The French Journal

Dieppe in Normandy

Some of my favorite finds for this blog are stories about towns in France that I've not had much exposure to. Given the brevity of this item from The Telegraph (U.K.) about Dieppe, on the Normandy coast, the giddy tickle I felt while reading it is probably not justified, but I felt it nevertheless. Through the article I've learned that Dieppe has a kite flying festival; it was given its name by Norsemen; and there's a great local market selling "coils of boudin noir and boudin blanc, giant snails slithering out of buckets, vats of thick cream and piles of local cheeses." There are pleasant beaches and comfy bars, and among its sights are "the clifftop Château Musée (with) paintings of Dieppe by Renoir, Pissarro, Sisley, Boudin and several British artists... war memorials along the seafront...salt-water treatments at Les Bains, the new thalasso-therapy spa by the beach." All in all, the story moved me dieppely. (I wish I could say that's the corniest pun I've ever made, but I'd be lying.)

On the road: Monet and van Gogh

As I try to figure out life, one thing has become clear -- by Thursdays I'm usually behind in my blogging chores. So today's items will be quick.

A traveler's visits to Giverny, where Monet lived, and Auvers, where van Gogh painted and died, are not unusual. What makes this article of interest -- if you can get to it -- is a narrated slide show, about three minutes long, with photos of the painters, their work, the towns, and some local color. The hitch: the article (from the Minneapolis Star-Tribune via The Seattle Times) is easy enough to get to, but the slideshow may require free registration (although you might be able to click through as a one-time thing).

Normandy x 2: Cheese immersion, and "La France profonde"

Two articles offer different ways to experience Normandy.

First, Gemma Bowes of The Guardian (U.K.) indulges her craving for all things cheese by enrolling in a course at Le Manoir de L'Aufragere (the same cooking school where rock star Alex James once took classes). She says that it's the only course of its kind that she could find, but with a class like this, you don't need anything else. There are cooking lessons, ways to dress up cheeses, shopping hints, and a session on how to make one's own fromage, with samplings of Calvados and "fish bludgeoning" along the way. (HT This French Life.)

Meanwhile, over at The Times (London), Stephen Clarke, of A Year in the Merde fame, does his take on La France profonde, and follows his whims onto the back roads of Normandy. Clarke recommends that you simply poke around; the delights you find will be many. That being said, Clarke has a "unique" writing style -- he's crude and likes to bash the French -- so while a visit to Normandy can give you pleasure, a visit with Clarke may make you cringe as the bathroom references and leers pile up.

Normandy through artists' eyes

The Beach at Trouville by Boudin

For Americans, visits to Normandy are often pilgrimages to the battlegrounds of World War II. But as a story from The Telegraph relates, the Normandy coast, with its ever-changing plays of light, inspired dozens of painters, particularly those of the Impressionist era, and tracing the area's influence on art can fill an itinerary. A tour starts in Le Havre, an early home of Monet and Boudin, and now the location of the second largest collection of Impressionist paintings in France. This journey continues along to the coastal towns of Honfleur, Trouville, Deauville, Cabourg, and many others, all of which have a place in art history; and there are dramatic seaside cliffs once captured by Courbet. The journey ends in Dieppe; Degas, Delacroix, Gauguin, Pisarro, Renoir, and Whistler are only a sampling of the painters who spent time there.

The story is accompanied by an extensive slideshow of the Normandy coast interspersed with paintings of the landscape. The article was prompted by an exhibit, Impressionists by the Sea, which will run at the Royal Academy of Arts in London until September.

Touring Giverny

For this Monday morning, let's walk around Claude Monet's garden in Giverny. Yesterday, The Boston Globe featured a tour of the property with Gilbert Vahé, the chief groundskeeper. The place had fallen into disrepair by the early seventies; after being bequeathed to the Academy of Beaux Arts, Vahé was part of the team which conducted the research about the garden. Their goal was to recapture some of how it may have appeared during the artist's life. And now?

"Vahé loves early spring when the buds begin to pop, although he views his job in the broad time frame of the seasons as someone orchestrating the garden's 'sequential' progress. Like fireworks, the garden changes and unfolds, building to a climax in autumn.

"By late September, the clusters of bright flowers tower over the heads of visitors. As you stroll the garden's alleys, you feel as though you're submerged in the colors of an artist's palette."

Giverny was my first stop last year on a trip. A fine, sunny day, and although early spring, the flowers had already blossomed. The pond was almost hidden, but once discovered, overwhelming. It was a blissful return to France.

Who ya gonna call? Busting ghosts in France

   

One niche that has been overlooked in French tourism is for those who like their vacations to be haunted. However, that's about to change. Expatica reports an "entrepreneurial psychic" named Erick Fearson (pun?) will give tours this summer of Normandy's Abbey of Mortemer, where -- on a good day -- the ghosts of murdered monks may appear. (No guarantee, however.) Fearson notes that the French -- good Cartesians that they are -- may be less playful when it comes to investigating the underworld than some of their English-speaking counterparts, so a lot of this tour of the abbey will be information-based. For those who want to learn more about the spirits of the Hexagon, the article recommends a book, Ghosthunter: A Journey through Haunted France. Fearson also has a French language website, Maison-hantee.

More of "The Boston Globe goes to France"

 

Photo of Villefranche sur Mer by Tom Corser www.tomcorser.com. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.0 England & Wales (UK)

So, as I was saying, this week's Sunday Boston Globe Travel section is a big ole grab bag of France-related articles (although, peculiarly, the section made no explicit reference to its almost all-France theme). If you haven't jumped there after my prompting yesterday, I'm taking the lazy way out now and summarizing the stories (it's a holiday in the U.S., and I'm still in weekend mode).

• Hooray! A different take on patisseries! A feature by Joe Ray recounts the efforts of some bakers to move beyond the classics (like mille-feuille) and come up with creations such as ones that fuse Asian and French techniques. (Think croissants filled with bean paste.) Aurore-Capucine, Pain-du-Sucre (fr), and Sadaharu Aoki are highlighted.
• Bikes plus Normandy equal an eight day tour, pedal division.
• Besides the usual wine tours and chateaus, this visit to Bordeaux included a chocolate facial: "We emerged...feeling great and smelling better."
• Villefranche-sur-Mer in Provence is home of the Institut-de-Français, where you can work on your language skills at what is one of the world's most renown language immersion courses. (I want it!)
• For me, one of the more idiosyncratic aspects of Paris to gain fame is the Friday night skate around the city. It lasts three hours and about 18 miles and starts at 10:00 PM, when I'm thinking about my pillow.