Provence

Another snap of the “Maison Carrée” – or square house – a name I really think seems a bit sad. It would be more wonderful to use the original Roman name — unless, of course, they also called in the Square House!

Continuing the series, here is a nice French police cruiser parked in the Vieux-Port area of Marseille:

C0ntinuing the series, as artistic a snap as I thought I could take of a magnificent fire truck in Nimes, France:

As artistic a snap as I thought I could take of some grape vines in the Luberon region of southern France:

This is a snap of the famous Old Port, or Vieux-Port, in Marseille:

It boggles the mind that the Romans built this thing in the year 2 BC. Well, to be more accurate, I am assuming the Romans did NOT in fact build it but rather they had several teams of slaves working on it.

I am not really sure what this is – but I took this snap in Nice

If you’ve got sharp eyes you’ll notice that the side of the white building is flat. What looks like balcony and bolsters is just painted on!

Continuing the series, I really wonder how long this place is going to last. There is a small village built on an outcropping of red ochre, which as far as I can tell just seems to melt away in the rain.

At the very far end of the Promenade des Anglais you’ll find this hotel, and just to the left is a staircase that leads to a wonderful platform where you can get a great look at the old city of Nice (Ville Vieux):

Here’s a plaque that describes the history a bit:

Continuing the series, I took these snaps in the sleepy French Provence town of L’Isle-sur-la-Sorge. I have no idea what they are! I assume they are remnants of a long-gone mill, but it is on my bucket list to one day return and find out!

Here is the first snap:

And here is the same strange thing, but from a different perspective:

Not exactly overflowing with people, which actually is a good thing because at the time of this writing, the Omicron variant of “Covid dixneuf” was exploding in France:

Continuing the series, this garbage receptacle located on the Promenade des Anglais is really a mixture of low-tech (opened by a foot pedal) and high-tech (a light shows whether or not the container is full):

Continuing the series, this is a completely different socca that I ordered in Nice,

It was firmer and less goupy than the first socca that I had, but I have to say: I much prefer the goopier and less firm socca, which I found to be much more flavourful.

Continuing the series, here is another snap but this one showing more of the city of Nice in the early morning sun,

Continuing the series, I am not knocking all these paddlewheels, don’t get me wrong. It’s just that it would be nice if they actually turned instead of just sitting there idly,

Continuing the series, here is another snap of that unusual fog phenomena,

Continuing the series, this is farcis niçois, a speciality in Nice,

It was essentially capsicum stuff with some type of meat. It tasted an awful lot like lamb, even though most of the recipes I’ve subsequently found online say that it is typically Italian sausage. And the meat was really chunky, which I would not expect from a sausage. So it is on my bucket list to return one day and find out more about the stuffing!

At the main market in Nice I spotted this stand,

I took this snap one morning late in December while in the Southern French city of Nice. I took the snap from a lookout high above the city that you need to climb.  It was early in the morning, and there was only one person there – a man with a big fancy camera on a tripod.

As you can imagine, it blew my mind when I saw exactly my snap shown on 03. January on CNN in Switzerland!  According to the caption shown on CNN, this is some type of fog phenomena that is very rare in Nice.  Is it true?  Is it not true? At any rate, it is clear that the man with the big camera on the tripod was either working for CNN or else sold his photograph to them!

Continuing the series, this statue of Alphonse Benoit (1809-1872) is not a trivial little adornment; no sirree, this is a monster obelisk that sits in a very prominent position in the sleepy French Provence town of L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue:

Not only that, but this man has an entire school in L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue named after him!

What did he do? Why is he so famous? Good question – I don’t know!  The only reference to him that I could easily find was this one, and it doesn’t say very much.

Here’s part of a snap at the bottom of the obelisk:

Continuing the series,