Eliot is not a linear walker

Warning to all who may try to take a walk with Eliot. He makes progress but not necessarily in a linear fashion.... In this video we are looking for somewhere to eat dinner in Antibes, France.

Eliot plays on the beach

Eliot really likes the beach. He likes to be a worker man as you will see....

Coastal drive

The road along the coast to Antibes was really pretty. Sometimes a bit scary with the curves and the cliff hugging sections....

At the beach in Cassis, France

The first place we dipped our toes in the Mediterranean was Cassis, France. Here are Chris and Eliot enjoying it.

Marseille Carousel

Here are Eliot and I on the carousel in Marseille.

Eliot sings, in French

Here is Eliot singing on the Pont d'Avignon, which has its own song. We visited the bridge which had a little exhibit about the history of the song. I tried to sing and dance with Eliot to encourage him to sing the song, but the only thing that did it was to have him listen to the audio guide, which played the song. Here is is, not quite in full voice, but very cute.

Eliot hikes in Orange, France

So, we have been to Stockholm and back and had a great weekend with Uncle Brian, but since I have to borrow Chris's computer to do photo uploads I have gotten much slower at blogging.

But - I can do videos quickly so the next few posts will be from our vacation video collection. Here is one of Eliot hiking in Orange, France.

Strasbourg, France

Strasbourg, France was our next stop (after a brief pause in Basel, Switzerland for lunch). It is amazing to me how different these countries are with being so close to each other. Strasbourg had many half-timbered buildings like these.

It also has a gorgeous cathedral that we visited. Eliot really, really wanted the organ to play and I was explaining patiently that the organ probably would not play. There was a mass going on and the priest was talking in French when I heard him mention Bach and the organist let loose. Eliot was very happy to hear the organ!

We saw a carousel on our quest for dinner (my least favorite part of traveling) and I indulged Eliot probably his last French carousel ride for now. I'm sure he'll be back in France some day - but don't know if he will still be so passionate about carousels.

The next morning we rented bikes and went to a great park called l'Orangerie. It had many playgrounds, a small zoo, and some rides. Plus it was very pretty. Strasbourg is very bike friendly and it was such a pleasure to bike after over a year without biking. We took Eliot in a little bike seat and both gave it a shot. It was actually easy to ride with him in back and we are going to look for a bike seat for Eliot when we are back in the states.

This trip was amazing and will certainly be a favorite memory from this year.

Lucerne, Switerland

I am late finishing up these posts about our vacation, but here I go....
We drove through Switzerland stopping first in Lugano, where Eliot met this rhino. He got fairly upset when other kids tried to sit on it because of course it was "Eliot's." Lugano was a lovely town. We grabbed some lunch at a bakery and ate by the lake.
Then we finally made it to Lucerne, our stopping place for the night. It was a great town, very picturesque and Swissish, to coin a phrase.















The mountains were beautiful! Still some snow-capped peaks. I did not want to look away and just tried to soak it all up.


The next day we had time to take a paddle boat for a spin. Eliot enjoyed "steering" and insisted on sitting in the back for awhile. I kept a wary hand on his life jacket just in case... But we made it back to the dock just fine and headed to France.

Cinque Terre, Italy

And then we went through a long tunnel and came out in Italy. Oddly, we knew we were in a different country right away. Buildings were different, there were more vineyards. I would never guess that a border could be so definitive but I guess before the tunnel the two countries were divided by mountains for centuries. It took us much longer than we thought to get to the national park that was our destination, Cinque Terre. When we got off the highway for the final leg of our journey, we found that leg was a sinewy road that did not always permit the driver (Chris) to see what was around the corner. So a lot of honking (to let any oncoming cars know we were coming) and sharp inhales later, we arrived at our destination. I should note that along the nail-biting inducing road were spectacular views, so the drive was not all bad. Thankfully Eliot was OK with being in the car for longer than we had planned. In fact, never once did I have to pull out the DVD player on this whole vacation. I did have to read a lot of Richard Scary and from a book called 50 bedtime stories.... but that was no problem.
Cars are only allowed in the 5 towns that make up this national park for a few hours in the evening. Luckily, we made it to the town we stayed in, Manarola, just before the no car rule (which we did not know about in advance) came into force. So we drove down the steep hill into town, quickly unloaded our gear which we had thankfully organized the night before, and hustled it into the (very) small apartment we rented. The first picture of this post is Chris and Eliot standing outside and up the stairs from the apartment. Then, Chris had to go park the car in the lot at the top of the very steep hill and walk back down. We had a very yummy Italian pasta dinner and then fell asleep!

The next day we set out to do some hiking, assisted by the train that runs along the coast. We walked along the most famous part of the trail that links these towns to the southern most town. Eliot rode in the backpack happily and walked a bit, too. Then we took the train to the northernmost town, toured its quaint streets and a couple churches, got lunch, and then set out on the trail for some real hiking. It was hilly and the day was sunny and hot, but the views were so great. We saw vineyards, lemon trees, olive trees, the sea, and the towns that were our start and end points. It was a very memorable hike. Chris got many comments as he carried Eliot (who dozed part of the way) on his back. In the next town, we had some gelato on the beach as a reward. Eliot played in the sand and water and got his clothes totally soaked. Luckily I had a spare set. He got a kick out of watching some Italian teenaged boys kick around a soccer ball. We enjoyed talking to a mother and her daughter (a recent college grad) who were touring Europe together. They were from Ann Arbor. In fact, Cinque Terre was teeming with Americans, which we ascribe to a recent Rick Steves documentary on the area.

We used the train to get to the next town where we had a quasi dinner since the same hours of operation problem that I described in Avignon applied here. Then I carried Eliot in the backpack to our base of Manarola. This last picture is with sunlight-bathed Manarola in the background. Cinque Terre was great. Hopefully next time Eliot will do his own hiking and we can do the whole trail!

Monaco and Menton

And then one day we had to leave Antibes. We drove along France's coast enjoying the views. We knew we would pass Monaco and thought about driving through to add to Eliot's list of visited countries. But - it turned out that Monaco was visible from a gas station we stopped at. So, we decided to forgo a visit to save time. We snapped the first picture from the gas station.
We did stop at the last town before Italy which was another winner, Menton. Beautiful town, beautiful rocky beach. Nice playground, too. A six-year-old quizzed me (in French) about Eliot, where we were from, etc. I think I answered to his satsifaction but not really sure.... It was one of the toughest interviews I ever had.

Eliot is cute

We interupt this travelogue for a bulletin regarding Eliot's cuteness. Sorry, Mommy's perogative. Chris snapped the first two photos on the ferry. The third is Eliot playing on the beach.

Ile St Marguirite

One of the fun things we did in Antibes was take a ferry over to a nearby island, Ile St Marguirite. I was a little disapointed with the island because the man at the ferry ticket counter oversold the beach quality to me. (Madame, the whole island's coast is great, you will have your pick!) Inaccurate to say the least. But, while we were looking for the promised wonderful beach for Eliot to frolick on, we enjoyed amazing views.

Most of the beaches were rocky or too cliff-like for us. We gave up our pursuit for a while to eat lunch. A couple walked by and we decided I should ask them if they had seen a good beach. I discussed beach options with them in French and they said that they had seen some good beaches on the other side of the island. Beaches on this side, they said, had something for which I did not recognize the French word. But, their description eventually led me to say, "Jellyfish?" They shrugged but when we found the beach they were discussing, we saw my translation was correct. One beach was just inundated with jellyfish, which the French word for could directly translate as pink medusa. Finally we found a better beach and, although it was rocky rather than sandy, Eliot and Chris had a great time building some rock fortresses, etc. For a time, the island was a military site (like hundreds of years ago) so we also walked through the old fort.

The whole day I knew we were visiting a slice of paradise and I should just soak it up and try to retain some of the images in my head. Luckily, we have a camera to help me.

Antibes

Why Antibes? I was thinking of staying in either Nice or Cannes, both nearby to Antibes. When I discussed this pleasing dilemna with my friend Pascale, she suggested we stay in Antibes, describing it as cozy with a beautiful old town. Then she showed me some pictures from her trip there and I was sold.

The next "issue" was finding somewhere to stay. There are many B&Bs in the area. We like B&Bs better than hotels because we can go to the common areas after Eliot goes to bed and are not stuck reading in the bathroom. After I process this whole year, I am going to write a book called, "Reading in the Hotel Bathroom and other Tales of Traveling with a Toddler." I chose this B&B from a number of seemingly good ones. When we were looking for it from the street I was growing very skeptical because it was in an unexciting neighborhood of modern residences. Then we found the gate and drove in and found it. It was great. The owner knew all about how to make Eliot happy and seemed to genuinely like him. I know a lot of hosts feign liking children to get in good with the parents, but her affectionate glances at Eliot's curly head seemed very genuine to me. And - there were two cats, one of which had a definite fondness for bread and came visiting every morning at breakfast, which we ate outside. The host is an amazing gardner (helped somewhat by the condusive climate) and we just enjoyed looking at the flowers and trees each morning while rebuffing the bread-seeking kitty. Amber and Jade do not eat bread so I just felt wierd about giving a cat bread. Another amusing thing about this B&B is that the staircase was packed with knick knacks, nearly all of which prompted a, "What's that?" from Eliot. Our nightly trip up the stairs went like this:
Eliot: "What's that?"
Me: "A donkey."
Eliot: "What's that?"
Me: "A hat."
Eliot: "What's that?"
Me (getting out of breath from carrying a 30 pound toddler up 3 long flights of stairs): "Eliot, what is that?"
Eliot: "A pig."
And so on.
Sometimes I know he knows what "that" is. He just likes asking the question.

So, we got to do a lot of fun things in Antibes. We made sure Eliot had lots of time for beach play. He runs into the water, scoops up sand with his blue shovel, which is vastly preferable to his red shovel for some reason. (The red shovel is inevitably for Mommy.) Then he runs as though on a critical mission to another location on the beach and deposits the sand. This busy activity can go on for some time and is very amusing to watch. He builds sand castles with Chris and gets mad at the water if the tide dares come too close. Now I know why families with young children like the beach. It is easy to spend time with Eliot on the beach. He could spend the whole day there and never get bored.
And neither could I in Antibes. Looking at the blue, blue water and viewing boats, or the old town, or the mountains were really nice.

The area had lots of playgrounds, too. Eliot insisted on playgrounds each day and we happily indulged him. I am amazed at how his "gross motor" skills have improved this year. He tackled this climbing structure no problem! Great views from the playgrounds, too.

Cassis, France

The next day we hit the road towards Antibes, France. We chose a town rather at random for a rest and our choice, Cassis, turned out to be great. Although I'm not sure there is anywhere unpleasant on France's southern coast. The town with its small harbor and beach, cliffs, square, and overall ambience was extremely charming. There was a class of high schoolers (British, we presumed) struggling to pay attention to their lesson, which was delivered next to the lighthouse. We envied their teachers.

We enjoyed the beach for a little bit then got back on the road.

Marseille, France

Our next destination was Marseille, a large coastal city. As we glimpsed snatches of the blue, blue Mediterranean from the highway we grew increasingly excited about being by the sea. On the drive we also saw hilltop castles and cities. Much more to see in Provence some day.

In Marseille, we went by the old port and then walked around in the historic district, called Le Panier, during Eliot's nap. It was full of ambience and felt very old-France.

Then we headed up to a park on a big hill. Eliot rode a carousel there. The operator gave us and another mom and young childe two rides instead of one. Eliot rode this horse first, then a butterfly. (For butterfly photos, visit the album.)

Towards the end of the day, boats started streaming back into the old harbor.

We stayed in a B&B just on the edge of town. When we arrived, the owner asked me many questions about Eliot's sleep habits and said there was a small problem. I was feeling rather nervous when he said that the heater in our room was broken so he had another arrangement for us. He was especially keen to know if Eliot cried at night. Assured that Eliot sleeps soundly, the owner was pleased to install us in a nice apartment for the night. Other guests aparently could have heard Eliot crying from the apartment. I never found why the heater in the original room mattered at all since it was so hot, but given the agreeableness of the alternative arrangements, I did not bother with it. The final photo is the stairwell in the main house of the B&B that we climed to have breakfast on the balcony. Very nice. Marseille would be a very interesting place to spend more time in, but I was not anxious to spend more time in the busy city with Eliot. We were ready for the beach!

Avignon and environs

The following day we took a trip to the Pont d'Avingnon, a famous bridge about which there is a song (in French). The bridge was partially destroyed by a flood hundreds of years ago so it no longer spans the river. Eliot's favorite part of the bridge was in the mini-museum, where there was a piano that, when its keys were depressed, made pictures come up onto a screen while the Pont d'Avingnon song played. We did get him to sing the song (video to come) by having him listen to it on the portable audio guide.



Chris and I walked along the river during Eliot's nap, enjoying the weather and the views of the city. After Eliot's nap we drove about 10 min to the city of Villeneuve, a small, less touristy town where the cardinals associated with the pope used to live because Avingnon was unpleasantly urban. The last photo is a snapshot of the gazebo at our B&B where you could nearly always find a cat. The B&B owner had about 4 cats, one of whom became somewhat enamoured of Chris and dashed into our room on more than one occasion to Eliot's shreiked amusement. He would follow her around the grounds demanding, "Pearl, come!"

Carpentras and Avignon, Provence

In the morning we went to a very crowded market in a charming town, Carpentras.
Eliot got in more Provençal play time, too.






Then we headed into Avingnon, touring while Eliot slept in the stroller. We saw many quaint quarters of the walled city and the pope's palace. The pope withdrew to Avingnon in the 14th century or so because Rome had become unpleasant. The city did not actually join France until after the French revolution. The last photo in this post is of the square just outside the pope's palace.