Kodiak Haakansons: Antibes to Provence

An 8 am, 5 and ½ hour ferry brought us back to Nice. The ferry was complete with a piano player, a play area, dogs everywhere to be petted, and an unfortunately closed swimming pool on the top deck. But the seas were calm and we were all happy. As we exited the ferry, we were pleased and a little sad to see Nice again, which had been so good for us last month. But we continued driving towards the town of Antibes, which is near the airport that we have to visit Friday evening to pick up Balika’s mom. The hotel that I booked ended up being a little bit…. remote. I was feeling guilty until we realized that this sounded rather good to get rested up. So we jumped in our swimsuits and went swimming in the chilly outdoor pool (getting looks from the locals like, ‘crazy family’), had the kids take a long bath, checked email and in general did some studying of the vegetative state. I think after the Corsican driving, Sven needed it. After a few hours of this, we decided to head into Antibes to try to find the Picasso museum, which we heard was mediocre but we figured it was worth a try.

Antibes was instant love at first sight. Not only was there an amazing craftsman market going on (with people painting, welding, etc) but everyone was talkative and friendly (something we haven't experienced everywhere)! We had some wonderful conversations with locals (grunt, grunt, point point), walked the pedestrian streets and felt very much contented with this little town that has been spared the hotel high-rises of Nice.

We did find the Picasso museum just 30 minutes before they closed and were instantly charmed. Not only is it in the ancient Grimaldi castle (the ruling family of Monaco) but the art inside preserved a time in Picasso’s life when he visited this area. In 1946 (during the war) Picasso was looking for a studio space in southern France and was granted use of the castle by the city of Antibes. Within this castle for a couple of months he painted, sketched and worked on pottery that reflected the colors and themes of the area (Mediterranean food, colors & people). Many of the paintings are on recycled materials since canvases were hard to come by during the war. The walls were rough stone, the ceilings domed and rustic, and the views out to sea spectacular. We were particularly interested in the whole wall of plates he had painted, the line drawings of faces, and the room of Picasso portraits taken by a recent Polish surviver of Auschwitz.

We had a lovely dinner of Moules Frites (mussels with fries) and (again) Pizza, followed by a trip to an outside cafe for gelato (only one broken glass). We let the girls pick out one thing from the market and Bella spent 10 minutes looking at the glass pendants (finally settling on a fish) and Eilidh went instantly to the little welded frogs, which she proceeded to cuddle and talk to for the rest of the night. After this, we went to pick up Bubbe (grandma Mary) who had arrived from her bike trip in Italy and went back to the hotel to sleep. The happy grandkids giggled all the way home, snuggling with Bubbe.

The next morning we decided that we wanted to return to Antibes before driving to the house in Provence that Bubbe had reserved for us, so we were able to go again to the Picasso museum and to grab a quick lunch... we even got some time at a park! After lunch we got on the road and on our way to Northern Provence to get ourselves settled in our rental house.

Sculpture for Picasso in the Picasso museum.

Picasso plates

View out Picasso Museum window into Antibes bay.

Antibes market

Antibes protest against raising the retirement age

Antibes church

The maker of Eilidh's froggy.

Bella's meticulous photography of everything...

Our new home in Provence(St. Saturnin-les-Apt)...
About 3 hours of driving on a crazy variety of roads (expensive toll roads to one-lane mountain roads to little roads through farm fields) brought us to a cute little town on a hill which looked over miles and miles of vineyards. In what is called the Luberon valley is nestled this quiet little agricultural area of France, surrounded by farming roads and big expat houses with little olive groves and a smattering of private swimming pools. Our house ended up being directly next to remnants of a castle and the ancient fortified city walls of the area, now a crumbling mass of tumbling stones. What appeared to be a moat turned out to be the city's dam...

The house is hard to explain, since it took us two days to figure out where everything was and how not to get lost. At one point Eilidh came running into the kitchen, "Where's Bella?" and I said, "In your bedroom." Eilidh went running up one set up stairs, to be followed ten seconds later by Bella running down a second set of steps into the kitchen, "Where's Eilidh?" I again said, "In your bedroom" and Bella went running off, stopping a few seconds later to say, "Where's the bedroom again?" The house has two courtyards, a fountain, 4 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms (I think), 2 kitchens, a living room we found quite late, and a few fireplaces... The ceilings are either bare beams or plaster-caved. Yeah! We better enjoy it while we can because we are going to be a in a two-bedroom, one-bath house next week!