You should eat before battling tourists....

Okay so we are back from vacation and really I need to get serious about seeing the sights of Paris. Up until now we have been hopscotching through playgrounds and sampling treats. There are some very important things to see here in this crazy city. Unfortunately there are about a million other people here as well trying to see the sights. The line for the Eiffle Tower was a good example that those other tourists, the ones here for only a few days, mean business. So, fine. We'll get clever.

SP calling SJ at work: Meet us outside the Tuileries station at 5:30 pm. Bring nothing.
SJ: What's with the clandestine crap?
click

So here we are waiting for dad with a can of Orangina to share....

....or steal. Whichever way you look at it.

I prepared a simple and quick picnic dinner to eat in this gorgeous park. Sorry for the bad pics- only had my iPhone on me.

But of course brought the wine.....

And at 6:15 we crossed the park and got in a much shorter line at the Louvre for their Wednesday evening hours. It was still mayhem but not as bad as it would be during the day. I must say that the Louvre is my least favorite museum in all of Europe only because of its set up. Oh it is just so hard to see everything you want to see. It houses some of my most favorite pieces of art (NOT THE MONA LISA) but getting to them all without losing your legs is nearly impossible. One of my favorite thing to do is watch all the tourists who have clearly tried to do it all in one visit sitting with their heads in their hands with an air of exhaustion written all over them. You should never try to do the Louvre all at once- you won't even enjoy what you do get to see. We decided to break it up into 3 evening visits so we could actually digest all that beautiful art. We did the Denon Wing this time which has the Mona. Sweet Pea was very interested in seeing her amidst all the throngs of people. I tried to contain my annoyance with the swarms of people trying to get a peek at what I think is Leonardo's least interesting piece of work. Once she gets a glimpse of a Caravaggio she'll forget all about Mona.

Pezenas. Love it. Will return.

We stayed here- great place. I could not speak more highly of this hotel. We rented an apartment through them but the hotel was spectacular.

The top and middle windows are ours.

Somebody in this neighborhood dares to be different....and I like it!

The old streets of Pezenas. So beautiful.

My new nephew has a few things from here.....

Friday nights in August the town put on a wine tasting festival. It was small and not as good as the one we hit in Fitou but fun nonetheless.

This place opens up early early in the morning to sell shellfish. I grabbed some mussles one day for part of our dinner that night.

Okay so at home we have biscuits we can make out of a can. Here you pop open that thing and can make Pain au Chocolate. I just had to try it!

They were terrible. (shaking her head and smiling with a grimace)

Although not as terrible as this horrible dessert called le religeuse (sp?) - I am not even going to explain it - the pictures say it all.

This is a petit pate de peznas which is a specialty for the town of minced meat and dried fruit. I loved them. Rest of family said "no thank you". Okay. More for me.

And being so close to spain- Paella was everywhere.

What could be more french than a man in a beret selling a huge hunk of cheese?

No, seriously, I did fall....

I am laughing my ass of realizing the title of my last post.

This morning I fell.

No really, I totally f'ing wiped out while trying to scoot between parked cars and the wind picked up my baggy frenchie pantalons and wrapped the loose fabric around one of my feet and I was a gonner. Down. and Down hard. I could barely walk for a few hours and we decided that traveling home on such an injury tomorrow wasn't prudent. So we have extended our stay until Tuesday to make sure I am well enough to travel.

Oh isn't that too bad?

Beach Days

Pezenas is about an hour south of Montpellier and inland a bit. If you drive directly to the sea from Pez you would get to the beaches near the town of Agde. I had heard these beaches were crowded and touristy. After the drive down to what were supposed to be the nicer beaches south of Perpignan and not loving them we decided to hang at our local plage at Cap D'Agde. We hit Jungle Beach the first day and stuck with it for the rest of the week. It is a wide beach with great sand and a shallow reef that went way out which was good for the kids. For some strange reason the French don't really appear on the beach scene until about 3:30 or 4:00 pm. There are a few people there earlier but most of them head home for a long lunch around 12:30 and then don't reappear until late late in the afternoon. You will see a difference in the number of people on the beach in the following pictures and you will be able to tell without a doubt what time of day they were taken. While the beaches did get crowded the one thing that SJ and I noticed and loved is that the French seem to love to play. They are always joking around and yes sometimes that can be annoying but they all seemed to be having a nice time together. The groups were always of families and never groups of families. Just several generations of one large family. Grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins all together for a month at the beach. Parents were constantly playing with their children. I have never seen so much collaborative work on sandcastles. Oh and paddle ball- everyone is playing it all day long! In the US I think we are very guilty for the most part of taking our kids to the beach and asking them to entertain themselves while the grown-ups read a book. For the most part, fathers were never sitting down but always up and doing something with the kiddos. Grandparents were in on it too, sneaking snacks and treats to the grandchildren. It was nice to see.

This was dead center off the beach and made for a beautiful view every day.

Sweet Pea playing in the calm waters of the Med.

Buddy hanging out in the refreshing water.

This guy was our favorite Beignet vendor on the beach. What might you ask is a beignet? A donut. Yes, the lithe, thin French eat freaking donuts in the hot sun in their bathing suits. Their speedo for men and bottoms only for women bathing suits. I swear they have their own secret genetic code for not gaining weight. Anyway, this hilarious guy would walk up and down the beach singing and dancing to sell his beignets. There were a few other vendors also selling donuts but they were far less entertaining.

Of course we had to sample one. Buddy did the honors of ordering. I handed him a 2 euro piece and he bolted for the nearest beignet guy and fearlessly ordered a beignet in French. That kid will do anything for food.

While it was good, the ice cream cones from the lady walking up and down the beach with a rolling ice chest were much more refreshing on a hot beach day.

The sun is hot here. We kept focusing on Buddy and his transparent skin and in the end his sister got the burn. Whoops.

We had a big storm one night and the water was rocking and rolling the next day. Everyone (except me who fell that morning) had a great time playing in the waves......

I hobbled in on my poor leg briefly to cool off though.

This is what the beach looked like at 5:00 pm when the crowds had really arrived. By then it was time for us to go and enjoy some cold rose in our beautiful town of Peznas.

This is a sign posted at the entrance to the A9 autoroute. The signs behind never gave an indication of what color the traffic would be. I thought it was a better system to describe the day of a parent of young children. When asked how was your day you could simply say "yellow".