Big City Europe and French Riviera
September 28, 2015.
Well this vacation was all about the celebrated big historic cities of Europe with lots of exposure to world famous art and day trips to small and contrasting rural towns/villages in different countries. We visited 4, actually technically 5, countries in about 3 weeks’ time — starting in London and ending in beautiful Nice on French Riviera with days spent in between in Netherlands, Belgium, Paris and Provence. As expected, everything about the trip was the classic heartwarming Europe vacation with only one stand out issue — dealing with an unusually hot weather in Europe this summer. So from timing perspective, maybe one to two months before in May/June or later in August/September may work better if you are looking for cooler days.
The trip did require fair amount of planning, pre-bookings etc. but there is not much I can tell which not already well written about on the net. Emirates and BA the 2 airlines we used are not exceptions in connecting very well to any of the cities you want to visit. In between cities trains are great if you do not want to deal with parking issues and lot of long distance driving (though many people do it). We used Thalys or TGV between all major cities — Amsterdam to Brussels; Brussels to Paris, Paris to Avignon and finally Avignon to Nice. I rented a car only in Provence where it is great to drive around the beautiful countryside visiting mostly small towns and villages separated by fair distance with little public transport. Rest of the places, public transport was wonderful, economical and hassle free.
From pre-planning perspective, it helps to pre-book popular tours like Van Gogh museum, Ann Frank Museum, Eiffel Tower Elevator tickets. For Louvre museum — we did not buy the tickets beforehand and it worked out fine as we were able to buy it in the Mall (instead of the museum entry) and then walked right in. For London, it may be useful to buy London Pass for one or two days and cover most of the paid attractions in those days with added advantage of quicker entries in lot of places.
It was a twenty five days long trip but there were really four or five overriding impressions I carried from the trip. First one being that the big cities in Europe all seem to be more or less similar in the experience they impart to a visitor outside of the major city attractions of course. The transport, the eating places, and the hotels all work fairly similarly. All the cities do have the city picture spots like Big Ben or London Bridge or Piccadilly or Trafalgar square or the Buckingham Palace in London; the beautiful canal network or the typical line of vertical buildings along the canals or the Ann Frank house or Dams square or the RLD in Amsterdam; the Grand Place in Brussels, the 13th century supposed Europe’s most beautiful square lined with guild houses.
But I would call out Paris being the most special city of these all. There is something special in the air. There are always some dominant thoughts or feelings making one happy and wanting to spend more time walking the streets or just sitting on the banks of Rhine and watching the scenes pass by. One moment there is a feeling of romance or then it changes to a feeling of lost in timeless history of medieval times or then the feeling of strong sense of a distinct culture or the sensual presence of the rich work of art around you in buildings, paintings, music or sculptures. The Marais district with world famous falafel sandwiches, Latin quarters with a bunch of creperies and Montmartre all have a character of their own. The bridges in Isle de la Cite have the unique look with thousands of locks hanging on them as a sign of love amongst couples and families. I could never get enough of the Eiffel tower from its top floors, or in the night when it was bathed in dazzling lighting display. Louvre museum of course is one of its kind and paralleled only by Vatican in its rich art collection. Notre Dame cathedral does not need me to mention — finest example of gothic architecture and place of coronation of French monarchs. For me personally, it seems Paris and Rome are cities one could keep coming back to and spend many days discovering something new all the time.
Another highlight from this time well spent is the fact that the rural side or small towns of any country seem to be the jewels. There is where one can also find unique cultural elements and real pride for the heritage. Around London, a day trip to Oxford is a must do and welcome change from the big city go down the list of things to do approach. You can lose yourself in the streets surrounded by beautiful architecture, book stores & libraries, hundred year old bars and world class learning centers. Bruges in Belgium is wonderful experience of numerous homemade chocolate shops, famous boutique Belgian beer, small museums including the display of Michelangelo’s “Madonna and the child” in the Church of our Lady.
Netherlands country side was also a revelation and surprisingly more than what it is talked about — biking culture, canals everywhere (I am told when frozen in winters these make excellent skating lanes), wonderful local cheese (Netherlands is in the top three dairy producers in the world), traditional wooden shoes meant for working in marshy farmlands, historic innovations of windmills for flour or oil are some of the exciting things to experience. Day trip from Amsterdam to Zaansche Schans is not to be missed. The Waterlands with the small nearby towns of Edam, Marken and Volendam is the other area worth visiting. In this season there were no Daffodils but those along with other flowers these also make Netherlands a dominant flowers producer & exporter.
And then there is the Provence area of France with wide spread numerous small towns. This is the region with fruit gardens and wonderful fresh alpine farm produce, sunflower farms, some of the smaller but wonderful wineries welcoming to visitors for memorable wine tasting experience, French olive farms (much smaller than Spain and Italy but really nice) & olive oil mills and also the sense teasing, both smell and sight, lavender plantations. This area is made famous by towns like Arles & Avignon with more than 2000 year old Roman construction. Caesar used this area as his base for Gaul invasion for many years. Van Gogh spent his last and most productive years as an artist in this area — one can experience the sites he captured on canvas in Arles, Saint-Remy-de-Provence, The Abbaye de Senanque (beautiful cathedral in background with lavender plantations) and the surrounding area. Besides these quaint little towns there is the spectacularly located alpine town of Les Baux with a stony castle and town with narrow pebbled pathways. The other must visit towns are The Perched Village of Gordes and Isle sur la Sorgue — home to markets of fresh produce, handicrafts and antiques in the backdrop of moss covered water wheels and soothing river. A unique feature of all these cities was the beautiful doors to the buildings — all different in designs and sizes but with each with a different character. In Provence we stayed in a B&B in small town of Graveson — which itself was an exciting stay with a very hospitable and nice French family.
Nice and the surrounding Riviera is where we spent the last five days of our trip. This is a world famous destination on the sea coast with beaches to soak in in the sun &water, lot of high end shopping districts in Cannes, Antibes, Monaco and Nice itself. The small hill town of Eze and the beach town of Villefranche-sur-mer are worth the trip. Bus services from Nice to any of these places is fabulous. The letdown place was really Monaco, seemed overly marketed with nothing much to offer — not much history or art, no major good eating place, nothing much to do except if you want to gamble in the Grand Casino — there are of course riches on display like Yachts and expensive cars.
This trip is also about visiting the chocolate capital of the world; the beer capital of the world (maybe region if we want to include Germany); the wine capital of the world; and the mecca of desserts, breads, cheese & olive oil. So every day was a day to savor something new and un-forgetful — the pralines in Bruges, the beer from micro/family-breweries in Brussels, the crepes in Paris Latin Quarters, the meringue in Paris pastry shops, the waffles in Brussels & Amsterdam, the stroopwaffles in Amsterdam, the large helpings of potato French fries topped with cheese in Amsterdam, the pastries and cakes almost in almost all these places, the macrons in Paris, the pesto flavored cheese in Amsterdam, the Pimms in London and the flat breads in London Pubs are only some of the things to mention and not to be missed on your next trip especially for the vegetarians like us.
I cannot feel complete without talking about the eye savoring and heartwarming pieces of art one gets to witness. I am of course not the first one to mention any of these world famous works but just putting in a small reminder for you to see these on your next trip to any of these places. To start with the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam has amazing collection of the Van Gogh’s self-portraits and largest collection of his paintings including the Potato Eaters, the Yellow House, the Sunflowers, the Blossoming Almond Tree (painted when his nephew was born), and his supposed last painting the Field with Crows. Rijksmuseum is large but I remember it most for the huge painting of the scene of Waterloo depicting the famous battle. Then there is work from the trio of Leonardo, Raphael and Michelangelo in Louvre Museum to mention a few — Mona Lisa (L), the Virgin and child with St. Anne (L), Virgin of the Rocks (L), La Belle Jardiniere (R), the Portrait of Artist with a Friend (R), the Dying Slave (M). Louvre of course also has the huge majestic paintings leaving a haunting memory — The Wedding Feast at Cana, Liberty Leading the People, Raft of the Medusa, and Napoleon Coronation Josephine — and the Greek & Roman sculptures especially the Cupid and Psyche, Winged Lady and the Venus de Milo. Louvre also has the French royal jewels and the crowns, while Tower of London has the famous Kohinoor and even larger Cullinan diamond along with the various royal crowns. Besides these famous arts the cathedrals architecture, sculptures, nameless paintings and glass work especially in Notre Dame and Westminster Abbey are not to be missed. The sculpture beauty of Pieta in main sanctum of Notre Dame and the Michelangelo’s Madonna in the Church of our Lady (Bruges) are something to behold.
Finally, the most surprising thing for me was this strong feeling that somewhere the French people share a common inheritance to the Indians as the emotional and behavioral likeness is uncanny. Before the trip I thought people would be uptight but far from it — almost everyone was very warm and involved. There was not a town we did not meet people who are regular visitors to India, talked about Pondicherry like a French county in India. Then there were many shops in Paris, Nice etc. which carried Indian designs, patterns like block work etc. or work inspired by Indian culture. On a lighter note, there was also the Indian style attitude of not caring much about queues while getting on buses or sometimes even taking a leak on the street corners. Based on the few families we talked to or spent time with — there also seemed the strong appreciation of closely knit families, family values, deep emotional dependence and even living together or nearby as joint families. It felt home to us.
