Provence no Problem

We have been in Provence since Saturday. We came down on the super fast TGV express from Paris. The cold drizzly weather was getting to us--although it looks like it might have warmed up there by now. We woke up to a glorius mediterranean morning--and we are going to stay in this area probably the rest of this week. I stopped in the Tourist Office this morning to pick up some info. I had kind of scouted out some ideas of places to go--really wanting to go everywhere. A few places in this are then maybe over to the Cannes area. The tourist agent rolled her eyes and said something about you americans wanting to see everything but take in nothing--or words to that effect. She was absolutely right of course! Maybe she was my buddhist guru for the day! So we slowed right down--and I will bring you up to date on where we are now, but first need to pick up the story from where we left off. These french keyboard have just a few letters different than ours--so there may be typos or I just hit a Q where the a is supposed to be; (or a ; insteqd of a .)

I am really taken with the Paris transit system. I believe it is likely the best in the world. It is actuqlly severql different systems layered together. There is the Paris Metro itself--just q short walk from most places to a stop, and then there is the suburban RER which you can ride with the same ticket inside Paris. And integrated right into this is the national rail system, including the super sleek high speed TGV.

This is the regular Paris metro. All are very clean--this is one of the older models. And they are always full of people. Even on Saturdays! (or maybe all of Paris was on their way to the Champs Eysee with us).

This is the suburban RER system. We rode this particular one down to Versaille. The regular metro is 1.3 euro or so per ride. A longer trip on the RER is about 6E.

One Thursday (I think) we went to the famed Luxembourg gardens (must have been the say day we did St Chapell--and yes, Chris, we did note the music and were tempted to go back, but that drizzly cold put a damper on that!). As you all know, I am very interested in civic space, and on this trip I am beginning to form something like an 'ecology of civic space'. These folks over here don't get everything right, but there is so much to learn here about hoz w spaces can be put together that maxize human ecology--i.e., interaction;

The sun came out the pm this picture was taken--but look at all the people out! Note the moveable chairs. They are everywhere! (that lqdy in the brown beret keeps showing up in my photos).

For awhile I was thinking that Paris had it all just about right except for parks and green space. But the more I looked around, the more parks I started to notice--they fill every little nook and cranny. And notice that in this picture the ground is all gravel--a park doesn't necessarily have to have grass to be a good park (but it helps, and this park has lots of great grass elsewhere). I will post some more pictures of great urban spaces next--but I better get up to bed now. This is about the best hotel so far. We are in the small town of Vaisson la Romaine--supposed to be on of the better open air markets in Provence, so gotta get enough sleep to enjoy that. And we are slowing down. We will stay here tomorrow night as well. First place we hqve had internet service right in the hotel.