The French Riviera

What can I say, the Cote D’Azur is truly stunning. Every day on this trip we’ve enjoyed beautiful sunny weather, swimming dips in a sparking blue sea, with stunning views of seaside and mountains. We had to take a moment and soak it all in when we first entered the Riviera area, stopping off at a jagged cliff on the coast near Cavalier-Sur-Mer to have a picnic with some local French cuisine we had purchased at the market(fortunately picked out by my friends, I must confess to my culinary ignorance). The only sign of people in this remote spot were the handful of nude sunbathers on the small bit of sand below. We were lucky our guide book told us about this one section of the coast that hasn’t been built up.

From there we went to a very different area, the celebrity playground of St. Tropez, or “San Trop” as its been dubbed by the jet set. I don’t think I’ve been to a more nausea-inducing town in my life to be honest. It was incredibly gauche, with gaunt women tottering around the town in over the top outfits and blinding jewellery. We speculated that San Trop is basically what you’d get if Hello magazine became a town. It was really revolting, and quite a contrast from tasteful, understated Aix. While we were eating dinner Paris Hilton came sauntering by with Paparazzi in tow, and at that point we knew it was time to leave.

A week in Provence

Driving from Catalonia to Provence was interesting, most notably because of the number of similarities between the two regions. For one thing the flags of both are very similar, both with red stripes on a yellow background. The native languages of the two regions are also very similar, and I’m told that Provencal and Catalonian are actually almost mutually comprehensible. Of course the big difference is that Catalan is actually the functioning, used language of Catalonia. Provencal is effectively a dead regional language, now only used for scholarly purposes (and, we noticed, on street signs in some of the city centres of the region). The French were just better at enforcing language conformity I guess.

We began the French section of our trip in Montpellier, a university town on the southern French coast. The city isn’t technically or historically part of Provence, but rather the province of Languedoc. We actually didn’t find Montpellier to be very interesting, but that may have a bit to do with the fact that our hotel was terrible and far from the city centre. We did however drive out to the town of Carcassone to the West of Montpellier, a middle ages fortified city that has been remarkably preserved. That was definitely very cool, even if it did remind me of Epcot Center a bit (I could have done without all the kids running around with plastic swords and knight’s helmets). It was a stunningly beautiful city though.

Barcelona

I’m here in Montpellier, France after an amazing weekend in Barcelona. So far the trip has been really fun, Barcelona is an amazing city and I feel like we saw many different sides to it over the three days. Driving from Barcelona to Montpellier yesterday was also really amazing; watching the landscapes, language and culture change as we drove over the Pyranees reminded me of why I love driving on trips. In Catalonia the land was much drier, and when we stopped in Gerona for dinner it still looked very Spanish. Once we crossed the Alps and arrived in Perpignan things instantly took on a different look. Everything seemed much greener, for instance.

Language has actually been an interesting issue on this trip. I’m with three friends from London: one from Bermuda, one from Australia and one from Paraguay (further evidence of how truly international London is as a city). Carlos, who is from Paraguay, was a great resource to have on this trip because he speaks Spanish. Granted, Barcelona is in Catalonia where they speak, read and write in Catalan, but everyone also speaks Spanish. So everywhere we went we had Carlos speak to people for us. Once we crossed the Pyranees, it was Adam the Bermudan’s turn to be translator. Adam spent a year in high school in Brittany, France and a semester in college in Paris, so he speaks French quite well.

I'm officially Italian! Now off to Spain

I received word this morning that my Italian passport has arrived. At long last, after a year’s worth of hard work, I've had my Italian citizenship officially recognized. In theory I’ve been an Italian citizen all along (I got it through my great grandfather) but now I finally have an Italian passport. It feels very good! Now on to the next step. Although what that is I’m not quite sure!

It’s an odd day to get this news, coming as it does right as I’m preparing to fly to Barcelona tonight for a 10 day road trip from Spain to Provence. As you can imagine I have lots to do so I don’t even really have time to think about this development. I’ll probably have a little celebratory dinner at the beginning of August when I get back. I know lots of people will be glad to hear this news, especially my grandmother who did so much work making this happen.

I’ll try to file some blogs while I’m on my trip with my observations. I’m going with three friends from London (all with different nationalities which is exciting). We’re going to be in Barcelona for four days, then we’re renting a car and driving up the coast, hitting Montpellier, Arles, Avignon, Aix-En-Provence, Marseille, Cannes, Nice and Monaco. It should be a lot of fun, I’ve never been to any of these places before. I’m particularly curious to see the South of France, as to date the only place I’ve been in France is Paris, and I have mixed feelings about that city mostly due to the people in it! I’ve heard people in Southern France are very different, so we shall see.

This trip will give me some time to reflect on what comes next, and I think it will be easier to come to a good conclusion about that while I'm outside London.

Belgian government collapses

Here we go again. Last night the Belgian government collapsed, just four months after it was formed in March. Before then, the nation had been without a government for nine months while the French- and Dutch-speaking parties were unable to form a unity government.

Belgium’s King Albert II is considering the resignation, but he doesn’t really have much leeway to block it. The prime minister of the four-month-old coalition government, Yves Leterme, had set a deadline of July 15 for getting an agreement on devolving more power to the regions. Belgium is made up of Dutch-speaking Flanders in the North, French-speaking Wallonia in the South and Brussels, which is French-speaking but located within Flanders. The Flemish, who are wealthier, want more local power, but the Walloons are resisting this because it would marginalize their influence.

Club Med: Levant Becomes the Focus

Though French president Nicolas Sarkozy's ambitious original plans for a Mediterranean Union have been dramatically scaled down, the group still had its first meeting yesterday in Paris.

Sarkozy was practically beaming after the meeting, calling his idea for the Mediterranean Union an “extraordinary concept,” and heralding the fact that the meeting was able to get Arab leaders and the Israeli leader in the same room. While it's still debatable what impact this new union will actually have, and whether it can really accomplish any of the goals it has set out, it was interesting to see where the media focus on the event seemed to fall.

From the time Sarkozy first suggested the concept during the French presidential campaign last year, the language was always about a union between the “North” and “South” Mediterranean, with seeming focus being on North Africa, the majority of which was formerly held by the French. But the media coverage of yesterday’s event was largely focused on the Levant. The Syrian and Lebanese leaders, both in attendance, said yesterday that the two countries might establish diplomatic relations for the first time in their history. And the Israeli leader said a peace deal with the Palestinians had never been closer. There was also a theoretical statement by the leaders saying they would like to keep the region “free of weapons of mass destruction.” Here's the coverage from ITN:



But there were also significant initiatives announced at the meeting that had nothing to do with the Middle East peace process, including a high-speed rail network from Casablanca to Istanbul, a plan to make the Mediterranean the cleanest sea in the world by 2020 and the development of a common emergency response force to deal with natural disasters in the region. For now though, it was the diplomatic aspects of the meeting that attracted most of the media attention.

Interestingly, with all the talk of the MidEast peace process and further governmental and economic ties, there was no talk about Democracy, or the lack of it, in the Middle East and North Africa. Perhaps such lecturing would have been counter-productive to the larger goal of bridging gaps between the North and South Mediterranean, but it was an interesting omission nonetheless.