With a massive August 1 deadline looming large at work, the first two weeks of July were hardly the time to jet off to Europe. But the tickets were booked, so travel we did. Consider it more of a remote working situation with slightly reduced hours: while I can count the number of days I worked less than 5 hours on one hand, it's not often that you end the evening with a three-course meal or a theatrical performance in a medieval castle.
We kicked off the vacation with a large family shindig in honor of Nicolas's grandma, whose untimely passing in April of 2020 had been impossible to mark in any communal way given the ban on gatherings at the time. The whole Kouzan clan was there, from across mainland France, Switzerland, and even Reunion Island. Nicolas finally got to test out his newest familial chess rival's skills, and he and I threw hoops with the kids until my shoes were literally bursting at the seams.
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| Nicolas challenging his nephew to a round of chess |
The next week in Paris flew by, between scattered drinks with friends, walks along the Seine, the obligatory Pierre Hermé macarons, and (I hate to admit it) a lot of sleep deprivation to keep cranking out the workload.
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| Look, I did actually see a bit of Paris between writing all that code! |
We awoke at 4:30am to a flurry of messages about the scandalous news breaking from Neuralink as we hurried to off to our 6am train south. At that hour, there'd be no metro to help us out so we had to hike ourselves over to the Gare de Lyon.
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| The Gare de Lyon positively glows at sunrise |
Several glorious high-speed-train hours later, we were planted in a garden in Avignon in southern France, in the shade of the Popes' Palace, overlooking mountains, and crashing hard in an afternoon nap. The lack of wifi in our Airbnb was an unexpected blessing that did allow me to do catch up on sleep over the next few days. But before we could venture much into the winding medieval streets of Avignon, we hit the train station the following morning, destination: Châteauneuf-du-Pape, home of insanely overpriced wines with the most charming bottle insignia.
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| A day trip to Châteauneuf-du-Pape. On the bottom left you can see one of the many cicadas responsible for the soundtrack of summer in the south of France. |
Châteauneuf-du-Pape translates to "the pope's new castle." Back when the popes had temporarily ditched Rome for the south of France, one of them had himself built a castle from a nice vantage point in town with a perfect vista across the hills and the Rhone River. Unfortunately, not too much of said chateau still stands: basically just the facade and one remaining wall. The Nazis used to the facility to store munitions and, when retreating, figured it best blow it all up rather than arm the enemy. Luckily, no bombs destroyed the surrounding vineyards: that was left for climate change to do the job. While the future of these vineyards is feeling quite uncertain, they still output some of France's fanciest wines today. Our best stop was Ogier, where the generous tasting included a proper lesson in the impact of soil (terroir) on the wine: they take the same exact varietal and grow it in four neighboring plots: limestone, sand soil, red sandstone, and cobblestones. They kindly broke out a couple of the bottles and the difference in outcome was striking.
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| Avignon, where we saw (and survived) theatrical performances, treated ourselves, and unfortunately spent more time on our work laptops in adorable cafés than I care to admit. |
We'd arrived in Avignon just in time for the kick off of their annual theater festival, where we squeezed in one horribly classy and seemingly endless performance in the main courtyard (the Cour d'Honneur) within the walls of the Popes' Palace, Chekhov's Black Monk, as well as three much lighter-hearted performances about Olympe de Gouges (France's revolutionary-era outspoken feminist), a love quadrangle, and the struggles of modern day work-life (not starring yours truly). And, although we missed out on properly touring the palace after an afternoon workload left me trapped in a cafe until closing time (remember the wifi-less Airbnb?), we didn't skimp on meals nor the obligatory decadent desserts. And let's be honest, even a cafe in the south of France isn't the worst place for remote work. I discovered the southern French iced tea tradition: green teas pre-steeped with mint and lemon, in a fabulously refreshing concoction. And Nicolas even sampled a coffee and tonic - who'd have thought?
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| Nicolas finally got to see lavender fields in bloom - a first for him! |
A big highlight (for me more so than him) was Nicolas finally seeing the lavender fields in bloom! We ticked that off when venturing out for a day-long tour through an assortment of scenic villages and small towns scattered across the region, where I got a ton of amazing photo ops and basically retained nothing of the local history.
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| A tour through Provence |
Before bidding adieu to Provence, we hit up one last destination: Arles, an old Roman city famous for inspiring many of Van Gogh's paintings and for being a key stop along one of the four pilgrimage routes to Santiago de Compostela. Although we missed out on a tour of the amphitheater upon discovering, to our surprise, that it had closed early to prepare for a bull show that very evening, we still hit up most of the key sites. Our highlights included a tour of the Elysian fields, where pathways are still lined with old decorative coffins as was the tradition in pre-Christian Roman times; and the Pâtisserie Yamamoto, a mouth-watering Japanese-French pastry fusion.
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| Arles, an old Roman city with delightfully modern pastries |
We saw each other off at the Gare d'Avignon, Nicolas to his family reunion part deux, me to the port city of Marseille where Sharon would be meeting me for a last romp in southern France before her big move back to the States after well over a decade of living large in Europe.
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| A quick girls' trip to Marseille |
While in Marseille, Sharon and I ate well, drank well, boated well, and took delight in the dollar and euro hitting parity for the very first time. We toured the Calanques National Park. I got my crêpe with scallops and creamed leeks, and lavender ice cream. We dined on fancy food and pastries near the water. And we befriended our Airbnb host's little dog Paco. Overall, quite a successful girls' trip south.
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| Meet my new friend Paco! |
Nicolas, Sharon, and assorted European friends all gathered to celebrate Bastille Day along the banks of the Seine for a final picnic before packing our bags.
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| Sharon, me, and Vasilisa enjoying those long French summer nights on Bastille Day |
It went by too fast, and with far too much working. Here's to hoping that my very effective demonstration of my capacity to work from abroad leads to a longer trip next year!
