The past few weeks have taken us to four very different countries and through a myriad of landscapes, languages, football teams and socio-economic strata.

After all the rustic villages we have frequented of late, Cannes proved a quite refreshing change of pace (and a source of cheap Asian food which we have all been craving!) We joined the glamorous throng each evening strolling the Croisette (and walked it a couple of times in our cozzies and thongs!) We donned our silk scarves and big sunnies to drive the amazing coast road to Monaco and followed Ferraris around the Grand Prix track (several times in fact) looking for a parking spot in downtown Monte Carlo. We huddled beneath the moldering colonnades of the Place de Garibaldi in Nice, watching the city’s heaviest downpour of rain in decades, the very same rain that claimed the lives of 26 people that day, just a little to our north-west.

Then it was on to Italy, to a friendly homestay in a gelato coloured village high in the hills above the Ligurian town of Levanto. From here we did the famous cliff-top walk between the five villages of the Cinque Terre and enjoyed our last tranquil dip in the Mediterranean Sea. The real highlight for the kids - for all of us in fact - was John’s discovery of fireflies in the fields around our village. This proved one of the really magical moments of our trip, crouching in the darkness late at night, watching fireflies light up the olive groves around us like a thousand flashing fairy lights.

Making our way north to Switzerland, we stayed overnight in the lovely alpine town of St Vincent in Italy’s Aosta Valley where we sat in the midst of a crowd of raucous young Italians to watch New Zealand draw 1-1 with Italy in the football. We were the only Kiwis (and token Kiwis) present and we intended to keep a low profile but were quickly outed when New Zealand scored that first spectacular goal. Lawrence became quite apprehensive – the Italians were very full on - but I was (fairly) sure that they wouldn’t attack a mother and her children. We had John’s dad on the phone from New Zealand during the match – it was, without a doubt, the highlight of the Marychurch family’s World Cup!

The drive across the Alps next day was also unforgettable. We decided to avoid those awful long tunnels (which are no doubt very useful for people doing this drive every day), and drove over the top through the Grand St Bernard Pass. It was a bright blue day as we zigzagged up through the mountains - Mattahorn to your right,boys - Mt Blanc to your left. As we approached the border however, the weather suddenly closed in until we were romping about in icicles and snow (and – yes - a t-shirt in John’s case, of course!) Emerging from the clouds, we found ourselves in Switzerland - the complete chocolate box – meadows of flowers, chalets with geraniums and the hills alive with the sound of cowbells. It was so goddamn pretty, it was hard to believe it was real, sitting there in a high alpine meadow, munching on bread and fragrant Fontina cheese.

For me (Alison), Geneva was mostly about work. It was stressful but fantastic to finally meet with my UNHCR clients at Head Office and I had a really satisfying time there and secured some excellent interviews. Meanwhile, John took the kids to see the Large Hadron Collider (‘the LHC’ in nerd-speak) where the world’s physicists are gleefully slamming bits of atoms together in a tunnel 100 metres under Geneva (at a speed of 99.999999% the speed of light, Francis informs me) in an effort to discover new subatomic particles. In retrospect, it’s hard to say who should have been the more nervous that morning - John and the boys or me!

Once work obligations were behind me, we still had one day left to explore Geneva and its surrounds. We spent the morning touring the UN Palais des Nations which we all found very interesting, despite the fact that the main conference in session was the World Conference on the Harmonisation of Vehicle Regulations! We then spent a beautiful warm afternoon out on Lake Geneva. We thought that taking the ferry would be a cost effective option but no - this is Switzerland – it cost us the equivalent of AUS $80 to go 1.5 hours each way! Food too is prohibitively expensive In Geneva even on (particularly on) the Alison Gibbs Writing Service business expense account! The most modest looking restaurant in town ended up being as dear as Assiette or Aria in Sydney and it was a good thing that we were staying in France and crossing the border every day.

We are back in France this evening and on the home straight now. We are spending our last five days in Strasbourg in Alsace, from where we will cross the Rhine to give the boys a brief taste of Germany.

As a result, this is likely to be our last blog entry. It has been a wonderful adventure – a real necklace of jewels - but I think we are all feeling ready to come home. We can’t believe we’ll find a new Prime Minister in The Lodge. Clearly we have some catching up to do on goings on in Australia!

Thanks to everyone who has followed our doings via the blog and kept in touch with us along the way. Until next week, a bientot!

Alison, John, Lawrence and Francis

Bridges and bells in Provence

Travelling across Languedoc on our way to Vaucluse (Provence), we crossed the new and mighty Viaduct de Millau. This bridge is truly marvelous, floating high above the Tarn valley like a fleet of sailing ships. It is perhaps the first wonder of the 21st century and even more wondrous for the fact that the French took just three years to build it! (Lawrence commented at the time that the man across the road from us in Ashbury has taken longer to renovate his house.)
We were headed for the small hilltop village of Lourmarin in the ruggedly beautiful Luberon region of Vaucluse where we have based ourselves for the past two weeks. We are right in the thick of it here, in an extremely cute house on the top of the hill, wedged beneath the town clock tower and the village church and – yes - it has been a serious case of “The bells! The bells!” They strike the hour and the half hour, 24 hours a day. Over the past ten days they have also rung for two masses, two sessions of evening prayer, a baptism, a wedding and a funeral. It is amazing what you can get used to, however. We all sleep through them now.
My father Stan has joined us here which has been very special. He has coped admirably with the stairs in the house and the steep village streets, heading out on his morning boulangerie duty. Together we explored the surrounding villages of the Luberon, Aix- en-Provence and Avignon as well as Europe’s largest and deepest spring (380 metres deep) where the entire River Sorgue comes bubbling out of a mountainside and cascades down through the pretty town of La Fontaine de Vaucluse. We enjoyed many excellent games of 500 on our rooftop terrace and the odd, very pleasant kir or two in the village square. Yesterday we waved Stan off to Prague on the TGV where he is staying with his good Czech friend George.
John, the boys and I have also visited Orange and Arles where we have wandered around wonderful Roman ruins and ‘stepped inside’ many of Vincent Van Gogh’s paintings – that café on the street corner, the asylum/hospital gardens, the stairs to the bridge across the Rhone - they are all pretty much as we know them. From there, we continued south to The Camargue, the massive swampland at the mouth of the Rhone River where we saw fantastic birdlife, including hundreds of flamingoes, recently arrived from Africa on their annual summer vacation.
Tonight we are heading down to the village square to watch France’s first World Cup game against Uruguay. All day we have enjoyed watching Lourmarin’s three cafés battle it out for World Cup supremacy. In answer to “our” Chez Gaby’s pathetic little French flag pinned above the bar, the establishment opposite has unfurled a massive French flag down its façade. Now both have been gazumped by café No. 3 which, around lunchtime, unveiled a huge plasma screen (facing their tables of course), sending all the other waiters into an anxious huddle. We note that there were no such preparations for the women’s final of the French Open last week which we watched alone in Café Gaby with one waiter of Italian descent.
Anyhow,it’s salut for now. We are relieved to hear that friends in Lennox Head have escaped the worst of the tornado. We wish all you sodden Sydneysiders and North Islanders finer days ahead. Alison, John, Lawrence & Francis.