South of France Presents Different Atmosphere than Paris
By Tatiana Gonzalez ’09
News Guest Writer
This past week was quite different than the others in France. The group has always taken a trip down to the south of France, but unlike the other years, we took a train instead of a bus. At first the train was not very impressive, but as soon as we left the city limits things started to perk up.
The entire ride was wonderful. After we left Paris, the train was free to reach its maximum speed of 357 miles per hour. The next six hours were filled with gorgeous scenery. We saw fields that were not cultivated, used instead for grazing, with the occasional house here and there. The houses were not large, but they looked cozy, a drastic change from the houses in Paris. For the first few hours, we did not see any big towns, and all houses were at least one mile away from the others. The terrain was anything but flat here.
After two hours, we began to see much larger towns, but these towns retained the agricultural overtones of its predecessors. Even though these towns were larger, they still had open space. In all the towns, it was obvious that the inhabitants put emphasis on religion: we could almost immediately identify the church because it was significantly larger than any other building in the area.
From Fields to Alps
After seeing the towns, we passed by a stretch of vineyards. Since it is winter, the vines were bare, but the view was still beautiful. Here houses were more intermittent and the region was devoted to wine production.
The vineyard “period” was relatively short and after it the open spaces reappeared. The only exception was that this time around; we could see the Alps to our left. The small towns were shadowed by these majestic monsters, which were surprisingly less intimidating than one might think.
After passing the Alps, the train cruised slowly along the coast of the Mediterranean. This terrain was quite different from the bucolic scenes we had now grown accustomed to. We were graced with cliff after cliff, some small and others enormous. At the base of all the cliffs was the sea. The water was green with flecks of blue, while at the same time maintaining clarity—completely
The terrain preceding the cliffs was hilly, and several architects had taken advantage of this. Several apartment buildings were embedded in the hills and were designed in a circular fashion to let natural sunlight into every apartment.
As we approached the coast, there were fewer cliffs; instead, we were surrounded by beaches. At night, we finally reached Antibes. The atmosphere in Antibes was entirely different from that of Paris.
Relaxation by the Beach
The following morning was a day to relax. We woke up at eight, had a small breakfast and took a tour of the surrounding area, led by Mr. Jannot. In the afternoon we visited Cannes, which had a pier filled with boats. Here, we walked through a market and explored the narrow streets. The next three days were spent in Nice. Nice was made up of giant hills and sand-less beaches. While in Nice, we hiked up to the Matisse and Chagall museums, which are located on the tallest hill in the area. We also visited the Museum of Modern Art and two villas. One was located alongside the ocean and was influenced by the architecture of the Greek, while the other was located in the heart of Nice.
When in town, we spent the morning on a visit to a museum and then had free time to eat lunch, go shopping, or sit by the beach. In the afternoon, we either went to a second museum or returned to our lodging around six. We had a couple hours of free time and then went to dinner. The only down side about being in the south of France was that every night after dinner we had two hours of class. But in general, this trip could not have been more prefect, the weather was pleasant, the scenery gorgeous and the days relaxing.
Jesse Brent ’09 explores Paris, a sharp contrast to the southern beaches. PHOTO/Contributed Photo
