On our last morning in Rome we spent time at the Post Office sending another box of souvenirs home. Once again, Bella and I found ourselves struggling, this time it was just to get into the building which had a double airlock door system which we could not work out. I'm sure we provided a great deal of entertainment for the post office staff and customers! When we finally got in, feeling just a little flustered and embarrassed, the man we dealt with didn't speak much English, but enough for us to get it posted. Then we rushed to our appointment at the Gallery Borghese. This is a privately owned gallery, and bookings are essential. There are only two time slots per day, and no photos are allowed. We had heard it was quite an amazing gallery, and it really was. It turns out that the Borghese's were/are people of note in Italy. A few of them were Popes and there was (and probably still is!) plenty of money and influence in this family! A large portion of the family's collection was sold to Napoleon at one point, and is now displayed in the Louvre as the Borghese collection, so we look forward to seeing that when we are in Paris. What is still in the collection is absolutely beautiful, plus the entire building is fabulous. All the walls and ceilings are covered with trompe l'oeil, frescoes, paintings and sculptures - just breathtaking. And the gardens would be spectacular in summer. Then we dodged our way out of the terrible traffic of Rome and off to atrocious traffic of Genoa - about a seven hour drive, mainly on the freeway. We toyed with stopping at Pisa but decided to press on.
Genoa was chosen for no other reason than the fact that it was close to the French border. As we drove in we thought it was possibly one of the ugliest cities we've seen. The rows and rows of apartment blocks would not look out of place in some of the former communist cities we've visited, and it looks quite grimy and more than a bit decrepit. We stayed at the Hotel Helvetia which dates from 1585 and is in the oldest part of the city. It was nice and clean and certainly well located, and the staff were the friendliest I've ever come across - they could not do enough for you! With their assistance we located a great restaurant for our last meal in Italy, and Bella and I chose the prize dish of the evening, seafood pasta. Delicious. With plenty of red wine of course. The next day rain was predicted, but the day started off OK - it even felt quite mild. We wandered around the old city so I could take some photos and headed to the Aquarium, which is claimed to be the second largest in Europe, but baulked at paying 97 Euro (just under $150) for the family. Especially as we'd just agreed to take the kids to EuroDisney. So we decided to take in the Robert Doisneau exhibition showing just off the main square. He's a famous French photographer and I really enjoyed his photos. He certainly gave me some ideas on composition.
By the time we headed off it was really raining (and a lot colder!) so the drive along the coast through the French Riviera was not too exciting. Worryingly I was unable to program the GPS with the address of the home stay we'd booked in Aix-en-Provence. We decided just to get into Aix-en-Provence then ring the owners for some assistance. We had got this homestay at a bargain price of 50 euro a night (with free street parking!) but didn't realise the location was actually Berre l'Etang. It's sort of like the time I booked us an apartment in "Kerobokan Seminyak", and in fact it was in Kerobokan not Seminyak, and it was quite a few kilometres further up the coast with nothing around it. Well "Berre l'Etang Aix-en-Provence" is actually a small town about 30 kilometres from Aix-en-Provence, not in Aix-en-Provence at all. No wonder it didn't come up on our GPS. In the meantime however, we rang the owners who could not speak any English at all. He did try the time honoured method of repeating what he'd said slowly and a bit louder each time, but sadly that didn't help us at all. In the end I called the emergency number for the home stay company who explained that we were no-where near where we needed to be. Greg was not happy to find that I'd actually booked us into the back block suburbs and to top it off, no wifi (which I must have missed, as I always look for wifi). I desperately hoped that it was going to look gorgeous and rural when we woke up the next day, but no, it turned out we had a lovely view of the huge power plant from the front yard. So while it was clean and comfortable and the owners were very kind (despite the fact that our communication was so limited!) I wouldn't recommend staying there :-)
We had a great day out from there though, to Arles. It was very clear day, bitingly cold, but we thoroughly enjoyed wandering around the really wonderful Roman ruins in Arles and also retracing some of Van Gogh's footsteps (we thought of you Casper!). The famous yellow house Van Gogh lived in was bombed and destroyed in WW2 but we could visit the location, and we were able to visit the former hospital he stayed in and the gardens are mostly unchanged. We thought it was amusing that the tourist blurb reads something like "Arles was a quiet and sleepy town until the recent visit of Van Gogh and Gauguin" - recent?? We also spent time at the Antiquities Museum - all Roman antiquities taken from sites in Arles.
I was also keen to visit Les Baux Provence which has a reputedly gorgeous medieval castle and also the "Carrieres de Lumiere" which is a multi-media show set in a dis-used quarry at Les Baux. Images from paintings are projected onto all the rock surfaces, including the ground, and its all set to music - totally amazing and well worth the visit. We'd read it was Van Gogh and Gauguin, but in fact the theme had changed to the Mediterranean and featured Chegall and Matisse among others. Quite breath taking. Anyway we ran out of daylight to see the castle, although we did see it from the road. In summer apparently they have knights jousting and everything, it would be fun. Plus all around Arles and Les Baux the countryside is just what you'd expect in Provence! Not a power station in sight :-)
Today we departed our friendly hosts and set off to Avignon, to find a Maccas and some wifi so we could book some accommodation in Lyon! We are staying in a fairly large and impersonal new style hotel here in Lyon, but the price is not bad and the metro is literally outside the door. This evening we spent wandering the city and had a light dinner (after a late lunch) of oysters and charcuterie before retiring from the cold to the comfort of our little apartment! Lyon is famous for its food, apparently they do everything you can imagine with every bit of the pig including snout, trotters, intestines etc, but Greg still has very bad memories of an andouillete sausage (a mixture of the previously mentioned items encased in the large intestine and tasted as you'd imagine
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