Tag: europe
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A Quiet Farewell in Paris
After a month travelling through France, our final stop was Paris. Ordinarily that sentence would be the start of a whirlwind account of museums, monuments, galleries and long days spent walking the city. Instead, it became something rather different. By the time we arrived, we were simply ready to slow down. The previous month had…
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Canal du Midi: Expectations, Reality and a Lesson in Slowing Down
When we booked a week on the Canal du Midi, I had a fairly clear picture in my head of what it would be like. The brochures showed boats gliding through tunnels of shady trees, with dappled sunlight on the water and picturesque villages appearing every few kilometres. In many ways, that’s exactly what we…
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A Quick Update from France
If you’ve been wondering why things have gone a little quiet lately, there’s a good reason. The plan had been to spend some time travelling through southern France while still keeping up with writing and posting. As it turned out, the weather had other ideas. During our week on the Canal du Midi the heat…
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Lunch and Art at Château La Coste
Today at Château La Coste in Provence felt like one of those places where food, landscape and art all become part of the same experience. Before lunch we spent time walking through the grounds looking at the outdoor artworks integrated into the vineyards and hillsides. The standout for me was the Oak Room by Andy…
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Nîmes
Nîmes feels like a city designed by people who understood heat long before air conditioning. We arrived and walked first through broad boulevards lined with deep green plane trees, where water sits low in the paving and the hard Mediterranean light is softened by shade rather than hidden from it. Everything here seems designed around…
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The Landscape Beneath the Garden
There’s something fascinating about travelling through Provence with a group led by garden designer and writer Michael McCoy. After only a few days, you stop seeing gardens as isolated things. They become part of a much bigger landscape – geology, agriculture, climate, architecture, history and food all folded together. Today started with another private garden…