Swiss Ticino and Provence Untours, Summer of 2001
by Derek and Janice Ransley, Lafayette, CA
We just got back from one of our best vacations ever. We arranged the trip through Idyll Untours (untours.com), which is a non-profit organization. Idyll will book a (usually) pre-determined two-week stay at an apartment in several locations in Europe. They will include air travel if you wish and local transportation if you wish. There is a local Idyll rep who will provide an orientation but after that, you are on your own. You do save some money by participating in a group, but have the freedom to do whatever you want. Other than the orientation, there may be one or two optional group activities offered. Idyll has locations in Provence, Alsace and Paris in France, three locations in Switzerland etc.
We started our vacation in Locarno, in the Ticino area of Switzerland. Our apartment was 200 yards from the station, where all our daily excursions started. It was on the third floor overlooking Lago Maggiore. The apartment was small but perfectly adequate. There were two unexpected bonuses. One was the small, newly installed balcony overlooking the lake and secondly, the TV carried several English-speaking channels including one with the French Open tennis tournament. The owner was an English-speaking Swiss lady and her husband, who were very pleasant and helpful when we had questions.
Each day we would set out on an excursion, of which there were many to chose. There are a number of valleys that radiate into the mountains around Locarno. We took the bus to the head of the valley and walked down-slope to wherever we decided to catch the return bus. We enjoyed this so much that we returned to one valley twice, getting off the bus on the way up where we had gotten off the on the way down the previous time. We encountered many waterfalls, rushing streams, villages of granite houses, occupied and not, wild flowers, restaurants, mountain scenery, and even a stretch of modern art displayed along the river.
Switzerland has many mountains and given a decent mountain the Swiss feel a need to run a railway or gondola or funicular up it or through it. You need to be selective because these rides are expensive. We chose to go up Mt Generosa on a clear day that gave us distant views of the Matterhorn and the Jungfrau. The local funicular gave us access to beautiful views of the lake and of Locarno.
We visited towns and cities. Lugarno, a very sophisticated city, was an hour away with a train service every 30 minutes. Bellinzona is the capital of Ticino and is non-touristy but has three 500+ year old castles that we enjoyed visiting. Ascona is a lake-side gem with an "old town".
Our Swiss Pass gave us free access to all trains and buses and to the boats on Lago Lugano but not Maggiore. We spent quite some time on boats.
We visited Villa Favorita, a beautiful villa and gardens with a fine art display. We continued with a walk to Gandria, had a lake-side lunch and then took the boat and train home. We also took the train/boat to Morcote, on Lago Lugano.
The first language of the area is Italian, which we learned a little a few years ago, but didn't practice for this trip. If we tried our Italian, we usually got a reply in German, since all non-Italian speakers are presumed to be German.
We had superb weather and, after our excursions, we would eat out or have a late dinner at the apartment. Then we would take our wine out onto the balcony and watch the action on the lake and the colors change on the surrounding mountains after watching tennis.
The train trip from Locarno to Avignon took about 9 hours and four trains, the final one being a TGV (which was an hour late). We made all the connections. At Avignon, we picked up a rental car and drove to the Idyll rep's home in Iles sur la Sorgue. We got directions to our apartment in Pernes les Fontaines. This apartment was much bigger and was owned by a Spanish lady who spoke rapid French.
Each day we would go to explore Provence in our funny-looking A140 Mercedes. There is far more to do than you can cover in two weeks. There are many dramatic hill-top towns, cities with Roman ruins, exciting gorges, beautiful country-side and fields of lavender and more. A couple of the high points were the Pont du Gard, a 2000+ year-old aqueduct in amazingly good condition, and the Gorges d'Ardeche. The latter is like a mini Grand Canyon with many people floating down the river in kayaks. The river has carved incredible shapes into the surrounding mountains.
It seemed as if everything we did was at least a little better than we expected. For instance, the markets, which are taken really seriously by the locals, are where you can find excellent cheese, olives, fruit and vegetables as well as fabric and bric-a-brac. There are spectacular views from Mount Ventoux and from many of the hill-towns.
We were told not to expect the locals to speak English so our efforts to refresh our High School French really paid off. We found everyone to be very friendly and helpful and often eager to try a conversation.
Pernes is a small town of 8500 souls and eight boulangeries, all appearing to be doing well. We were two short blocks from the old town and were always fascinated to wander the narrow, curving streets and 34 fountains.
We thought Provence to be inexpensive. We found an excellent restaurant which provided a delightful three-course dinner, including a bottle of wine and tip for about $40. We tended to eat out a little more often. Our landlady greeted us with a bottle of enjoyable wine, which we later found cost $1.10. We usually splurged and drank $3.50/ bottle wine. We brought home a couple of bottles of Chateauneuf du Pape after promising the proprietor at the vineyard that we wouldn't drink it for at least five years. These cost about $30. We asked for something that was drinkable now. They gave us a 1984 that cost $14.
Again we had superb weather. We could do a wash in the morning and it was dry when we returned in the evening.
We could walk to the boulangerie for croissants for breakfast and bread for our picnic lunches. We would make great lunches of pate or ham and have olives and fruit. Tough to beat!
We visited the town of Arles. They had a neat idea. You could select from three different walks. The Vincent van Gogh walk, the Roman walk or the History walk. We chose the Vincent walk. You could follow a map of Arles to different locations where Vincent had painted a famous picture. There was a copy of that picture at the site. You could clearly see what he was looking at and where he was standing when he painted it. There, of course, where many changes since he painted but it was a thrill all the same. It was a good way to become familiar with Arles. We had visited the sanitarium where Vincent resided towards the end of his life. It was a simple but somewhat moving experience.
Another high point of the visit was the town of Les Baux, which we later learned is the second most visited tourist attraction in France. We wondered what was going on after we parked the car because the town seemed to be comprised of schlocky tourist shops. However, once you paid your fee and received your English-language audio guide, you entered the remains of the old town that went back many hundreds of years. The town is built on a rocky outcrop that emerges from the valley floor. Homes and buildings are built into the rock. The views covered 360 degrees and were breathtaking. It really is a life-sized museum. The Mistral was blowing that day. This is a strong North wind that blows 150 days a year in Provence. Otherwise, the weather was superb.
The Camargue is an area that is really a large park in fairly natural condition. Parts are very touristy, we read. However, we went to the Parc Ornithologique. This turned out to be a large complex built around three lagoons. The first lagoon was surrounded by several very large cages in which there were many varieties of raptors. There were also storks of several species. Wild storks had come and built a nest on top of the cage in which the captive storks were caged.
The lagoon itself contained many types of ducks and water birds and muskrats and hundreds of flamingos. These would, on occasion, take off to reveal the beautiful pink and black markings of their under-wings. The second lagoon was larger and less densely populated and the third was very large and took us over an hour to walk around. We were fascinated by the place and spent five hours there.
On the way home, we chose to visit the town of Aigues-Mortes. This is an ancient town with a huge surrounding wall that is completely in tact. Inside the town,it is pleasantly touristy and it was enjoyable to sit in the main square and have a beer.
We visited Gordes. This is another hill-town that is often pictured in magazines and tourist brochures. It is, indeed, spectacular. However, once you get into town, there isn't much to see. Near-by is Rousillon. The buildings are ochre in color of 16 different shades because they are made with the local rock, which contains aluminum ore. There is a walk through an area of this type of rock, which we enjoyed. We took a wrong turn leaving town and was headed the wrong direction down a one-way street that was too narrow to turn in. Fortunately, we encountered no traffic.
Towards the end of our stay, the fields of lavender, for which Provence is famous, came into bloom. It is amazing to see blue fields. We visited the lavender museum, which we found to be interesting.
Oppede-le-Vieux doesn't get much press, so came as a surprise to us. After parking below the town, we walked uphill to the old town, which dated from the thirteenth century. It had been abandoned for years but has been partially restored but is a fascinating place to visit.
We saw many Roman buildings and ruins. This included the theatre at Orange, the amphitheatre in Arles, the Roman town of Glanum near St Remy, and the dig at Vaison-la-Romaine as well as the Pont du Gard.
There were many other places that we visited but that covers the main sites. We were sorry to leave Provence and expect to return for a longer visit some time soon.
We took the TGV to Paris. The TGV is sleek and fast but you don't really feel that you are going at 180 mph.
We stayed at a hotel that Idyll uses. It is located in the Marais, which is convenient to visit places like Notre Dame. It is also the gay center of France, which got pretty old after a while. The hotel itself was nice and the people there were helpful and friendly. It got a little warm there and open windows exposed us to the sounds of loud TVs, hetero sex, fireworks, motorbikes, and the high decibel sounds of the Fete de la Musique on June 21. We won't stay there again.
We walked a lot and explored much of the city. We are returning for a longer visit in the Fall so we paced ourselves. The only museums we visited were the Musee d'Orsay and the Pasteur Institute. We went to concerts at Notre Dame (organ) and St Chapelle (organ and trumpets). We checked out the hotel we have booked for the Fall visit. It was encouraging that they had us in their computer, as I had booked on line. It looked fine. We went to the Eiffel Tower (we may go up in the Fall) and the Trocadero Fountains (we want to see them at night in the Fall) and to the Arc de Triomphe. We went to several parks including the Luxembourg Gardens, the Jardin des Plantes, the Tuileries and the Bois de Boulogne.
We used the Metro and were very impressed. I don't think that the total wait time for trains was more than 15 minutes over the five days and about 20 journeys.
We had a hiccup on the way home. We had a three-hour wait at the airport coming home, only to find that our flight was cancelled. Air France put us up at the Airport Hilton and gave us meals until the next day.
On our way home by East Bay Shuttle, I will say that the architecture seemed very tame compared with what we saw in France.
We had purchased a DK Eyewitness Travel Guide of Paris from Costco before we left. Every other tourist was carrying that same book.
We found that our luggage was too heavy for convenience. Each of our two suitcases weighs 17 pounds empty. We will explore lighter baggage and fewer clothes for our Fall trip.
It really was a great trip, which was enhanced by good weather and good health.