The Trail's Our Thing

Beautiful square near the church in Bandol

There is a market EVERY DAY in Bandol, on a shady square with a beautiful fountain, surrounded by plane trees in front of the church. It isn’t a big market, but there was a cheese truck, a flower seller, and at least six fruit and vegetable sellers. And all the other little shops were open too—the fish shop we’d already visited, a butcher, the boulangerie, the small grocery store. Cynthia bought several things for our lunch and we stopped in the boulangerie for a baguette formed in the shape of a circle. I think it was called une couronne (a crown).

Luscious abricots at the market in Bandol

Coming back to the apartment, we met Cynthia and Ian’s French teacher, a young woman named Clemence. Actually they have two French teachers, since this is another one of their pursuits in Bandol. They are at different levels of language skill, and they take their lessons separately, and both are very serious about their work. Today Clemence spent an hour with Ian helping him with conversational skills he can use at the tennis club, and then she worked with Cynthia for another hour on more advanced French. I sat with Ian for his lesson. He had a fabulous classroom, there on the terrace. I skipped out for Cynthia’s lesson and lounged on a reclining chair further down the terrace, reading a very interesting Provençal cookbook and almost dozing off.

We had seafood again for lunch. Charley and Kelly don’t eat much fish or seafood (actually that is an exaggeration for Kelly, since she doesn’t eat ANY), so I jumped at the opportunity to have three fish/seafood meals. For lunch we had oysters (three kinds, and I had NINE), a salad that included the leftover mackerel, the crown of bread, and some excellent cheese. And to drink we had champagne. Lucky Cynthia and Ian… what a life they are going to have in Bandol!

Oysters for lunch... this is the life!

All too soon it was time for me to say goodbye to Ian and walk the five minutes back to the station with Cynthia and Juno. I’ve asked Cynthia to see if she can find a little hotel nearby, as I’d like to come back with Charley and Kelly for an overnight visit in a few weeks. They would love Bandol. I like Cassis a lot, but the port and waterfront at Bandol are larger and much more open, and the town seems less dominated by foreign tourists. Cynthia and Ian will probably also visit us in Bonnieux. They have influenced the course of our lives so much through our discovery of La Bastide Vieille and our time there. They are very special friends, and I loved my weekend interlude in Bandol with them.

Ian, Cynthia and Juno on Bendor

It was a two hour trip back to Aix-en-Provence (changing to the bus in Marseille), and then I walked the now-familiar route down the Cours Mirabeau back to Isabelle’s apartment. Strangely, I felt I was coming back home. Christine had left that morning, and we waited for the nouveau étudiant Fillippo to arrive. (And as I suspected it might be, our meal was leftover couscous… but we did have good wine and some very good cheese too!)