Sunday, February 19, 2012

Antibes: Ville de Mer et de Picasso

We headed to Antibes for a day trip last Saturday (the 11th).  Claire, Caitlin, and Nico went early in the morning, but Ciera and I had gotten back late the night before from Monaco, so we slept in.  Due to a fluke of the train scheduling though, we only arrived in Antibes about an hour after the other girls.

It never ceases to amaze me the sights we see from the train as we travel along the coast here.  Part of that surprise stems from the fact that the entire coast isn't developed... the same surprise I had in Morocco, where a massive graveyard lines the hill in Rabat going down to the beach.  


When we got to Antibes, it was pretty cold and windy.  I'm glad the other girls warned us about the weather, because I wouldn't have worn a heavy coat otherwise.  I can't wait to see these places when it starts getting warmer (which will be very soon, if this week was any indication).  Until then, I'll be bundled up, with lots of pictures of my hair in my face, like this one.


We wandered around town for a bit, stumbling upon these adorable postcards... Marwan thinks it's just a corporate ploy to get you to buy all three, but I think it's worth the money to send someone all three postcards comprising one of the towers, maybe over an extended period of time?

We went into the most amazing haberdashery (do you know how long I've wanted to use the word haberdashery in context?) and I wanted to buy every single hat, but I knew I would never wear any of them.  I almost gave in and bought a beret, but I figured that was better left to Jen H. in Paris.

Maybe for Lawnparties??

Or can we make a new theme night... like British Royal Wedding theme?

There was also an amazing market that was a joint effort between the French and Italian Chambers of Commerce, but that's going to get its own post.

All this time, we were slowly making out way to the Picasso museum.  The collection is small, but it's fun to see because the location, the old Grimaldi Castle, served as Picasso's home for a period of time, and his work took inspiration from its position overlooking the sea.  He also drew on the Greek history of Antibes and the fishing culture of the town, with many paintings featuring sea urchins, mariner shirts, and boats.  This is the view from the castle:


And here are two of my favorite paintings in the museum.  I bought postcards of both of them, and I think they were rather representative of the work shown in the museum.
Pêcheur attablé
This one wasn't any particular theme, it was just surprisingly evocative given its abstraction...
Nu assis sur fond vert
The impact of the sea was very clear in other ways too.  Antibes is definitely one of those places on the Côte d'Azur that is known for its yachts and sailboats.  The harbor was pretty, if quiet in the winter, and is clearly the center of the town during the summer.

The town is remarkably anglophone--there is a strip of British and Irish pubs, a British grocery store, and an anglophone bookstore, stocked with sailing books.



There were also plenty of sailing paraphernalia shops.  I don't have pictures of the "yacht construction" store or the hardware store where you can get brass knobs all match your spyglass and your handrails on your boat...

But the most beautiful boats are the simplest.  Like this one, below.  It gets points off for not being a sailboat, but makes up for it because of the color and because it is obviously used, but used with love.

Like a well-worn book.  I hate when people keep their books pristine. 

Antibes' connection with the ocean was a lot like Torino with the mountains, but obviously a different aspect of nature.  I love how art, daily life, and commerce all center around the water.  These types of locations keep proving to me the interconnectedness of all different facets of life.

Thursday, February 9, 2012

Just around the corner...

So, I can walk to Italy.  The border is about a half-hour walk, but to get to the next actual town, Ventimiglia, takes about 3 hours walking.  So we generally opt for the train (but walking there is still on my to-do list!).

Every Friday there's a market in Ventimiglia for local farmers and vendors.  We went last Friday, and had some time to check out the town as well as the market.

How cool to see truffles fresh from the countryside!

I think my parents have been worrying because I haven't been posting enough about food.  Last time I was in France it was all I talked about.  The big difference is that here I have to make my own food.  I'm not so good at that.  But after Ventimiglia I made an eggplant parmesan-style dish, just without parmesan and with Toma Cunese and fresh mozarella substituted in.

 I also found these surprisingly hot dried red peppers... I thought they were sun-dried tomatoes when I bought them, but not complaints about what they turned out to be!  They went really well with the eggplant concoction.


 We went after class, so the sun was just starting to set over the Mediterranean.

There was the most hilarious dichotomy between the view of the inland and the view of the sea.  When I looked inland, I saw mountains and snow:

When I looked toward the sea, I saw palm trees and flowers:


With France so close, the Italian flags on the mountain were actually useful in demarcating territory...

However, the swans on the river made me think not of France, but of Lucerne in Switzerland...


These flowers, leading to a WWI memorial, were so pretty that I couldn't help but buy a pot of them for me room back at Villa Jasmin (the girls' residence).


 What else do we do in Italy but drink coffee and eat pastries?  More Marocchinos, and a sinful cannoli.

Thea and Claire did actually sleep at one point on the (15min) train home, just not while I was trying to get their picture.  But Thea's face was presh (#jokessss).

Tomorrow we're going to Antibes!
Hopefully it'll look something like this:
*Found this photo online---not mine!

Friday, February 3, 2012

Museo della Montagna

Perched above Torino attached to a church was the Museo della Montagna, the Museum of the Mountain.  It tracked the history and development of mountain life, with a particular focus on the Alps.

While the museum was generally pretty Euro-centric, it was still really fascinating.  Particularly surprising was the focus on how recent alpinisme is, and how much the mountains were feared and revered until technology allowed people to "conquer the mountains" so to speak.

Obviously, "technology" meant something very different fifty or a hundred years ago.  Below is a style of alpine lodging for hikers.  Forgive the poor picture quality; I got in trouble for taking pictures with flash.




 The next few pictures are all just different kinds of climbing gear.  I don't quite grasp the intricacies of this equipment or how it has evolved, since I'm not a climber, but I thought others might appreciate it.





And here's the part I like... the skis.  

Tangentially related, I was up in Stowe a few weeks ago and heard the story of the founder of Head skis showing off his first aluminum ski to a bunch of other super intense skiers up there.  When someone tried to test the flexibility of the new ski (compared to wooden skis), it broke!!  After that, I had to take some pictures of their collection of wooden skis, and skis through the ages, including a pair of Head skis... although I'll always be partial to Rossignol.





The museum also charters peoples' efforts to scale mountains in the Himalayas and in the Alps.  They have videos and samples of the best, newest technical fabrics, and tents and sleeping bags for camping in the snow.  

But it makes one reflect to some extent on how arrogant we are to think that we can conquer nature.  In the case of the cold/snow, humans still change themselves and their lives to suit Mother Nature's whims and flights of fancy.  Our trains were delayed coming back from Torino for snow.  And just yesterday on a bus to Nice, the people next to us (me and Ciera) told us about their friend who died last year skiing in Zermatt.  (My mother just read that sentence and thanked God she didn't let me ski when we were in Zermatt.  Apparently he did exactly what she was afraid of me doing--he skied off the slope and into a crevasse.)

In some respects, nature truly is the embodiment of a deity, more than humans will ever be.  It rolls up splendor and majesty with sheer power, practically beyond our comprehension.  Alors, il faut le respecter autant qu'on l'aime.  A propos de cette respecte, il y avait une citation dans le musée, disant "si tu laisses les traces, il faudra que tu te tiennes compte pour eux devant tes collègues," ou quelque chose comme ça. Je le trouvais bien impressionante.