AzurAlive

French Riviera Wet Weather Wonders

 It's raining on the Côte d'Azur... Bonjour Tristesse!

What do you do when drops fall from the sky on the French Riviera?

After all, you didn't visit to stay "Entre les Murs" (translation = behind walls, but film title "The Class") during your vacation, even if the movie of the same title won the 2008 Palme d'Or today at the 2008 Cannes Film Fest.

So what to do while swim suits await in bottom of suitcase? Try these ideas:

1. Pick up a good book and find a nook in a café. Our list of favorite English-language bookshops between Cannes and Nice?

1. Cat's Whiskers in Nice -- 04 93 80 02 66
2. Scruples in Monaco -- 377 93 50 43 52
3. The English Book Centre in Valbonne -- 04 93 12 21 42
4. Cannes English Bookshop in Cannes -- 04 93 99 40 08
5. Castle Bookshop in Fayence -- 04 94 84 72 00
   

2. Visit a grand villa or a museum. You may not be alone with that idea, but you'll have many to pick from. Just a few great ones:

1. Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild, on St-Jean-Cap-Ferrat
2. Fondation Maeght, in ever so popular St-Paul-de-Vence
3. Musee Picasso, Antibes (it reopens Summer 2008)
4. Chapelle du Rosaire, Vence
5. Villa Kerylos, Beaulieu-sur-Mer
6. Archaeological Museum, Cimiez area of Nice

3. Go to a concert. Where do you learn about them? The local papers Nice-Matin or Var-Matin... have them in French, or check out the tourism boards' web sites.

4. Drop by the Musee de l'Art Culinaire, in Villeneuve-Loubet. Then try your hand at a sunny Provençal recipe.

5. Visit the Tropics. Click here to take a look at Parc Phoenix by Nice and its giant glass house that stands 25 meters high and homes an intricate array of tropical plants.

Soon, the weather will return to its Mediterranean warmth and you'll be headed for the beach!

Smoking News

What's in the news in our corner of South Eastern France today?

As of midnight yesterday, smoking is disallowed across public places including museums, bars, restaurants and discotheques in France. You can still smoke outside...

This is the talk of the town today. Some are fuming over the decision. To them, it's "yet another loss of freedom, another loss of choice." Others clap and explain that they'll be able to spend some time in these public places and breathe clean air.

Honestly, some cafés here were so filled with smoke, your eyes would sting. It's refreshing to see that they'll be open to everyone now.

In any case, the ban made for an animated 2nd day of the year.

As I left the café, I noticed more people outside than usual, despite the cold wind that blows since yesterday. All of them were smoking like chimneys in the dead of winter.

• In 2000, each adult in France bought 1,724 cigarettes. This is according to the "Centre de Documentation et d’Information sur le Tabac. How did they define adult? Anyone over 15 years old, but unfortunately, many smokers here are under 15 y.o.
• 64,771 tons of tobacco were sold in France in 2005.
• 60,000 deaths are attributable to tobacco smoking every year.

New Year's Challenge

Here's a fun new online travel game to start off your New Year with a challenge. It's a geography quiz hosted by Travelpod, a service that hosts travel blogs.

What is your travel IQ? Click on the image below to find out.

Oui, de la pluie!

Yes, it is finally raining on parts of the Côte d'Azur. While the rest of France enjoys warm weather, a few  enclaves in south-eastern France have gray clouds bursting with water and, less happily, plenty of wind to boot. Corsica and parts of Côte d'Azur Provence are under the weather.

And that's wonderful news.

In the Var, the Argens river has dried up for a stretch of 3 kilometers. In the Gorges du Verdon, usually wet with an average of 500 mm of rain water during the Fall had only 13 mm as of two weeks ago. On the hillside of the Lachens mountain, you can see wide brownish spots where pine trees are drying up. In the Maures, we find a growing number of ill maritime pines like we saw on a recent October walk (photo below) by Roquebrune-sur-Argens.

 Weakened by months of dry weather, the maritime pine trees are more susceptible to the pine-damaging scale insect, the Matsucoccus feytaudi.

Opinions vary of the future of the Mediterranean forests of Provence Azur - to many, local forests are the product of long periods of droughts and are thus well capable of adapting; to others, without human intervention, the forests are changing as less drought-resistant species slowly die off and make way for more resilient ones. From what we see, the second opinion better reflects the state of the forests of the Var and the Alpes-Maritimes.

Forêt Mediterranéenne is holding a round-table seminar on November 8 and 9 in Marseille regarding the impact of global warming on the local forests. We will be talking to experts from the Minister of Agriculture then.

Although we all prefer to hike and explore the region in dry conditions, let's hope it continues to rain for a few more days.

As seen in Le Point

The French love their vacances actives, and they love to poke a little humor at everything. 

As seen in the french magazine Le Point:

"Those who have chosen the adventure option, take the stairs."

Le 15 Aout

Mais oui, it's mid August! 

Finally, after a month of cars lined up on the coastline road of the Cote d'Azur as on a factory line, the hords head home.  August 15 one of the biggest travel weekends of the year in France.  It's the end of summer.  Beach shops with inflatable alligators and sunkissed postcards deflate a few floaty animals and begin to open up boxes of back-to-school materials.  Pizza parlors and summer bistrots breathe again just enough to chat up the weather. Business, they say, wasn't all that good this year. 

By Toulon, the Mistral wind still whips the sea into a frost.  Which rhythm will it go by this time: 3, 6 or 9 days? The parasol pine trees still lean and shade the rusty bay shaped in a perfect semi-circle.  Tomatoes still rippen on the grape.  Eggplants hang their purple heads low.  A cicada hides in the silver foliage of an olive tree and sings.

Visitors come and go.   The Provence Alpes Cote d'Azur region of France remains whole and vibrant long after summer leaves. 

We can't wait to tell you about the unique vibrant little treasures this region embraces year-round.

Welcome to AzurAlive!