france travelogue III: rognes (1/2)
Sep. 6th, 2025 09:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jazzfishThis is taking longer than expected.
Saturday 8/16: The last of the 'big driving' days, at least for some definition of. The main attraction today was driving through the Gorges du Tarn. This is a huge canyon with an awful lot of very pretty landscape and geology going on. At least from what I could glimpse it was very pretty. I was on driving duty and most of my attention was given over to a) staying on the narrow twisty mountain road and b) not clipping or being clipped by oncoming traffic. Sometime in the eight years I had no car and then the three-plus years I had a car but it didn't matter how big it was because there was always plenty of space, I have lost much of my ability to tell where the corners of the car I'm driving are, and so I tend to leave way more space than necessary. This makes driving a really-too-large-for-the-roads car more stressful than anticipated.
We'd all intended to meet up at a view of a waterfall. Unfortunately my map directed me to the waterfall itself, which made for a lot of interesting driving and then failing to park because, weekend in Europe in August, everyone is on vacation and this is one of the places they vacation. Somehow we managed to meet back up with the other car, and had a lovely lunch down at the river. Then we drove another five hours or so to a house on the outskirts of Rognes (pron. "Roan"), near Aix, or not quite an hour north of Marseille.
Digression: housing. The apartment we stayed at in Paris felt appropriately modern: small and just a bit cramped upstairs, a decent amount of space downstairs. In Nantes we stayed at an older hotel; Sarlat, at an old house that had been somewhat modernised (plumbing, windows) but felt a bit run-down.
The house in Rognes would not have been out of place in North America. Big open floorplan, big bedrooms, kitchen with an island and a fancy stove, a big yard-ish area and a pool. It looked impressively contemporary and Fancy. It also, at least to me, betrayed all the signs of a place that's been built from the ground up for short-term rental: weird layout choices, a kitchen that's huge but still a bit tricky for two people to do anything in, cabinets that, well, come from Ikea, with all the not-quite-fitting and not-terribly-well-made that that implies. For just one example, the shower in the master bathroom, one of those walk-in showers with a slight slope and a drain at one end, didn't drain terribly well, and flooded the bathroom the first day. This, we were told, was not a clog but a Design Flaw and not fixable (at least, not while we were there). I didn't -hate- the house but I was mildly uncomfortable the whole time.
Sunday 8/17: Today the plan was to get up earlyish, drive down to a bird sanctuary in the Camargue for a bit of a walk, swing through the walled town of Aigues-Mortes for some quick tourism, have lunch with Steph's mother's France roommate Martine, and maybe pop over to Montpelier for a bit of sightseeing of Significant Locations for Steph's parents. In the event we got away early enough that the bird sanctuary was a no-go, and traffic getting into Aigues-Mortes was bad enough that we abandoned that plan as well. We spent some of the hour or so we ended up with before lunch walking on the Mediterranean beach, which was admittedly lovely.
Lunch with Martine and her wife Sahar was just as delightful as previous hosted meals. Martine complimented my new tattoo and asked about the vine ("Grapes?" "Kudzu." *incomprehension* "It's a Japanese vine, it got imported to the American South and sort of took over--" "OHH! I THOUGHT I recognised the name!"), and we all went for a bit of a swim in the Mediterranean since they were staying in someone's house right on the water.
After luncheon, we opted against Montpelier on the grounds that a) it was an hour or two in the wrong direction and b) the immediate family had seen all those places the last time they did this trip in the early nineties. Instead we hit Aigues-Mortes for a bit more touristing. This is a walled city mostly famous for being the launching point for the French army in the Seventh Crusade, since at the time it was on the coast. The sea has since receded and salt marshes have grown up, and it's now a substantial distance from the actual water. But it does look nice, and it's fun to wander around in despite being extremely touristy.
It also includes a church whose stained-glass windows were redone and "modernized" sometime recently, and about which we were warned. The warning did not really suffice; there is no real way to convey just how awful and out of place the modern windows look.
Dinner and then home successfully, despite someone attempting to run me off the road. When you slam on the brakes in this car it turns on the Hazard lights; it took me a good two minutes to figure out why I could hear turn-signals going despite not having a turn signal on.
Next: Marseille, ochre, and sculpture.
Saturday 8/16: The last of the 'big driving' days, at least for some definition of. The main attraction today was driving through the Gorges du Tarn. This is a huge canyon with an awful lot of very pretty landscape and geology going on. At least from what I could glimpse it was very pretty. I was on driving duty and most of my attention was given over to a) staying on the narrow twisty mountain road and b) not clipping or being clipped by oncoming traffic. Sometime in the eight years I had no car and then the three-plus years I had a car but it didn't matter how big it was because there was always plenty of space, I have lost much of my ability to tell where the corners of the car I'm driving are, and so I tend to leave way more space than necessary. This makes driving a really-too-large-for-the-roads car more stressful than anticipated.
We'd all intended to meet up at a view of a waterfall. Unfortunately my map directed me to the waterfall itself, which made for a lot of interesting driving and then failing to park because, weekend in Europe in August, everyone is on vacation and this is one of the places they vacation. Somehow we managed to meet back up with the other car, and had a lovely lunch down at the river. Then we drove another five hours or so to a house on the outskirts of Rognes (pron. "Roan"), near Aix, or not quite an hour north of Marseille.
Digression: housing. The apartment we stayed at in Paris felt appropriately modern: small and just a bit cramped upstairs, a decent amount of space downstairs. In Nantes we stayed at an older hotel; Sarlat, at an old house that had been somewhat modernised (plumbing, windows) but felt a bit run-down.
The house in Rognes would not have been out of place in North America. Big open floorplan, big bedrooms, kitchen with an island and a fancy stove, a big yard-ish area and a pool. It looked impressively contemporary and Fancy. It also, at least to me, betrayed all the signs of a place that's been built from the ground up for short-term rental: weird layout choices, a kitchen that's huge but still a bit tricky for two people to do anything in, cabinets that, well, come from Ikea, with all the not-quite-fitting and not-terribly-well-made that that implies. For just one example, the shower in the master bathroom, one of those walk-in showers with a slight slope and a drain at one end, didn't drain terribly well, and flooded the bathroom the first day. This, we were told, was not a clog but a Design Flaw and not fixable (at least, not while we were there). I didn't -hate- the house but I was mildly uncomfortable the whole time.
Sunday 8/17: Today the plan was to get up earlyish, drive down to a bird sanctuary in the Camargue for a bit of a walk, swing through the walled town of Aigues-Mortes for some quick tourism, have lunch with Steph's mother's France roommate Martine, and maybe pop over to Montpelier for a bit of sightseeing of Significant Locations for Steph's parents. In the event we got away early enough that the bird sanctuary was a no-go, and traffic getting into Aigues-Mortes was bad enough that we abandoned that plan as well. We spent some of the hour or so we ended up with before lunch walking on the Mediterranean beach, which was admittedly lovely.
Lunch with Martine and her wife Sahar was just as delightful as previous hosted meals. Martine complimented my new tattoo and asked about the vine ("Grapes?" "Kudzu." *incomprehension* "It's a Japanese vine, it got imported to the American South and sort of took over--" "OHH! I THOUGHT I recognised the name!"), and we all went for a bit of a swim in the Mediterranean since they were staying in someone's house right on the water.
After luncheon, we opted against Montpelier on the grounds that a) it was an hour or two in the wrong direction and b) the immediate family had seen all those places the last time they did this trip in the early nineties. Instead we hit Aigues-Mortes for a bit more touristing. This is a walled city mostly famous for being the launching point for the French army in the Seventh Crusade, since at the time it was on the coast. The sea has since receded and salt marshes have grown up, and it's now a substantial distance from the actual water. But it does look nice, and it's fun to wander around in despite being extremely touristy.
It also includes a church whose stained-glass windows were redone and "modernized" sometime recently, and about which we were warned. The warning did not really suffice; there is no real way to convey just how awful and out of place the modern windows look.
Dinner and then home successfully, despite someone attempting to run me off the road. When you slam on the brakes in this car it turns on the Hazard lights; it took me a good two minutes to figure out why I could hear turn-signals going despite not having a turn signal on.
Next: Marseille, ochre, and sculpture.