The Canal du Midi

A voyage along the Canal du Midi is a surreal experience. The waterways of the canal make for a languid dreamlike journey. The sense of floating on a cushion of air for mile after mile lulls one into a dream-like state. The “speed limit” is 8 km per hour so the country sides passes by slowly. Because of the engineering feat of keeping the canal level the countryside rises on one side of our view and is below us on the other side. Nowhere but in a canal can you be on a boat and look down on rooftops.  Only on a canal can you completely confuse reality by being in a boat on a canal which is also a bridge that spans over a river.  It is a magic carpet view of the world. Castle and church spires appear in the distance, then rooftops of village homes at the feet of these grand buildings. The sound of the muffled boat’s motor is soft and steady; the landscape’s powerful silence is stronger than this rumbling mantra. 

So silently we glide through and past these quiet canal-side communities. Several times we come to cities. Ancient cites started by the Romans to protect their roads leading to the north.  The canal has been important to the growth of these places, a new road to usurp ancient ones. The waterway usually slides right through the center of town. A haven of treelined peace for the city center. 

Our intimate boat world seems strange passing through railroad yards, past apartment buildings, and then surrounded by modern downtown businesses. 

Outside of the few human habitations and the explosive excitement of the locks, there are few intrusions into the tranquility of the voyage. 

The canal du Midi was conceived and started during the reign of Louis the IV. This was the late 1600’s and work was done by hand, demanding 12,000 laborers at it’s peak. It is a waterway to connect the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea. The canal was to be a safe and quick route to transport goods within the confines of France, thus avoiding a long ocean voyage and attacking Spaniards. Wine has always been the most important cargo of the barges. 

One passes acre after acre of vineyards and it is a lot of fun to tie up the boat and make a visit to one of the wine producers. Seeing the enormous containers of wine waiting to be bottled you can see how this one commodity kept the canal going for years and years. And, of course, one cannot fully understand and appreciate this region unless one accepts the responsibility of stopping the boat to sample the nectar of the locals. 

But the most hypnotic, dramatic and memorable part of the journey are the trees. In the 1830’s 42,000 trees were planted along the canal to shade the boats and the tow paths. Now over 200 years old, their stately statuesque presence defines that route. Like ancient giants, these sycamores stand sentinel along both sides of the canal. Straight-a-ways, S curves, narrow and wide loops are all signaled by the glow of the smooth, light-colored bark and the soft green of the never-ending cloud banks of foliage.  Trees, only trees, can give this sense of shelter, powerfulness and beauty. Mile after mile of them seeps into one’s soul to create a sense of peace as profound as only nature can give.

A great big thanks to the friends that added so much to the joy of this adventure!

Neanderthal Royal Portrait

Long ago, in a cave in what is now southern France, the Neanderthal chief and his bride stand for their royal portrait.

Alas, it would take 17,000 years for the world to accept art as allegory.

Perfection

Perfection is not a word that one should use lightly. But that word would not leave my brain after a morning wandering the grounds of Eyrignac Gardens in the Dordogne region of France.

 

After a few days of mulling it over I decided that my short list of "perfecton" would include Monticello in Charlottesville, Virginia. La Chapelle in Paris. The Masters Golf Course in Augusta, Georgia. And these gardens of Eryignac. All of the photos here are of the grounds and home of Eryignac.

At each of these four places the creativity of the human mind and the talent of the human hand is seen and felt. It is a feeling of intimacy that takes these from just very extraordinary places to places of my idea of perfection.

and new things to come.......

Here is the web site for Eyrignac Gardens http://www.francemostbeautifulgarden.com

We can organize garden tours during your time at OohLaLaFrance.com

American Appliances in France

Thinking what- that France hasn’t emerged from the dark ages? Tom does what it takes to hook up all his American appliances in France.

“Oh, Honey, guess what’s on sale down at ‘Pierre’s’ ?”

Electric Connections

Electric Connections

For the third time today I am trying to figure out up from down as I fiddle around with my electricity convertor. This time I need to introduce my American battery charger to the French style of electron flow. The American end has two practical flat prongs and the French end has two round prongs, elegant and understated.  Earlier it was an English vacuum cleaner with three prongs-- all flat and oriented like the rays of the sun that finally did set over the British Empire.. And I still can’t get a French plug to match up with a French plug. I think that this is some sort of test for foreigners-- call it the French Secret Handshake.  All this has me thinking about the ironies of how life for expats is like the intermeshing of electricity connections.

The first similarity is that foreign things don’t fit directly into a new country. But, with a little ingenuity it all works out.  The foreign ‘thing’ will always have that spark of it’s heritage, it’s true self, but now it’s running on a different current.

The second tingle of connections was the other evening at a birthday party. We were eight sitting around the table, five English, one French, one Greek, and one American, This mix may not seem so extraordinary, but do remember we live just beyond nowhere -- and it isn’t even summer yet when cultural mixes really get humming. One of the Englishmen had lived for quite a while in New York and and is now back in London. Being the nosey American I asked what he had does for a living and he said something about financial consulting..... An answer that made no sense to me, but because of the NewYork/London connection, I followed up by asking if that meant working with companies like Bloomberg. Well yes it did. Now I had to keep teasing out that wire. Did you ever happen to meet our dear long time friend Stuart B? There was a bit of a pause, I held my breath - and then, well Yes, he did know Stuart!- it was like a crackling bite of electricity. Bzzzzt the world is small....... bzzzt this person that you’ve known for an hour has a connection to you.

Now, two days later a third connection has passed the American French wires. The first e-mail I opened this morning was from a friend in Vermont. Her nephew and his girlfriend have become great friends with our wonderful niece that lives in Louisville. This lovely note has come across the ocean in waves and waves of technology, through the French wiring, passing a two pronged to three pronged convertor to my American computer. I can feel the hum of life in all of these electrically, tangled up connections.

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