A brief address on a (brief) trip to the south of France.

As some of you know, and some of you do not, I spent the last four (or five, depending on how you measure it) days in the south of France--namely, Aix-en-Provence and Marseilles. The story is this: approximately 11 days ago, Dariya came to stay with me in London during her break from classes. We wandered through much of my surrounding districts, in and around Hyde Park and the Kensington Gardens (and the Serpentine Lake! where with any luck I will spend many of the sunny days of next year's summer), through Trafalgar Square, along the river, the clocktower, and Parliament. We toured Leicester Square (but did not venture into the nearby and seedy Soho), and even managed to get over to the Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese pub on Fleet Street. The highlights were perhaps the sprawling Borough fresh food market (many fruits and vegetables, chocolates, sweet cakes, and freshly baked English pot pies) and the Sherlock Holmes pub, where we enjoyed a dinner of "Hound of the Baskervilles", and some very tasty spotted dick and custard for dessert.

Last Tuesday, after about four days here, Dariya and I took a cheap RyanAir flight from London to Marseille, and met Jane in Aix-en-Provence. For most of the time, we simply explored Aix, including the fruit and craft morning markets, as well as a goodly number of the dumbfoundingly delicious pastry shops. The landscape views were beautiful (I miss mountains!), and I was enchanted by the various eclectic fountains on display (for example, one with four angry fish spewing graceful arcs of water, another small fountain with a very large and disgruntled wild boar, and a final one that merely looked like a moss-overgrown cube with some rather pathetic trickles).

We went to Marseilles twice whilst we were there, once going up to the basilica, the high point of the city, with a gold statue of the Virgin Mary at its peak. Despite the fact that I am not very religious, I was amazed at the beauty of the cathedral and its paintings and stained glass. From outside the church, we could see the entire city, with all of its orange-tiled rooftops.

On another trip to Marseilles, we took the ferry to the Chateau d'If, the island of the shore which is home to the prison fortress referenced in Dumas's The Count of Monte Cristo. We had planned on going to the beach that day, but alas: it turned suddenly frigid and rainy, and so I have returned home without a dip in the Mediterranean. The gray and dismal day, however, was absolutely perfect for a visit to the former prison.

I am back in London now, after many pastries and bus-rides, two-and-a-half days of missed classes, and one nearly-missed airplane. Thus, for now, I must leave my descriptions and go begin to catch up on the reading for this week's classes. Ciao!