, was able to
descend to 450 metres and was retired in 1974. It had two robot arms and two little
proppellors. Some wasps had made a nest in one of its arms.

Monday 28th July 2008. ’Sanary-sur-mer’

Woke up feeling very heavy. Even with the windows wide open, the heat is oppressive and the bed is unfamiliar and bouncy. A plan had been made to go to Sanary-sur-mer (the town from yesterday) very early, but it was 10:30 before we even set off, and the heat was unbelieveable. With Danish childrens music blaring from our little car to entertain Her Majesty, the Snoos, we found the traffic a veritable flood of Gallic indifference. We made it in one piece though and made our way south in good speed. The French are funny. If one guys starts hitting his horn, they all join in.

For an artist, or any one with an artistic interest, there is an irony to be found perusing a beach for there is more abstract art lying in the pebbles of a beach than in all the galleries of the world. The wealth of beauty lying scattered about the beach at Sanary-sur-mer renders human attempts at creating abstract art invalid.

Later, after the midday heat had relented by a few paltry degree’s we returned home to Ollioule again and navigating the turds, we went shopping, me presenting the locals with the spectace of my sweating corpulence. I feel like a buttered eel... a rather heavy eel.
My arm pit still hurts, as usual and my head feels like its about to split open at any moment, though oddly I don’t have a head ache. I think its the heat inducing a build up of pressure, or something. I wonder if this is a period of adjustment that will pass, or if I’ll be in a muck sweat for ten days straight...?

Almost like a crusader castle ruin it was so hot. Very inspirational.

Tuesday 29th July 2008. ’The Castle’

After a long and slow morning (I’m sensing a pattern beginning) the temperature climbed steadily until it reached 32C in the shade! It was about this time, as the others were all lying about, trying to stay cool, I decided to mount an expedition and climb the hill behind Ollioule to visit the ruins of the castle. Although I am neither a mad dog nor an Englishman (technically I am half English I suppose), the midday sun doesn’t frighten me!
The journey was short, but strenous and by the time I had reached the top I was utterly drenched in sweat to a degree I honestly did not believe possible. I could wring the sweat from my T shirt!
My muscles, have long since grown accusomed to sitting before a computer, were not happy and my thigh muscles, feeling as if they’d atrophied to accomidate a lifestyle of lazy decadence, were pushed to their limits by gradients of 45 – 50 degree’s. At one point I saw two French pensioners in a tiny Fiat that had given up the ghost, rolling backwards down the hill. Fortunately their brakes saved them before they disapeared through a stone wall at the bottom of the hill.

Ollioule as seen from the castle ruins

The Castle appears to be quite small. Hardly more than one wall of a single tower surrounded by low crumbled walls. Its all but impossible to see what the castle must have looked like in its hey day. After having inspected the ruins (and disapointed at not seeing any lizards) I made my way back down the hill, getting lost in some one’s back garden on the way (they were rather nice about it, even offering me a drink). I returned by my original route. The view from the hill top was excellent.

Kristian and I sat up until 01:00 talking about the merits of Bob Marley and computers.



Wednesday 30th July 2008. ’The Blues’

34 degrees C in the shade.
Kristians foot is still looking like a big red tomato. The rest of us went shopping for groceries and a small kiddies pool for the Snoos. I’m too hot to be bothered to write.

Finished ’Day of the Jackal’ by Frederick Forsyth. 4/5

Later in the day we went to Savony-sur-mer again, to swim and enjoy the ambience. There was a market, full of artsy stuff for tourists and two guys set up their guitars and started playing the blues. They were quite good but Freja got cranky because there was a big Jules Verne themed carrousel just nearby and she wanted to keep riding it, so we only got to hear a few numbers. Also they felt the need to converse with their audience, at length and naturally in French...

When we got back to Ollioule, we found the whole village was having a party in the town square with some local band trying to play James Brown tracks (but not quite getting the funk bit right). I guess Wednesady night is party night in Provence.


Thursday 31st July 2008. ’The Octopus’

Freja kept waking us up all night. The heat and discomfort seem to be more than the Snoos can handle and I can’t really blame her. Lying between Mette and I after she decided her own bed was too spacious she managed to put in enough kicks and blows, while whining and crying in her ’sleep’ that I eventually gave up and got up. By 08:00 Freja was a basket case, crying hysterically and it took us a half hour to calm her down again. After a while I snuck back to bed.

Mette and I went to the bakery with Freja and I picked up a couple of post cards. I can only remember two addresses. My Dad’s and Mehmets (whose address is the same as ours). Every one else will have to make do with this diary when I write it up for my blog.

After, yet another long and lazy day, we went to the beach. This time we were equipped with snorkels and face masks and sure enough the sea was teeming with life. I saw hundreds of fish, sea hedghogs and anemones, some big white fish, and a lot of small ones in schools, all turning away from my hand at the same time. Just like on the TV. Fantastic!
Most were silver with stripes, though some were golden.
Most spectacular were the octopii. I’ve never seen an octopus in its natural habitat before, and when Kristian grabbed my arm and pointed, I wasn’t sure what he was pointing at until the creature moved along the sea bed below us. It looked for all the world like some monstrous alien spider. It was brown and bunched together, but when it moved, it spread itself to show arms as long as my fore arm, possibly longer. I kept my distance because I know they have a beak that is both sharp and powerful.

A short while later, Kristian again grabbed my arm and pointed and I saw another fellow with mask and snorkel, with an octopus clamped to his arm! Whether or not it was the same animal I don’t know for they can change colour, but this one was red and it was grappling the man who appeared to panic some what. As we stared in amazement, he ripped the animal apart with his hands, ignoring the ink it ejected. He kept the parts he pulled off, so perhaps he was fishing for food? Later we saw him bashing the remains on a rock and I recalled a documentary which explained that octopii have multiple brains in their limbs. I felt sorry for the poor octopus.

We returned to Ollioule and went to a restaurant for some good local cuisine. I have no idea what I ate (Daub something or other), but it tasted okay. It was dark and stringy and had olives in it ( I gave those to Mette). It was certainly preferable to the oily mussels which Mette and her bother ate, though I didn’t think much of the four steamed potatoes which were stuck into tmy plate of food like the points of a compass. I was sitting across from Mette, enjoying the sight of her tucking into her food, for although it smelled to me like the tide had gone out, she certainly seemed to be enjoying it. The whole meal for 6 people, (Freja had an omelette) cost 130 Euro’s.

Kristian, standing in a cluttered street at Castellet &
taking a photograph of me taking a photograph of him.
(He has the better camera)

Friday 1st August 2008. ’Castellet’

Woke up this morning with such pains in my arm pit! If Uffe (my GP) is correct in his analysis, then perhaps all this swimming isn’t such a great idea. I don’t know very much about seneskedehindsbetændelse, I don’t even know what its called in English, except to translate the Danish word for it; ”An infection in the liquid tissue and sheath surrounding and containing a muscle”. Uffe also calls it ’water in the muscle’
According to Kristian, once you’ve got seneskedehindsbetændelse, you can’t hardly get rid of it again. I hope thats all it is, because my imagination and paranoia are jumping about like monkeys on acid imaging the worst, despite all analytical evidence to the contrary.
I’m due to go for a scanning in September.

Mette is reading a book by Ayaan Hirsli Ali and I’ve begun ’Low Red Moon’ which some one (Cyan?) recommended ages ago and I’ve only just gotten to (my reading wish list is quite long).

Only 12 days until Freja’s third birthday. Last night, she was still uncomfortable in the heat and today we made matters worse by attempting to persuade her to use the toilet. No joy. She steadfastedly refuses to even go near it, despite all our threats, pleas and inducements.


After the midday downtime we all (except Mette’s mom) drove to a local ’tourist attraction’. Castellet is described on street signs as being ’medieval’, but I saw nothing to justify this claim. As far as I could see, the whole place dated from the 1700’s. The town itself was cute, but in a sugery sweet way and packed to bursting with tourist shops. The locals seemed a surly bunch of creeps, much given to staring at their customers with ill concealed disdain and the occaisional sneer and the streets were littered with the traditional dog turds. I think Castellet must be the nastiest place we’ve seen as yet. There were plenty of narrow crooked streets and I got a few good pictures of old doors.The view out on the surrounding country side (see above) was good though.

Ollioule as seen from across the Reppe valley, with the castle perched above the current village. You can clearly see in this image how the ruin is surrounded by the remains of concentric rings of walls and terraces. The red dot indicates the building in which we stayed and which was described as being a former tower of the castles outer wall. The building directly to the fore of our abode is the former mill which must have once had a wheel in the Reppe for its water course is still there, though the wheel house has long since disapeared.
Another interesting building is the former chapel, which stands directly to the left of the old keep tower and which consists of an old tower and two wings. It was into the garden of this building I strayed by accident

Saturday 2nd August 2008. ’The Reppe’.

Yesterday & last night, Mette felt the effects of pregnancy growing upon her (tightening skin and stuff like that) but this morning she seems okay again. Thus far the holiday has been fairly easy but as always the strain is starting to show. I don’t get on well around other people for prolonged periods of time, and I tend to act brash. Being unable to communcate my thoughts and feelings also makes me fidgity and even the nicest people start to get on my nerves when I can’t converse on my own intellectual level (by that I mean, talk to people who share my sense of humour, share my interests and curiosities. Those people are few and far between).

Around midday, feeling the need to be by myself I went for another walk. This time I headed up the hill across the valley. I had some vague notion of reaching a ruin some few kilometres away, but my ambition dwarfed my ability and my muscles gave out after a kilometre or so. I don’t feel too bad. The gradient was 45 degree’s and the heat was stunning. From the far side of the valley, the castle suddenly makes sense. What is refered to as ’the castle’ is in fact a keep, or donjon standing at the crown of the hill and surrounded by concentric rings and terraces. In the middle ages, the whole village must have been higher up the hill and contained within extensive defences. Suddenly the building we are staying in, makes sense. It is indeed placed at the point where the castle must have met the river. There are various ruined walls standing about half hidden, and the remains of a water mill which might have been a part of the original castle, or might have been added later. If my surmise is correct, then Ollioule castle was far bigger than it appears to be today!

The red dotted line shows where I think the castle's outer wall once ran. Click to enlarge.
Note the Reppe is the green band of vegetation that runs along the further side of the main road
1. Ruined outer walls
2. The ruined keep
3. The chapel. Easily the largest remaining structure. Now a house
4. The corner tower where we stayed
5. The remains of the old mill, now a gallery

To the north of Ollioule is a gorge where the Reppe cuts through aeons of stone.
The tourist guides and maps list this area as being one of natural beauty, but
whilst most of it is nice to look at the river is filled with garbage and quarries
mar the cliffs. I wanted to explore this region but my legs just weren't up for it.

The river that runs through Ollioule is called the Reppe. At this time of year its barely more than a trickle of water between deeper pools. Just below our holiday abode, stands a stone bridge and from its height I saw a mass of fish, dark on top, light below, with dark red fins and dark blue tails. Some of these were quite big (as big as my fore arm), and there were many of them. Swimming amongst them however, like some exotic god fish was a huge orange and white fish with black markings, similar to the carp one see’s in Japanese water gardens. Quite how this beautiful creature came to be languishing in a (rather grubby and polluted) French river is any one’s guess, but I’ll wager it was a ’gold fish’ that got thrown away.

I went to fetch Kristian and Mette to show them the spectacle and we also saw a snake that slithered at the waters edge and spooked the big orange fish. I think it was just a grass snake, like the ones we saw all over the place in Italy. There were also big blue dragonflies, zipping about the pools. I never saw so many before. They were swarming like house flies!

Later in the day went to the beach and I snubbed my little toe quite badly. Its still throbbing with pain now, two hours later.

Freja has been a PITA all day, answering back, hitting people and running off at every opportunity. She did however have fun at the beach, running about with big pebbles in her hands, kicking over other kids sand castles when they weren’t watching and swimming out to sea (still clutching a huge pebble in her hand). For a little girl, she’s quite destructive. She spent a lot of time rolling about in the surf with Mette and Mette’s mom. I stood on guard most of the time as I was worried a wave my tip her onto her head and give her a knock, or she might brain some smaller child with the large pebbles she insisted on waving about. I needn’t have bothered. She is apparently indestructable.

I bought a book today. I was passing a small book shop in Olllioule when I noted a sign which read ’English Books’. I immediately entered the shop and asked where the English section was. It transpired that the 'English section' had all of five books in it, and they were all rubbish. Too bad.
Instead I bought a book in French about the history of Ollioule. I can’t read it, but I can look at the pictures and after having seen the castle from the opposing hill, I have a better idea as to what the castle must have looked like. I think I’ll have a go at translating those parts which seem to be about the castle using Babelfish.


Sunday 3rd August 2008. ’Injury’

Woke up this morning in agony. It figures. My toe seems bruised to the bone, though not broken. My arm pit, shoulder and chest are all aching, and I have developed three ulcers on the inside of my upper lip. If past experience is any guide, these will soon develop into one large ulcer. Freja standing on my toe this morning didn’t help either.
Fortunately I am in good cheer.

Jan (Mette's Dad, who is an architect) wants me to help him by drawing a perspective diagram of his latest creation. I was only too pleased to do this, as I love perspective diagrams, and seldom have cause to make them.
Freja is still being naughty at every given opportuntiy, and I blame Mette’s mom who spoils Freja rotten. I’ve noticed Freja eating ice creams on the sly, supplied by Mormor, but decided since thats essentially what holidays with grandparents are for I’m pretending I haven’t noticed.
Kristian wants to climb the slope on the far side of the Reppe valley, to where we can see cliffs. I’d love to go with him, but I know I won’t be able to make it all the way.

Later in the day we went back to the beach at Sanary-sur-mer. This is our daily ritual now. You’d think I’d have some colour by now, but I’m just about the palest person on the beach. Sanary was as hot and humid as ever, but the pain in my side kept me irritable . After a while it seemed to ebb though once I started swimming. Weird.

Once again, I was impressed by the French women, enough to jot down further observations and risk giving the impression I am a perv (which I am by certains standards I don't doubt). Its not that the French women are so much more beautiful than the women of Denmark, but rather that they have a natural talent for flaunting their bodies, even if their bodies do not conform to any social convention regarding size or shape. Walking around Savony or lying upon the beach, one is confronted with a dazzling cornucopia of large breasts, ponderous buttocks, swinging hips and heads held high. Its as if the dreary, unromantic, industrial advirtising world of the Anglo Saxon zeitgeist hasn’t even dented the Gallic sense of self importance. These women, with their fantastic bodies, are proud of themselves in a way I just don’t see in Denmark. I make no secret I am attracted to big girls, and I understand I may be biased, but I’m not skinny myself, and I’m no great looker either. I felt at ease on the beach in France, for although other people regarded me, they were not looking at me with pity or disgust as so often is the case in Denmark, where people love to think of themselves as broadminded, but are anything but.



Monday 4th August 2008. ’Fatigue’

Finished Low Red Moon by Caitlin R Kiernan 3/5.
I quite liked it but I thought the ending was weak. Horror is not really my thing but I appreciated the homage paid to Lovecraft. It was worth reading for that alone.

Another lazy day. Walked about Ollioule and took a few more photographs of rust and decay, then later we went swimming in the sea.

Every where you go in Provence, there are fountains, and apparently the water is fresh,
though the amount of pigeon crap surrounding these stone structures suggests otherwise.

Tuesday 5th August 2008. ’Last Day’

One last drive to Savony. On the way into the parking area, just after we'd past the faded orange diving bell, I distinctly heard some one (female) having sex (presumable not by herself). I later asked Kristian and Mette and they'd both heard it too. At the time no one said anything, but it makes me laugh to think of it now. Southern France has a reputation and was apparently living up to it I guess.

The sea was high with moderate waves that made the surf difficult to stand in. Mette, Freja and the others fell about laughing as they were knocked from their feet repeatedly. Freja was in seventh heaven, running about with a pebble clutched in each hand. I swam out almost to the marker bouys with Mette and we just floated and talked for a while. She is so beautiful, I could kiss her all day long!
Real life is almost upon us again. *Sigh*

When we got home, the French woman next door gave all her old Barbie dolls to Freja, who much to my amazement was over joyed. Mette insisted on buying flowers for her to say thank you. We can’t carry them home, but Mette’s parents are driving home so they can carry them and drop them off when they get here.

Later in the day we visited another local restaurant and I had some fantastic duck done in red orange sauce. Yum!

35.4C in the shade.
Oh, and yes, I've been in a muck sweat all ten days. I'm almost looking forwards to returning to the cool Danish summer rain...

-Verstören-

Wednesday 6th August 2008. ’Real life’

I almost got into trouble at Nice airport. Not only did I have a pair of scissors in my bag, I had an Italian folding knife, with a 9 cm stilleto blade in my pencil case that I’d totally forgotten all about. Both were confiscated as I uttered red faced apologies to the French official who gave me a ’you must be joking’ look. I had to sign a document in French which I couldn’t read. Oh dear. No doubt interpol have me listed now as a dangerous lunatic. There ends my plan for world domination!

The flight home was easy, and swift, but the sunlit skies of Europe vanished as we dropped below the clouds into Billund airport. Driving back to Århus with my Dad who kindly came to pick us up was like driving through purgatory. Real life never looked greyer. There was no blue sky or even a horison, just weaker shades of grey fading into the distance and the drone of truck tires on the endless wet road.

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A gallery of beautiful decay