Southern France and Spain Roadtrip (AKA Whirlwind Week #2)

---

Hello Again!

I have been meaning to write this for exactly a week and this is the first chance I have had to do so, no exaggeration. Work has lasted from 8am to at least 11:30pm everyday since I landed in France on Thursday. I am here with Hailey, a Mills student about to enter her senior year who was hired to help with this research over the summer shortly after I was, and Patricia (Pat) who is a post-doc who will be starting at the U of A officially in May, but is with Hailey and I to help and give some lab instruction until Wednesday. We flew from Tucson to Atlanta to Paris to Montpellier, and then drove the rental car an hour to Avignon France. It was a long journey and we arrived exhausted at our little extended stay type hotel. It is basically a tiny apartment with a bedroom, second room that serves as a kitchen, dining room, living room, and second bedroom all in one, and a little bathroom. It is very comfortably with nice natural light and a particularly nice shower. (Side note on showers: of all the places we have stayed thus far, none of the showers have shower curtains. All have some sort of glass partition or glass door instead and I really like it.) After trying to fight off naps upon our arrival Thursday afternoon, we all gave in and woke up just in time for dinner, which in most of Europe is around 7:30-8pm. We stumbled into a restaurant just down the street and what do I find but one of my favorite things from my time in Italy: Bufala mozzarella. It was served on a salad with delicious fresh tomatoes and was just as I remembered, A pouch or fresh mozzarella cheese containing even fresher, almost melting mozzarella. With it we all had a glass of some of southern France’s famous wine (this one was a delicious white wine… sorry to anyone who knows about wine, this is not going to be an exciting blog for you). We came back to our rooms in a jet lagged but happy haze and all passed out. By the way, I won’t be describing every meal I have as it would take way too long, but I will attempt some highlights now and then.

The next day, Friday, we got a tour of the lab that will be our home base; a fantastic Facility in an old building but with nice equipment and friendly people around every corner. Our lab mother, Cindy, quickly took us under her very efficient wing. She is actually originally from a town near Chicago, but has been living here in Avignon for 22 years. She is an intense individual who manages to be a stunning combination of stern and business-like and happy and excited. She clearly loves living in France and loves sharing it with others. She brought us to lunch and I had another dish deserving of a little side bar: razor clams in buttery garlic with risotto. I had never had a razor clam and they have a meatier texture than most seafood. They were simply delicious. After lunch the day was spent preparing for the road and 9 am Saturday morning saw us on the road to a secluded site in the countryside a tad north of Montpellier.

(NOTE, I have no control over where the pictures are placed when I post this, pictures of the trip will mostly be at the bottom I believe.)

In terms of the science, this trip was much the same as the California road trip. We went to six different sites to collect samples of YST (yellow star thistle), and typically the sites themselves weren’t all that nice, roadsides, the borders of cropland, etc. We got up early, stayed up late, and spent many hours in the car. What was different was everything else. Instead of staying in best westerns and similar hotels, we stayed in small inns and bed and breakfasts, which were actually cheaper than the one night we did spend in a chain hotel! The first night we stopped in a small city in Southern France called Pau (pronounced Poe kind of like the poet) and stayed in what remains my Favorite Bed and Breakfast of the trip: Clos Mirabel. It was up on a hill with breathtaking views of the Pyrenees Mountains and was run by a British family, who, like Cindy, have been in France a very long time. The guest house itself if a very large, two story, 18th century wooden manor house. It was beautifully and tastefully decorated with all the rooms upstairs and only sitting rooms, a dining room, and a kitchen downstairs. Breakfast was a sumptuous spread with local cheeses, a variety of local honeys, fruit, fresh breads, fresh yogurt in little glass jars, and of course fantastic tea and coffee. There was even a gorgeous pool and a bunny rabbit. We were all very dismayed we hadn't arrived until 9pm and had to leave by 9am, and I think all three of us hope to return someday with time to thoroughly enjoy it.



Our next sites were in Spain and a substantial 9 hour drive away, so we took all of Sunday to drive from Pau in southern France to Salamanca, in central Spain. We stopped at a lovely beach on the Atlantic coast in a town called Zumaia for lunch and again only wished we had enough time to grab towels and bathing suits and spend the day swimming in the perfectly cool waters and lounging amongst the colorful umbrellas. But alas, instead we wistfully dipped our toes and got back on the road. One silver lining of all the driving was the incredible amount of distance we were able to cover and thus the variety of landscape and culture we were able to experience, just like in California. We saw many beautiful old churches and cathedrals neslted amongst red roofs and later in Spain amongst adobe walls. We watched the style of these central buildings shift from grey stone castles to beige monasteries, and noticed as we went from green mountains to red cliffs to rolling farmland to wide flat expanses of wheat fields.

When we arrived in Salamanca, the Bed and Breakfast we had hoped to stay in turned out to be converted to other rental type use in the summer, so we stayed in an Ibis hotel. This is a chain not unlike a best western in the US, but nicer in many ways and decidedly more European. The fortunate part of this was that we were able to walk into the old central square of Salamanca (Plaza Mayor), which is surrounded by a beautiful, and huge baroque style building. We had the true European hot chocolate that is so dense you have to eat it with a spoon and all was well in the world.

The next day we managed to make up the site we didn’t do the day before and narrowly avoided getting drenched by a crackly storm at our second site. This second site was on the edge of a recently plowed field, and at one point a very old man on a very large tractor, who had already driven past us back and forth a few times, stopped to jovially ask when we were going to eat. This interaction was exciting and noteworthy for me for two reasons. First, because I was able understand him and despite all the difficulty I had been having understanding the very different accent of Castilian Spanish, and second, because he was able to understand me and didn't quickly switch to English like all the hotel people and waiters that are used to American tourists. He teased us a bit about working too hard and I teased back that he wasn’t one to talk since he was working too. He laughed and asked what we were up to and I managed an explanation he seemed to grasp and even told my of some other places and similar plants he thought we might be interested in. He was kind and sharp and the exchange left me feeling warm and reminded me of all the joy it gave me, both in Italy and Costa Rica, to interact with someone in their language when it is not your own. This is especially fulfilling to me for some reason when the other person doesn't speak your language. There is nothing to fall back on that way and working through places where someone doesn’t understand is an opportunity for creativity and a very real human connection. The moment true understanding is reached there is a rush of excitement you share that is truly special.

Anyways, enough about that, we hurried to finish up the site to avoid the oncoming storm, which we could see from miles away due to the flat landscape and patchiness of the rain. That evening we arrived at our second B&B in Urda, Spain, a small village about an hour south of Madrid surrounded by vineyards and other fertile croplands. La Casa Rural Los Laureles, was a beautiful Spanish Farmstead type Building with adobe walls and big, red-brown tiled floors which were accented by the classic and beautiful blue and painted Spanish tiles. The Spanish family that ran it made as a beautiful 3 course meal: first, second, and dessert. My Main was a type of trout the looked just like salmon and tasted very similar, but was seared almost like ahi, where it was left a little raw on the very inside. It was perfection.

Our site the next day was just north of Granada and Urda was on our way back towards our last two sites in eastern Spain, so we took the opportunity to stay at Los Laureles another night. This time we had dinner at a little restaurant where we were the only dinner customers (there were two other customers, two y regulars just off work come to hang out and have a beer). For 12 euro each (the euro and dollar are close to one-to-one these days) we had another three-course meal with a pitcher of sangria. Rather than go through the whole meal I’ll only say it was also delicious and that I tried a new dessert: Natilla. This is a creamy, custardy divinity with cinnamon and a cookie that has absorbed all the deliciousness. Enough said (hopefully… trust me it’s amazing).

Our last night on the road we stayed Cuenca, Spain, a city with a gorgeous old center perched on top of a narrow, rocky plateau between two breathtaking river gorges. Our site was a bit north of town in a beautiful preserve next to the river. This was the only site in a beautiful natural area and it was perfect. The little area was very diverse and more natural and native feeling than anywhere else we had been. Europe has a lot to offer, but pristine nature is near impossible to come by. This area was by no means pristine, but at least it was closer to feeling natural. We waded in the river after that last site and despite my exhaustion I felt near a state of bliss, saturated with the excitement of being abroad and the peaceful rush of cool water around my calves. That night we stayed at a sort of inn only a block from the old city square and had a dinner full of local flavors and accentuated by magnificent sangria.

Naturally, all this delight couldn't continue and on our way out of Cuenca, with hopes of stopping in Barcelona on our 9 hour drive back to Avignon, we got a flat. Normally, this is not a big deal. You simply stop, get out the spare, and change the tire. This is not what happened. It is a very long story, and while interesting and entertaining in certain regards, I wont regale you with the details now. To make it short, our rental car had no spare, the rental company doesn't let outside mechanics touch the car, and the solution was to get us a taxi to Madrid, two hours out of our way, and make us wait for 2 hours at the airport while they got us a new rental car. All told we were dealing with it for 6 hours and didn’t get back to Avignon until 2am. If you really want a full story, lets have a beer when I get back to the US. I suppose it isn't a real road trip without some story of a misadventure. (In California we drove four hours out of our way due to an incorrect GPS coordinate at one point… forgot to mention that in the last blog).

Now the three of us are safely back in Avignon and managed to struggle through the lab work we had today despite our exhaustion. Our reward tonight was delicious pizza with goat cheese and artichoke hearts and spices and the requisite beers. While Pat unfortunately has to leave on Wednesday, Hailey and I will spend the rest of the time staying here at Campus del Sol (the name of this hotel type place). We have some fun activities planned for the weekend, including lots of sleeping. I will try to recount them sooner rather than later to prevent another huge blog post. I can’t imagine anyone other than maybe my parents will have made it through this entire post.



Now, I must sleep.

---

Photos

Spain...
A large amount of rural spain looks a lot like this.

Comments

[Alex]

My favorite so far
I love this photo. A quintessential portrait of the field biologist at work.