#it inspired these :^) had to include le vieux of course as well

[thetechnicolorphase]

tarot cards

[carriagelamp]

Since it’s 🍁 Canada Day 🍁 I figured I’d do the same thing I did for Pride Month and post a round up of Canadian books. Canadian literature has a tendency to be overlooked, but there’s some amazing gems out there!

That being said, this is definitely not a definitive list. There’s lot of lists out there that probably better, more relevant books. This is just a personal list as a Canadian person of Canadian lit I’ve read that stood out to me for whatever reason. I definitely encourage you though to look into some of the new Canadian novels being written write now, especially all the awesome own voice stories being written by First Nations authors across the country!

I’ve read a fair few Canadian novels over the years, so I’m going to break them up into one post of highlights each day for the remainder of the week: one for Children’s Novels / Chapter Books one for YA / Adult Novels, one for Graphic Novels and one for Picture Books.

Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery

This is like… The Canadian Novel ™ isn’t it? I imagine that even if you’ve never heard of any other Canadian novel, you’ve probably heard of Anne of Green Gables, if for no other reason than it’s been adapted a million times over. If you’ve never bothered to read the original though, I highly recommend it. Since it was written in 1908 the language is definitely old-fashioned, but that somehow makes it engaging enough to keep an adult reader hooked, while not being too difficult for a child reader who’s moved on to full length novels. It also, of course, makes a fantastic read aloud – I’ve reread this book easily a dozen times over the years since first having it read aloud to me by my mom, during which we both bawled our eyes out together.

If you somehow haven’t heard of Anne, it’s about Anne Shirley, a wildly imaginative (and just wild) orphan girl who is adopted by the Cuthberts and brought to live with them on their Prince Edward Island farm, Green Gables. The Cuthberts had originally intended to adopt a boy who could help with the farm work, but when Matthew Cuthbert finds a girl waiting for him at the train station he can’t bring himself to turn her away. And so begins the hijinks and misadventures of Anne as she grows from child to young adult.

Le Champ Maudit by François Gravel

I’ve always loved the genre of child-horror and this book absolutely delivers. The creature, vieux Nick, and the way it exists in space is delightfully chilling even as an adult. The story is about Oliver, who has often been warned by his uncle not to go into the cornfields – it makes sense after all, the cornfields are vast and uniform, it would be easy to get lost in them. Oliver has no reason to assume there’s something more sinister lurking in them, or that it could be tied to the other people who have gone missing over the years. That is, not until he makes the mistake of chasing a rabbit into the stalks one evening…

The Dragon’s Egg by Alison Baird

I was absolutely a “dragon kid” as a child, I loved any sort of dragon book I could get my hands on and I read this one over and over when I was in grade three. It’s about Ai Len who is given a lovely river stone by her father from his trip to China. Ai Len is shocked one night when, all of a sudden, she realizes that it wasn’t a stone at all, but rather a dragon’s egg. Lonely Ai Len befriends the baby dragon (who disguises himself as one of her gold fishes during the day) and helps him grow and learn as they try to figure out how he can get back home to the river his family inhabits.

Fatty Legs by Christy Jordan-Fenton and Margaret Pokiak-Fenton

Fatty Legs is the true story account of Margaret Pokiak, an Inuvialuit child who grew up with her family in the Arctic. At the age of eight, despite their reputations and her father’s reluctance, Margaret begs to be allowed to attend the Catholic residential school because there was nothing she wanted more than to learn to read. There, far from her warm, loving family, Margaret learns about the cruelties and humilities of residential school. This book is a good introduction to residential schools for young children – it shows the horrors while still keeping the story child-friendly and relatable.

The Incredible Journey by Sheila Burnford

The classic novel that inspired Disney’s film Homeward Bound. This story is about three pets – two dogs and a cat – who are left behind under the care of a family friend at an isolated cabin. These three determined pets though refuse to abandon their humans that easily. After a couple weeks of no contact, a decision is made: they will make the trek across the dangerous North Ontario wilderness in order to find their owners. This is a great animal story that genuinely feels perilous at times as these three house pets are forced to contend against the elements, wild predators, and even other humans.

Inkling by Kenneth Oppel

Kenneth Oppel is a human name in Canadian middle grade literature – not only is he a great writer, but an incredibly prolific one. If you have a middle school child in your life, consider checking out this man’s library of works because he has books that range across all sorts of different genres and topics, and they tend to be unique and gripping. They’re a staple in any Canadian school library.

Inkling is about a boy, Ethan, who is struggling with his life. His family has gone through a personal tragedy, his artist father is struggling to write a new graphic novel, and Ethan’s been entrusted with drawing the art for his school group’s graphic novel assignment, and he can’t bring himself to tell them his father’s talent wasn’t hereditary. Everything changes though, when one night, his father’s ink wakes up… This book is really heartwarming, with sweet family moments, lots of action, and an adorable ink blob that’s just trying to do its best.

My Name is Seepeetza by Shirley Sterling

Another own voice novel, this time written by West Coast Salish and residential school survivor Shirley Sterling. This novel is written like a weekly diary by six year old Seepeetza who is taken from her joyous family home and forced into a residential boarding school. While there she is forced to change her name, her language, and all the things that made her life happy and complete. Despite all this, Seepeetza finds ways to survive and still find joy. This book is written for a slightly older audience than Fatty Legs, more of a thin middle grade novel but still balances the brutal horrors of residential schools with a child-friendly narration.

The Secret World of Og by Patsy Berton

This is another Canadian children’s classic, though a much less well-known one than Anne of Green Gables. My mom read this to me and my brother in early elementary school, a chapter a night, and I remember being completely wrapped up in it and it’s strange, quirky pictures. It’s about the five Berton children who discover a strange, cavernous world hidden beneath their club house, inhabited by little creatures called Ogs.

Secrets in the Sand by Sharon Siamon

This is exactly what it looks like: a true to form Horse Girl book. There’s nothing overly special about it, but I read it this month and was charmed by it. This is technically the second book of the Saddle Island series (and she has two other Horse Girl related series as well though I haven’t read them) but for whatever reason I read the second first and actually enjoyed it more of the two. It has it all! A spunky, head-strong girl! Her best friend and annoying brother! A small, financially struggling Maritime town! A brave horse that loves the ocean and swims into underwater caves! The promise of pirate treasure! Saving The Family Farm (and rebuilding it from the ground up on a tiny island)! Want a fun mindless horse adventure? Well here it is!

Silverwing by Kenneth Oppel

I know, I know, another Kenneth Oppel book but listen… he is so prolific and also it might be a crime to do a Canadian book list and not mention Silverwing. This was a childhood staple when I was growing up, practically everyone had either read it for class, read the entire series on their own because who wouldn’t want to, or watched the weird ass TV series. Or done all three! If you haven’t read Silverwing but like animal adventure stories, this is honestly one of the peaks of the entire genre imho. It’s about Shade, a small silverwing bat that struggles with the rules and limits placed around bat colony life. He’s constantly pushing things, constantly challenging others regardless of if they’re his bullying yearmates or if they’re the clan elders. But one day, Shade takes it too far and breaks a vital law: he stayed up and saw the sun. Now the owls are determined to have Shade killed and the clan is prepared to exile him for his transgression. All this just as the clan is preparing to migrate, and Shade, with his small runty wings, ends up falling further and further behind in the storm…

Underground to Canada by Barbara Smucker

I debated whether or not to include this book, given all the BLM movements going on. This book isn’t own voice, and in the research I’ve done since becoming an adult has made me realize a number of the problems that surround it. But still, it felt wrong to leave out, both because of the social climate right now and because this was another classroom staple when I was growing up. It’s about a pair of young slave girls who are horribly abused on the planation they live on, and who eventually join in on a plot to run away, to find the rumoured “underground railroad”, a network of people who help black slaves escape captivity and escape – in this case across the border into Canada. Despite its flaws, this was a book we read in school and, through the book and classroom discussions, really introduced me to the concept of slavery and racism… and the fact that racism is still horribly alive today. It shook me as a child – it was written to be optimistic and adventurous for children, but it still had more violence and horror than I was used to in books at that age and it really shook me. So I included it in the list because, for me at least, I believe it had a positive effect on my growth as a person.

Up In Arms by Amanda Spottiswoode

This is a woefully underrated series because it really delights me. It’s about six friends, spread across two families. Though they’re from the UK, this series is all about their adventures with their uncle in Canada. Spottiswood writes children travel adventures, all set around the 1940s. The first, Brother XII’s Treasure is a treasure hunt along the West Coast during a sailing vacation; the second, The Silver Lining take them into British Columbia’s interior on cattle drive as the kids get drawn into adventures on horseback, a familiar villain, and old mining secrets. This third book I actually read before the others, and is my favourite of the series. It’s back on BC’s west coast, only this time rather than a vacation the kids of be sent to Canada because of the outbreak of WWII. You get high-flying adventure, wilderness survival, and planning a heist to help right the wrongs done to a local Indigenous community by the white settlers. It’s just a lot of fun.

[vieuxnoyesrp]

  ⚜  One year since the inception of Vieux Noyés RP!  ⚜

In honor of a year of creativity, inspiration, and much, much love, we’d like to share with you a glimpse at how much VN has meant to us in the past year. Where we were then, and how far we’ve come, all thanks to you. ♥

- Rose -

To me, VN is the definition of a labour of love. First, it was a love of these characters and a desire to see them explored in a more intimate and, in my opinion, authentic way. To see them develop to their full potential without the hindrance of time, commercial appeal or tv budgets. At the same time it was a love of collaboration with the two beautiful and incredibly talented women I have at my side; Kailey and Rimsha. They were the ones who inspired me to pursue this idea, who told me that I could, even when I doubted it. Without them; without Kailey’s enthusiastic push and overconfidence in me, without Rimsha’s affectionate cheerleading, VN may very well not have happened. 

It wasn’t always smooth sailing though; VN came with a lot of hard work (both collaborative and independent), endless brainstorming sessions, and the occasional heated passionate debate - just to keep things interesting. Throughout easy days and not-so-easy days, we’ve stuck it out as a team. I have so much trust and respect for these ladies that I could go on for pages. But suffice it to say, given the chance to do it all again, I couldn’t and wouldn’t have chosen a more trusted team by my side.

Last but not least, VN to me, became a deep fondness and love for the roleplayers we’ve been fortunate enough to attract. Every day I read the dash and am awed to have such extraordinary talent in our group. I check into the OOC after a long day at work - and it feels like coming home. You support one another, laugh together, and pick each other up on the rough days. This, to me, is undoubtedly the best thing about VN. And I am so humbled and so grateful to each and every one of you for joining and bolstering this dream.

A year ago, I was coming out of a difficult period in my life. I had recently lost my grandmother, I was struggling with a job I disliked, and I was studying for take-two of the MCAT/medical school entry exam (0/10 would not recommend, would not do again). I was down on my self-esteem, uncertain of my future, and kept joking about how I’d hit a ’Quarter Life Crisis’. A year since, and I’m in a much happier place; accepted into medical school, content with the present and yet looking forward to the future. So many of you have helped support me through this process and encouraged me through the crappy days. Thank you. Thanks so much to each and every one of you for making the dream a reality and joining us on this wild ride! Here’s to many more anniversaries to come! Laissez les bons temps rouler! ♥ ⚜

Also if you read all this you’re a champ. You go, Glen Coco

- Rimsha -

It’s hard to believe that we’ve come full circle. I remember well how and when the idea of VN was conceived. A brilliant idea that bloomed in Rose’s mind and one for which she had a lot of devotion and determination to see it realized. Like Rose, I too was going through a bit of a rough patch in life at the time -- turmoil on the career and Academic front, even within my family unit. Once VN had taken flight, it had fueled me to spend time plotting, planning, tinkering and helping bring it to life. A place that would house our muses for the supernatural, TO, and TVD character portrayals. But boy has it turned out to be so much more than that. I think it's safe to say that it's has exceeded our expectations, and then some.

It has been an honour being on the admin team of this roleplay, an honour to meet and interact with such a talented roster of writers who’ve brought so much enthusiasm. The part that particularly makes me proud is that we've been able to build a community, nay, a family. It's an environment where everyone truly shares ideas, moments, and most importantly supports one another. I cannot count the amount of times we’ve practically gushed on our admin chat about how it makes our hearts swell to see all of your reaching out to one another. I love how literally everyone has taken to the "no one gets left behind " mentality that we advocated from the very beginning. Thank you so much guys for all that you do, and please keep up that stellar streak. You’ve played an immense role in helping VN come this far. 

Unlike my two kick-ass admins, this was my first shot at admining. But I can definitely say that I’ve learned a whole lot from them over the course of this year. I think both Kailey and Rose deserve a hell of a lot of credit for all the time and effort they’ve put into this roleplay, for remaining so determined, for being there to restore my own drive, and also for being a bottomless pool of inspiration. To you both, I just wanna say, thank you for including me in your vision, for guiding me, and showing me the ropes. I’m honoured to work along side the two of you. And cannot wait to hatch more great plans with you. 

But while we’ve come this far, this is still only the beginning. So here’s to making many more memories. Stay awesome VN Fam! <3

- Kailey - 

It’s hard for me to think back to this time last year, to remember what a different person I was, how different my life was from where I am now. A year ago, I was finishing off my first year of grad school, the year I thought would for sure be the hardest year of my life wrong. My baby, my dream, Lifelines RP, had died, and with it, it had felt like I had lost all of my creative movement. Any desire to write had been drained from me in a lethal combination of literary grief and end-of-term papers. And then came VN. 

I’ve been known for being a bit overenthusiastic when I’ve got a plot rolling through my mind, and the minute the idea of VN was put before me, well I have to admit I was relentless, obsessed, inspired. I maybe bullied Rose into believing she could do this, and I don’t regret it for a single moment. Between the three of us, with Rose’s unending patience and passion, Rimsha’s incredible talent for world-building, and my dogged bites at their heels, VN was born. VN became beautiful, right in front of our eyes. We were so nervous, to tell you guys the truth. There was so much we could, and did, get wrong on the way here. But we stuck it out, and then, came you. 

We had hoped that our OOC would be a comfortable place, where people felt free to chat and share about themselves, where they felt like they had friends to talk to. But this? You guys have blown us away. You’ve opened your hearts to us, and you’ve jumped full-throttle onto our crazy train, and taken us places we had never even hoped we could go. VN’s become my life, my hobby, my work, my pride. My supervisor wants to join, guys. I kid you not. VN’s become my second family, something I had no idea how much I would need this year. 

I haven’t been around as often as I’d like to be, but I’m with you all every day, marveling in the beauty of the space and the stories we share. A year ago, Rose lost her grandmother, and we didn’t have VN yet. With how devastated she was, I wasn’t sure we’d ever write together again. In its infinite cruelty, I’m on my way home tomorrow, to (hopefully) see my grandpa one more time before he passes. I’m not okay, to be honest, but I know I’ll have my family, both of them, with me the whole time. I can’t tell you how much you all mean to me, and how closely I carry you to my heart each and every single day. 

                With love from our hearts to yours, may we write many more stories together,                                                     your admins ♥ 

                       ⚜  Laissez les bons temps rouler! ⚜

[how2to18]

I WAS IN the airport bookstore in Tallinn, Estonia, when I noticed a translation of Elmore Leonard’s Get Shorty. This was 2015. It had taken a while for him to reach the Baltics — 24 years, to be exact. That’s a long time compared to other American writers like Paul Auster and Charles Bukowski. Is there something about Elmore Leonard’s work that resists translation?

After reading Charles Rzepka’s Being Cool in paperback reissue (hardback 2013), I venture that there is. In this detailed and deep investigation of Leonard’s sangfroid, Rzepka lays out a number of factors that contribute to a more hermetic American-ness, one that just doesn’t offer foreign translators, publishers, or readers an easy grip on the author’s native charms. And it might matter that most of my translator friends in Estonia are women: I’ll get to that later.

Among the selling points of this study are useful snippets of Leonard’s biography, which Rzepka slips into his readings very dexterously. We learn that Leonard was the good Catholic schoolboy, the son of a General Motors executive, a skilled sand-lot baseball player, and a Seabee during World War II. He trained up as a writer at the Ewald-Campbell Advertising Agency in Detroit and after publishing a number of Western stories (relying on Arizona Highways magazine as his landscape guide), used its severance package to launch his full-time writing career. Although other writers have come up similarly (think of Kurt Vonnegut at GE, or Allen Ginsberg’s gig as a market researcher), Leonard was always very serious about his corporate work. In his fiction, Rzepka notes, “scenes of apprenticeship, mentoring, and testing” are “early versions of ‘being cool’ as a way of defending against self-dispossession by anger or panic.”

Rzepka dovetails this background of the “organization man” with Leonard’s self-schooling in the mechanics of the Western, showing the disciplined bones beneath early classics such as “Three-Ten to Yuma” (1953). There is great finesse here, not just the tricky plot reversals that strike us on first reading or viewing. By the time we reach an account of Leonard’s The Big Bounce (1969), his first crime novel, Rzepka has imparted a very modern sense of what the genre writer is. Like Cormac McCarthy, Leonard is above all a writer who does research, who knows that art is work and who works at it every day, who polishes his dialogue until not a word “sounds like writing” and strives to eliminate the “sharp elbows” in his plotting that might cause a reader to pause.

I myself came to Leonard with City Primeval: High Noon in Detroit (1980). I had just signed to write a book on Dashiell Hammett, so I was reading the two authors in tandem, and I found that Leonard had none of Hammett’s pop and repartee. But I could see that these were well-managed narratives, so I continued with Glitz (1985) and Freaky Deaky (1988). Then Carl Hiassen came into view and usurped this particular channel in my interests. And that’s another clue, I think, in explaining why Elmore Leonard has not traveled as well as Bukowski or Auster or Hiassen. His cool is hermetic.

Leonard doesn’t offer foreign readers what my academic colleagues would call affordances, a feature of visual design that tells you a doorknob is for turning or a ball is for throwing. If you are the translator of Raymond Chandler, you wait for his elaborate metaphors with relish; they are a challenge and a chance to have fun. Hemingway, meanwhile, is a par course and García Márquez a master class in syntax, while Bukowski sends you deep into the resources of your native slang. Leonard, by contrast, worked to make his presence invisible, to eliminate all the literary speech, to remove all the plot elbows. Translating him might be like recreating Amish chairs.

How Leonard achieved such seeming simplicity is what Rzepka calls his techne, Aristotle’s (and Thomas Aquinas’s) term for “skill.” The skills here are all in the service of “flow,” a being-in-the-moment sense that athletes know well: it is not timelessness, but such a high degree of practice that what comes next has been anticipated, has been set up so that there is no visible transition. According to Rzepka, this is what all of Leonard’s protagonists strive for too, but it took about a decade for the author and his heroes to meld style with character. The obstacle was that the style needed a certain amount of “flow” in order to avoid appearing wooden. The flow seems to readers to be improvisation, but actually it consists of subtle parallels, repetitions, and omissions: think of Joe Morello’s drum solo in “Take Five” by the Dave Brubeck Quartet. In this scene from Mr. Majestyk (1974), for instance, the protagonist almost sets his nephew straight about a certain woman:

“Listen,” Mr. Majestyk said then. “That broad on the phone —” “Yeah?” Mr. Majestyk smiled, self-conscious, showing his white perfect teeth. He shrugged then. “Why should I say anything — right? You’re old enough.” “I was about to mention it,” Ryan said.

Then there is Nancy, in the same novel, characterized — via free indirect discourse, says Rzepka — by her internal repetitions:

She sat quietly while Ray and his group whipped off to Chicago to attend the dumb meeting or look at the dumb plant and make big important decisions about their dumb business. Wow. And she sat here waiting for him.

Considering “cool,” of course, always leads back to Hemingway, for whom courage was “grace under pressure.” In his short story “Soldiers’ Home,” the character Krebs thinks about the lies he has been telling since returning from World War I. He has lost

all of the times that had been able to make him feel cool and clear inside himself when he thought of them; the times so long back when he had done the one thing, the only thing for a man to do, easily and naturally, when he might have done something else, now lost their cool, valuable quality and then were lost themselves.

That clearly includes killing people.

This is very close to what “cool” means to Leonard too, but Rzepka insists that his characters always feel at home in their skins, that these are not the intermittent “times” of Hemingway but a continuous flow, “never forgetting who you really were.” No Krebs’s moments of lying. This inspires the cool ones to “always dress well,” to “always be polite on the job,” and to “never say more than is necessary.” That some of these internal character rules are among Leonard’s rules for writing, leading to a synthesis of style and character, may be among the problems confronting translation.

While the reader of this book may flash back to Hemingway, it is impossible to read about Leonard’s dialogue without flashing forward to Richard Price. This is not a topic that Rzepka takes up, but the relation became explicit in a 2015 Washington Post interview with Price: “He admire[s] the great Elmore Leonard, perhaps the only writer in America that one could say surpassed him in street dialogue.” But Price does precious little research and admits to “making it up.” “I’m a good mimic,” he says.

Once you get the patter of how someone talks, you can replicate it. It’s not verbatim … It’s like after George Bush was president for eight years, if you told everybody in America to do Bush reading Shakespeare, everybody could do it. Maybe you’d [screw] up the Shakespeare, but you’d get the idea of how it would sound.

So perhaps it all does come down to craft: as the author of Clockers says elsewhere, “Realistic dialogue is interminable and goes nowhere. Good dialogue is about heightened reality, nudging it into a form that doesn’t really exist in the way people talk.” And the way people talk is gendered. If you are a translator, that’s another of your affordances, so that if you are a woman translating Hammett or Paul Auster, you can invoke and understand the gender gradations or oppositions that inform their worlds. Christine Le Bœuf once translated “The coot was stuck on her” in Auster’s The Book of Illusions as “Le vieux avait le béguin pour elle.” That’s gender genius because, while the contemporary meaning of “béguin” is “crush,” it was originally a hood worn in convents. The coot doesn’t get the girl in this novel, but the historic resonance of the word choice makes the French reader brake and shift gears. Le Bœuf told me that she worked on and worried about that word for several days.

But if “cool” has now become friction-free, then it’s more difficult to suggest the frisson behind the speech of Mr. Majestyk. Perhaps the foreign reader needs to know the films made from Leonard’s novels? But that’s not necessary with Richard Price, whose French translations read like sips of Grand Marnier. In Leonard’s A Coyote’s in the House (2004), the titular quadruped looks down on Hollywood and thinks, “It was their turf.” We understand the “cool” of that in American English, but there’s not much for a translator to work with. It becomes “C’était leur territoire” in French. And that’s not cool at all.

¤

William Marling, Professor of English at Case Western Reserve University, is the author of several books on the detective novel and, most recently, of Gatekeepers: The Emergence of World Literature (Oxford University Press, 2016).

The post In the Flow: On Charles J. Rzepka’s “Being Cool: The Work of Elmore Leonard” appeared first on Los Angeles Review of Books.

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[cbkendall]

SOUTH OF FRANCE

I'm a HUGE traveler and never seem to get enough of it. I know for each person going on vacation is different. Some people like to go to a tropical destination and just relax by a beach. Well for me that doesn't always work because I'm pretty pale and within 15 mins I'll look a lobster. So I'd rather exploring the new city/town and the culture and atmosphere it has. I would much rather get up, get moving and seize the day instead of just lounging around. Even though those types of vacations are also super fun too. 

So with that being said this trip my boyfriend, Jose, & I headed to France for two weeks. We landed in Paris, and caught the TGV directly to Avignon in the South of France to start our 2 week trip. After exploring the South of France we headed to Bordeaux and back to Paris where we concluded our trip.

Since we had limited time in the South, (6 full days), we had to cram in as much as possible. We stayed in the quaint town of St. Remy, which it is super slow paced and gorgeous place. Having St. Remy as our hub was super convenient for us to explore the area. We chose to rent a car so it made it easier to travel between all the different cities we wanted to visit. When I looked into the South of France I was inspired by the gorgeous imagery of lavender, endless open fields, olive trees & of course the food & wine. The Provence region is super well known for making all types of wine but mostly Rosé, which honestly wasn't really ever on my radar till this trip. Now I can't get enough of it especially Miraval. With the weather being so warm and sunning during the summer I'm not surprised that most people drink it here to help cool them off. I also just wanted to share a site I found that was super helpful in planning our trip and picking the places we would like to visit.

Day 1: Marseilles

We headed to the city of Marseille with our rental car and grabbed a quick breakfast to start our day. Coffee & pastries were the best way to get the morning off right. We started our walk through the Castellane district to get a birds eye view of the city from the Notre-Dame de la Garde (Basilica Lady of the Guard), which is atop the highest hill in the city. The interior is gorgeous filled with colored marble, murals and the best part is the view.

After enjoying the view and taking plenty of photos we walked back down towards the Saint-Victor back down by the Vieux Port (Old Port). We admired the Abbaye Saint-Victor from a distance and enjoyed the the super picturesque port filled with fishing boats and yachts. As we walked around the Vieux Port we walked under this amazing Mirror art piece that was covering part of the port. The waterfront is super gorgeous filled with tons of restaurants, bars and a great view of the port. We stopped by and grabbed a little bite to eat and a quick drink since it was rather warm out.

We then visited Fort Saint-Jean which also had a great view of the city and an awesome art exhibit. There is also the MuCEM right next door you could check out. If you just go inside the fort it's free entrance but if you wanna go inside the actual museum you'll have to pay. We then continued walking passed Cathedral la Major which was sadly under construction. We were able to spend more time walking around the Saint-Lazare & Le Panier area, which was super artsy and had lots of unique cute stores to explore.

Another part of the city which we sadly didn’t get to see was Château d’If and for me that has no significant meaning but for those fans of ‘The Count of Monte Cristo’ you’d all be jumping at the chance to see it. My boyfriend really wanted to go but by the time we realized the island was here we were too tired and there was a long wait to go over there. So if you’re fans I would totally make the time to see it. We also didn’t make it to the Musee des Beaux Arts which has lots of Italian and Provincial paintings and sculptures from the 17th and 21st centuries. Again it’s another beautifully designed building no harm in taking a look. 

Well that was our day spent in Marseille overall it was a gorgeous sunny, warm day. Don't forget to pack the sunscreen and hat. It is a city worth visiting but I wouldn’t say you need to spend more than one full day there.

Day 2: Pond du Gare, Nîmes & Beaucaire

We're still in awe about how beautiful it is down here! Anyway after a good nights rest we had breakfast at home on the porch admiring the view eating fresh fruit and yogurt. We then drove about an hour to check out Pond du Gare, which is a UNESCO World Heritage site. It is a gorgeous ancient Roman aqueduct that was built over 2000 years ago that grosses that crosses the Gordon River. I’d always wanted to see it and when we got there it was just magnificent. It was free to visit and when we were there they had a car show happening at the open park area near the aqueducts. It was pretty cool because there were so many classic cars. You could bring a little picnic and sit on the grass or grab food, drinks & gelato at the restaurant in the area while you admire the Pond du Gare. We walked across the bridge on the lowest level as well as walked to the top to catch the spectacular view.

It’s honestly a pretty quick stop but totally worth seeing. We then got back in the car and went to the town of Remoulis which was about a 10-15 minute drive from the Pond du Gare. We just walked around the town it was honestly super small with some cool architecture and buildings. We sat down at a restaurant we stumbled upon located on the main road leading into the town. We decided to order a small carafe of rosé & and amazing prosciutto pizza. We really wanted to try a local wine so we asked the waiter to recommend a rosé which was from, Domaine le Clos du Bailly. It was right around the corner from the restaurant but it was sadly closed when we were there. 

We then headed to Nîmes, which is known as the French Rome because it was once controlled by the Roman Empire. It again is a very small town and easy to walk around. Several of the Roman Empire architecture and sights are scattered throughout the city in amongst some of the newer buildings. We took a look at the exterior of the Nîmes Cathedral and then headed to the Esplanade Charles-de-Gualle to look at the beautiful fountain (Fontaine Pradier) and Elise Sainte Perpetue. Near by was also Cour D'Appel de NIMES or the Court of Appeals which was also a gorgeous Roman style building. On our walk I kept noticing images of a crocodiles chained to a palm tree. My curiosity got the better of me and I searched the background behind it and found out it is their Coat of arms! Which I thought was super funny and cute! Anyway as we continued our walk around we went to the Roman Arena, another UNESCO World Heritage Site. We didn’t go inside since its was pretty expensive but we did walk around it and admired how stunning it was. We also looked at the Maison Carree and The Gates of the Roman Town. We didn’t make it to the Temple de Diana or The Jardins de la Fontaine but both looked stunning. 

Our final stop of the day was Beaucaire. Another ancient town on the banks of the Rhone river, & a canal boat basin running down the center of the city. The town is filled with nice squares and ancient churches. There isn’t a ton to see here and not everyone would really wanna visit but It was close by and on the way home. I really wanted to check this town out because I wanted to see the Chateau de Beaucaire which is a 11th-16th century castle. The ruins are still pretty and i can only imaging how magical it was at its time. It still had a great view of the city as well as the area around there. We were able to admire the beautiful blue cloudless sky and admire the Rhone river that ran on one side of the castle. We even drove passed the Aqueduct Les Archades which are also aqueducts that cross a valley on very tall arched pillars. 

After a long day of exploring we just wanted to come home cook dinner & watch football.

Day 3: Les Baux & St. Remy

Our day started out by heading over to Saint Paul de Mausole Asylum which is where Van Gogh admitted himself for his last final years of his life. Being in this area really inspired him and he even created a few of his final pieces while he was inside the asylum. The grounds were beautiful filled with lavender rows and a ton of poppies. We then headed over to Les Baux, a castle & village, located on top the hills with small squares, well-shaded terraces and narrow streets. Grabbed a bite to eat in the town square enjoying some great french food and rosé this area. 

We then headed over to Carrières de Lumières located inside the heard of the Alpilles. The exhibit is projections of specific artist's work onto the inside cave walls to fully immerse the viewers. We happened to see Chagall’s, Midsummer Night’s Dream. I’ve never seen anything like this before and no pictures I could take would do this justice. It was such a different way to view art and it felt like I was on a journey of his career.

We continued on to the Chateaux located at the highest point of the mountains which gives one of the best view of the countryside. It may have been a super hot day but that view and the wind that blew through made everything worth it. We explored every nook and cranny, every high top tower we could climb and enjoyed the view. 

After that we continued to the 17th-century Mas de la Dame winery for our first wine tasting in France. It was a beautiful and the wine was amazing we ended up buying a couple bottles. The grounds were so pretty with 132 acres of vines throughout the property and 60 acres of olive groves. Everywhere in this area including where we stayed had groves of olive trees so most wineries did olive oil tastings. Van Gough even did a painting of this winery while he was staying in St. Remy. The next winery we went to was Domaine des Terres Blanches which was the first organic vineyard in Les Baux Nimes. 

Day 4: Aix-en-Provence

We enjoyed our typical French breakfast on the patio and drove to Aix-en-Provence (about 1 hours drive). Aix-en-Provence is a dream destination filled with elegance, constantly bustling streets and squares. It is a city filled with joyful impressions, colorful festivals, provincial markets & lovely countryside walks. 

First things first we hit up the tourist office to get a little more of an idea what there is to do here & grab a map. Then we wandered around the town and headed to a Cézanne's house which was a little outside the town center. We were able to see where he got his inspiration and how he live back in the day. The town itself was lined with gorgeous cobble stone streets, classic romantic architecture gorgeous squares filled with lovely cascading fountains. 

After the day we headed back to St. Remy before we went out to a nice dinner. We drove through les baux again and watched part of the sunset overlooking the lovely view of the countryside. We enjoyed a lovely dinner at Le Bistro du Paradou. (Reservations required) It was absolutely amazing. This place is also set in the very traditional Provancial eating style which is a full 5-6 course meal paired with a lovely French red wine. I got to try escargot again and as much as I may not like the texture the flavor was absolutely amazing and I almost changed my opinion of it. We then ate our entrée which I got chicken with potatoes. Then dessert and ending with a giant assortment of cheeses. 

Day 5: Arles, Gordes & Abbey Senanque

After a good nights rest we headed to St. Remy’s town center for breakfast and to check out the farmers market that happens three times a week. Most of the food and wine are locally grown or made; as well as a few souvenirs and other items from bags, hats to sheets & knifes. There was so much lavender from soaps to actual lavender bunches. If this is your scene I would recommend getting there early unless you don't mind crowds. I personally hate when it gets too busy so I’d rather get up early and then leave when it gets busier. 

After we finished buying tons of souvenirs and nick-nacks we went on a hunt for lavender fields. Not going to lie finding fields of lavender was super hard especially because when I did research I read the best time was mid June to early July to see the fields in full bloom. But if you're coming to the South of France to see it I'd go towards mid or end of July. We did get to seem some fields but they weren't as gorgeous as I've seen in other photographs.

Either way we went exploring in search of lavender fields. We ended up driving up into the hills in the direction of Norte-Dame de Senanque Abbey. On our way there we drove through some smalls towns & ended up stumbling upon the beautiful town of Gordes. It really reminded me of the towns they show on Game of Thrones. The buildings live on the edge of the cliff overlooking the Provencial area with a stunning view. The town itself is very quaint and filled with small cobble stone streets. We did a quick drive through so if we go back I'd love to explore it more on foot. 

We left and continued our drive to the abbey, which is located at the bottom of a valley surrounded by fields of lavender and trees. It's been around/open since 1148 and is one of the oldest churches around. The building was beautiful and they do French speaking tours of the inside on the hour and they are very strict with the dress code. The monks give the tour and we sadly missed the tour by 15 mins so we just explored the exterior instead. I wish the lavender fields were in full bloom because it would have made the area so much more beautiful being surrounded by purple flowers.

Once we were done here we headed over to Arles. Arles is another roman town filled with shady squares, gorgeous colorful houses and lots of culture. Most people know Arles because of Van Gough and all the paintings he painted here. We walked around the whole town starting at the tourist office and ended at a restaurant in the Place du Forum square right by Café Van Gogh, which was one of the most well-known paintings from this area. We admired all the unique stores throughout the city and admired some of the biggest tourist attractions like the roman amphitheater called Les Arènes. It is one of the few arenas besides Nîmes that is still standing. During our visit they were doing restorations on it but it was still a cool place to see and had a wonderful view of the city. 

Day 6: Avignon to Bordeaux

Woke up and relaxed in the house for a bit before heading out to Avignon. Once there we went and checked out the castle and the view of the area. As well as walked quickly down the main street to see some of the main architectural buildings and monuments. Sadly we ran out of time because our train was leaving at 1:40pm. So if I could go back I would go check out more closely the bridge that is so well known if here and any of the other sites around.  

Our train ride was about 5 & a half hours to Bordeaux. We stayed in the Saint Michel area just a few blocks away from the Basilica of St. Michael & Place Meynard. Since it was pretty late when we got there we just headed to our Airbnb to drop our stuff off and then headed back out to the square. There were lots of restaurants and lots of little cafe’s around there however arriving so late there was very limited amount of options to eat at. So we settled for the one restaurant that had a the soccer matches on and some really good French food & wine. 

To continue reading check out my next blog post on Bordeaux and Paris.