Musings

Not much vegetation other than trees and weeds…but we did find this blooming shrub…apple relative?

Around the corner, a nice web of vines, leafless, and a juniper(?).

Found a book market, with a few browsers and very little selling/buying.

Strange look on the lion’s face…winsome?

Interesting split shutters, I theorized to keep the line of sight from below into the room truncated.

Love the dangling foot outside this pediment…don’t know the story being told. She’s got a crown with a castle atop it and he’s dumping out the wine(?) jug…perhaps harvest symbolism in wheat, sunrays, and veggie pile.

Never seen a lock like this….

Today’s hood-photo: burger night for the Guru. Burger in elegant bun with pink mayo sauce, fries, wine, and a side of salmon-avocado sushi. Of course.

Posted at 2:12 PM | Comments Off on Sunday stroll

Rainy early, so we got going late—no reason not to! As the skies cleared and the streets were still wet, we headed out for a wander, with no other destination than a meal when we became hungry.

Soon, the sun gave us light and shadow art.

And on a plaza, too.

Note the plane (sycamore-ish) trees…detest the severe pruning that makes them all knotty and knobbly.

We stumbled into this curving section of what is billed as a stretch of the medieval wall—the inside was to the right.

And, just down the way, this wall and tower, which must be from a later wall that enclosed a bit more real estate.

Note plane tree far right….

A street veg display. Most species are from France.

And, on that same corner, a lovely old sign above…. Your chemiserie destination.

Under the sign a mini-minibus waits for the bollard to descend and permit passage.

In the next block, a pawn-bollard was down. Love the paving-stone pattern.

The face fountain…I only gave you a face yesterday.

More plane trees….

On the other side of the same square, a human figure behind a pigeon screen, below a day-of-the-month device that’s way off.

Lunch break! This is my chicken breast stuffed with crayfish, sides of mashed potatoes and poêlée de champignons—which turns out to be fried/sauteed mushrooms. Yum. And a wine from this area, from a town a mere 17km from central Aix.

Full, we wandered apartment-ward, passing by this plaza undergoing rebuilding…in the process revealing the bases of old walls/foundations…apparently of the palace of the town’s count. Didn’t catch the date—17th, maybe 18th century?

After a siesta-like downtime, we headed back out to see the city under lights. Nice night!

Discovered that some plane trees are afflicted with a fungus tree types call canker (chancre coloré here), and soon will be cut down. That is a big problem in this town of many, but not exclusively, plane trees.

Yawn…tomorrow!

Posted at 2:57 PM | Comments Off on Street adventures

Under overcast skies, we boarded a train to our new temporary domicile. We got good wishes on our way out of the train station.

I seem to forget how much infrastructure it takes to serve several tracks of electrified trains.

There’s pretty much our final sea view…bye-bye, Mediterranean.

After getting settled (2nd floor, whew, last place was on 4th, pant pant), we headed out for a bite. The real restaurants are closed this time of day, so we found a bistro. I decided to try a pastis 51 beverage. Yup, fennel/licorice-y; I’m guessing it will destroy bad breath! Loved the wax mountains on the base of the candle-stick.

We must have been craving a bit of veg; we each got the chef salad, I guess you could call it. Yum! That’s parmesan, warm chicken and lardon bits. And maize kernels. Plus plus.

Happily filled, we headed out to the groc store. Found a fountain with four faces, eyes left on one, right on the next, spouts in mouths. No water at the moment, however.

Found a worker winding up his day having gotten these cobblestones set for mortar, perhaps tomorrow? We leave nearby and can check….

On our way back with our new grocery bag, not terribly loaded but with important goodies like cheese and milk (Kuerig-like coffee pods supplied in apartment), we found this charming square…somewhat more interesting than the one our apartment overlooks, but strangely nearly unused. Look at all that grass/weeds! And no benches.

Are we settling in for a quiet evening, or will we head out again after the “real” restaurants open at seven or seven-thirty? I’m giving the edge to inertia….

Posted at 12:27 PM | Comments Off on Moving “house”

We went to bed early last night, thoroughly pooped. My eyes were closed by 8pm after a longlonglong travel day. We slept and slept. We finally got up just before 11am. [Have I slept that long since I was an infant?] We were thoroughly rejuvenated (no surprise!), especially after the pot of coffee the Guru made…coffee and milk thoughtfully stocked in our apartment!

We set off to explore the harbor. Marseille’s harbor is a rectangular U with the opening to the west. We live in the old town, on the north side. There’s a fort on each side of the harbor opening. This photo is from the north fort toward the south fort. Also, the southern skyline is dominated by the Basilique Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde, high on a rocky outcrop. Although it looks older, it was built in the late mid-1800s. If you get closer or have a big lens, you can see the glinting, gilded statue of the Virgin atop the belltower.

Down at the harbor, you can see that what was once a working harbor used by fisherman, traders, and pirates navies, there’s still a bit of evidence of fishing, but mostly the harbor is full of moored pleasure boats, both sailing and motoring.

I was quite interested in these boat supports/jacks, for the endlessly necessary work on hull cleaning and maintenance.

The many docks radiating out from the wide apron around the water are all protected by gates; this one even had barbed wire. As near as we could tell, each dock was controlled by a different group, usually named a Society of Somethingorother.

Tourists did the usual lots of phone checking, pictures, music, whatever….

Oddly, I noticed no selfie-sticks. Wha? Bring a friend instead?

The base of the U has an artistic high reflective…roof(?), creating probably highly appreciated shade in the summer heat. Today, not so much. Note winter coats.

We took the obligatory close-up shots. Here’s a fine one showing complex anchor engineering.

We also took, uhem, I took many mast-reflection shots. Here’s only one, Lucky You.

We finally got around to the south end of the U, and looked back across the harbor mouth at the northern harbor-protecting fort.

Along the way, we stopped for a big seafood lunch. Big. Mine was a bowl of mixed species. I could not identify the flavors in the broth, quite tasty, but I’m pretty sure it was thickened with bread crumbs. It was served with a small bowl of grated hard cheese, and a small bowl of mustard with garlic and I don’t know what else. I wasn’t sure what to do with them, so after I’d gotten some of the shells out of the way (mmmmm), I stirred them both in. The broth was good both before and after the additions.

The Guru had moules frites, which is mussels with a side of fries. The mussels had marsala (pretty sure) and garlic (definitely) in the steaming/boiling liquid/broth; also yummmmm.

After our lovely, sun-drenched walking tour of the harbor (we missed the cross-harbor pedestrian ferry (1€ for two people), and so walked around the east end of the harbor, then cut north and west finally getting into the narrow streets of our neighborhood. There’s plenty of elevation change, and some sections are all steps.

We had such fun, and took hundreds of photos; I only include the merest sample, chosen to include the highlights—boats, buildings, sunlight. Also, see the moon!? Time to head to the bakery for some take-home quiche for tonight and pain au chocolat for breakfast. Our world is pretty darned fine.

Oops. I almost forgot to add that out our kitchen window I can see this headless Barbie on the tile roof across the street. Abandoned art, or art by abandonment?

Posted at 2:42 PM | Comments Off on Harbor day

My valentine and I are both mushroom fans. So I created this menu: big mushroom sauté, marinated baked chicken, pot of rice vaguely pilafed, radish side.

Here’s the marinade for the chicken: chopped garlic and mint, lemon zest, fresh-ground black pepper, olive oil, lemon juice, sea salt. Also spooned it over the chicken while it was baking (twice). Put the marinated chicken on halved green onions (more fussy than my usual cooking style), with a few mint leaves—both to flavor the meat from below. Added the lemon slices a third of the way through the baking.

The mushrooms…sliced, sautéed in butter with a bit of salt—oh so simple. Added some chopped garlic and a few of the cooked mushies (and salt, duh) to the rice as it cooked. Added sliced green onion tops to the rice a minute before it was ready—and let it steam for a few minutes after the fire was off. Just put the salted, halved radishes in the microwave for a bit, presto!

Happy Val-Day!

Yes, it was yummy. Yes, there are leftovers for tomorrow. Chef is smiling for two lovely reasons!

Posted at 8:37 PM | Comments Off on So French, my Valentine commented

Martini-lunch day…

…celebrating my FIL’s 92nd birthday.

Posted at 6:59 PM | Comments Off on Salud!

We got exuberant today in the sunshine, and headed over to the BeltLine. Since we were there last, the powers-that-be have put a new set of public art along the right-of-way. I liked the asymmetry of this one.

We headed farther than I expected to (over-exuberance?), to check out the Kroger apartment building across from Ponce City Market. Many crews working, with two cranes, one at each end of the complex, including this load of supplies being elevated to the upper level. I think there’ll be at least two more floors added to this end of the building. Note the old roof-top water tower on the old, neighboring building.

Okay, I am cribbing the title phrase from the redesigned label of our favorite Georgia cheese….

Posted at 6:45 PM | Comments Off on Barn-free

At our Iron Horse themed dinner stop, I found several remaining bits of rotten snow, clear indication that we are in a different world.

Following an otherwise unplumbed urge, I tried a pewter blue cocktail. A bit citrus-y. Okay. No need to do it again, however.

Continuing the theme, man catches Amtrak—maybe not the way you’re thinking, however…. Love the signal-shadow.

Posted at 10:05 PM | Comments Off on Remains and shadows

At the sto’ to get milk, we wandered into the wine section, and I discovered some fruity-bubbly leftovers from New Year’s. I guess even the flavored-vodka set couldn’t get into these flavors of champagne-like toasting liquid.

And we passed up both versions, too. Hah!

Posted at 7:45 PM | Comments Off on Too secco

Very glad for the sunlight, as the cold-cold is headed our way…headed toward much of NorthAmerica, I think.

Among our errands, we stopped for our last phở of 2017. Yum.

Posted at 8:36 PM | Comments Off on Slurp slurp