Andrew Hall - R.I.P.

Well.
Yesterday I was informed by my friend Randy that a friend of mine named Andrew Hall had died.

Here is the obit from the Columbia Tribune.

I'd known Andy since the 4th grade and I'm pretty sure he would have been surprised by what a huge influence he was on just about every aspect of my life.

Where to begin?

As kids there were countless sleepovers at each others houses.
He was addicted to Brown Sugar & Cinnamon Pop Tarts and would basically make us eat them when we were hanging out at his place.
His mom Lela used to make these awesome things she called Styrofoam Cookies.
We consumed vast quantities of horror films & sci-fi novels.
We collected and drew our own comic books.
He was always a much better artist than I.
One day while our gang was out hunting for beer cans (remember that fad?) in a junk yard in Nowhere, Missouri, we kicked over an oil can and underneath was a ratty copy of the novel "Sirens Of Titan" by Kurt Vonnegut.
Intrigued by the cover, which I believe had a scantily clad chick and some planets on it, we took it home and read it.




That was the beginning of our little bohemian .... I'm not sure what the right word is.... post-punk maybe...psychedelic maybe...phase.
Anyway, it was the start of a journey that would encompass the next several years.
I think it was Timothy Leary who talked about imprinting and how the human mind is more open to it early on, like most mammals.
And I'm pretty sure that was what happened to me then.
In the years that followed the book discovery he and I read every single book Vonnegut had out at the time. We were blown away.

I remember failing to find Vonnegut in the public or high school library. I suppose we can thank the local, decent, church-going folk for that one. I remember the hatful looks from the old biddy behind the counter at some bookstore when we requested they carry his books.

Vonnegut wrote strange, beautiful sci-fi with more than a tinge of sadness and a disjointed quality we would not be able to understand until we had taken a few trips of our own later on.

Andy and I were both on the same swim team though he was much better and more dedicated than I.
He went to England with the swim team and came back with a suitcase full of rock n roll albums that he'd discovered over there.
You see, in England at the time, there was this little thing called "punk rock" going on.
It was damn near impossible to get that music where we were.
He brought back all of these bands:
Stiff Little Fingers, Sex Pistols, The Jam, Clash, UK Subs, Generation X, Devo, PIL, The Specials, Bob Marley, Echo & The Bunnymen etc.
He'd unknowlingly single handedly changed the listening habits of our entire crowd.
The records were passed around amongst us all and within a couple weeks there were quite a few more trench coats showing up at school.
We started making weekend trips up to Columbia where the indie record shop was.
We brought back Black Flag, Siouxsie, The Residents, Dead Kennedys and so on.
I remember one of us bought the first Psychedelic Furs album based strictly on the name and the cover.
In those days there was just no way to hear the music first.
You took a chance on each purchase and so, the album cover was KING.
Around the same time we ran across the TV show "New Wave Theater" on the old USA network. We were mesmerized by that show.
Angry Samoans, X, GezaX.
It basically said to us that anyone could do this rock music thing.
That show and those records inevitably lead to forming our own band.
None of us knew how to play but we already knew that didn't matter.
We bought (and totally stole {{thanks for the PA - Cole County Fair Grounds}}) gear and started banging around in a part of Andy's house known as "The Barn".
It became the only music scene in Jefferson City at the time as far as we knew.
Andy was the one who introduced me to the Ampeg SVT amp and the Fender bass.
Andy named the band Sticky Midgets.
I played drums.
Like many punk musicians, Andy & I had a special closet love for dub music.
Jah Wobble and the bass lines in Marley tunes were a huge time for us.
We loved that strange album Wobble put out with The Edge on guitar...you know, the one where he stole all the bass lines from his old band PIL.
What was the name of that damn album? Where is my copy?

I remember Andy walking around the barn muttering "They's Jah people!"
Of course I have no memory of why that was so damn funny at the time.


Fairly quickly after that I joined a second band.
We got drunk and whatever together.
We ran around in the woods like a bunch of psychedelic Huck Finns.
It was with our first band that we started experimenting with home recording.
There was no ProTools or 4 track tape recorders or decent microphones or anything.
One of our band members, Stuart, seemed to just know how to do things that we needed done.
We made a tape and sent it to the punk rock radio show in Columbia, MO.
I remember us all listening to the radio show the next weekend and calling the station demanding they play us and then freaking out when we actually heard our stuff on the air!!!
It was the first time that happened.
I was hooked on that feeling and it hasn't left me to this day.
Our band got invited by the radio show to come up to Columbia to play a showcase with a bunch of other bands.
I can't remember how we got there, but we did.
We played.
I'm sure it was awful, but I just remember having such a good time.
We did two songs where I sang and Stuart played drums.
Some audience member draped women's underwear on my microphone as I sang.

We played some parties and generally had a good rowdy time.
Andy started making t-shirts for our band.
Hand drawn in permanent ink.

There were lots of bulging eyeballs involved.
It was all very PusHead.

One time I was wearing my Sticky Midgets tshirt in a music store in Kansas City.
I was begging my parents to buy me this huge ride cymbal.
They weren't going for it.
Out of nowhere this total stranger comes up to me, points at my shirt and says "Sticky Midgets??? I heard you guys on the radio the other night. You guys are awesome!"
I walked out of there with a new cymbal and more music drive than ever.

Jim Heisinger started jamming around with us.
He taught me how to do some high hat things the Clash would do.
He taught me to play like Larry Mullen.
Our band would sometimes get into the "right state" of mind and play these awesome psych-out jams.
Stuart would just press record and let the tape run until the end.
I would hit my cymbals and colors would shimmer out of them.
Stuart's delay heavy vocals had this perfect non-sequitar quality.
Part Zen master, part moron.
Some of that stuff was magic.
A lot of it wasn't.
But hey, 90% of everything is crap.
I loved it all...of course I was biased.

My family moved out of town after my senior year and I went to college in another state.
Obviously that was a good thing but I didn't see it that way at the time.
I wasn't enjoying myself at college.
The school was conservative.
I could not find any like minded people.
Then one day I walked into my dorm room and Andy is just sitting on my bunk.
He's hundreds of miles from home.
He shows up unannounced.
It was awesome.
We ran around like idiots and then the next day he was gone.
To this day I don't know exactly why he showed up.

I finally found a crowd to hang out with at school.
There was an aborted attempt to regroup after college and start playing shows again.
I'm fairly certain that would have worked out well but when I showed up in town, no one else was there.
I took it as a sign to move on and that is what I did.
I lost touch with Andy after that.
I'd heard that he'd had some issues with alcohol or whatever.

Andy contacted me a few years ago to say hello.

Nothing much came of that except that I became aware of his little web site where he had stashed a bunch of pictures of his daughter and his art work.
I would go there about once every 3 months to see if anything new had been added but after a while it became clear that the site was a ghost ship.
Last year Jim Heisinger died suddenly.

I found out Andy died yesterday and just on a whim googled "Sticky Midgets".
There is totally a myspace page where you can hear one of our Acid Jams made at the peak of a trip. I think Andy is even singing on that track.
http://www.myspace.com/stickymidgets

I'm pretty sure Andy created the myspace page.
He never told me about it.
On that page is a link to a photobucket archive:
http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q127/ash2639/

This looks like a whole bunch more of Andy's art and pictures of his daughter and various friends.
Two more ghost ships I suppose.
I have no idea who any of these people in the pictures really are.
I started wondering about other ghost ship web sites out there for other people who died.
Tiny little blips like meteorites in the night sky.
Testaments to our tiny lives that will be erased as soon as whoever is running the servers realizes the bills aren't being paid.

I've played music for better or worse, every week of my life since the Sticky Midgets days.
I currently play a Fender bass through an Ampeg bass amp.

Now if you will excuse me, I need to finish my breakfast...

Pertuis Day 3 - Lots of Chamber Music

Got up in time for some breakfast and the Sunday crossword:


Then grabbed my cello and hit the road for Phillipe's house. Misjudged my drive time by about half (should have taken Rick Steve's driving advice of taking whatever time you think it's gonna take and doubling -- that dude really knows what he's talking about), but arrived only a few minutes late. I spent the morning working on a Brahms quartet (I believe it's Opus 26, but I'm not sure -- these guys really know this stuff and may or may not understand how thoroughly ignorant I am of chamber music and/or classical music in general). Anyway, it's a quartet for piano, violin, viola, and cello, and I spent the morning working through it with Phillipe on piano, Werner on violin, Francois on viola, and of course moi on cello. It's a great piece, and it was fun to play with the fellas -- they mostly conversed in French, so I only got bits and pieces of the discussion, but of course Werner was very accomodating by speaking English (his native language is German) when necessary for me to understand.


We stopped sometime around 12:30 or 1:00, and Nick made a very nice lunch of tomato salad, omelette, cheese, and bread (and Phillipe added some peas and carrots, fearing that we wouldn't have enough to eat). Then a siesta, which I spent poolside chatting with Nick and his wife Hillary.

The afternoon was spent reading through various trios for violin, piano, and cello with Nick and Werner, then an attempt at a Bach sonata for cello and piano (which I botched pretty badly, but whatcha gonna do when basically sightreading music one has never even heard before, much less played). When we finished, Nick and Werner ran through a little Bach for violin and piano.


Then it was teatime out on the patio with Phillipe, Nick, Werner, and Phillipe's wife Julia and Nick's wife Hillary, after which I took my leave, pretty worn out from a long day of playing. Found my way home without incident, and stopped to get a kodak of the sunflower field near Phillipe's place:


When I got back to my homestead Pietro was there to water the garden, and I offered him a hearty bonsoir before he scolded me for leaving the outdoor lights on. I answered back in the best French I could muster that I thought I might be returning to the cottage after dark and that I wanted the lights on. He followed up with the statement that I should have turned on only one of the lights instead of both. Irritated, I said OK and went inside. A few minutes later he called into the house for my attention, this time to bitch at me for leaving the door open to little sort-of exterior room that houses the laundry machine and an extra freezer. Well, I had had enough of Pietro already, and in my best French (which of course is totally pathetic) told him that I never touched that door, and that he or his wife had left it like that. Perhaps if Pietro had inquired after my comfort and/or well-being before launching into his litany I might have been more pleasant, but really I'm the vacationer here and the paying renter, and I really didn't touch that f-ing door, so who the hell is he to boss me around? I had half a mind to throw the keys to the little room into the canal such that it would never be vulnerable to any intruder, but instead headed to the grocery store to fetch some sort of vegetable to have for dinner. Pietro went on his way (in a BMW...what's up with that?) and I headed to the Hyper-U, recommended by the cottage owner in his little info book as the best grocery in town. Well, all I can say is that I will take the little Spar nearby or any corner store over this monstrosity. I felt like I was in Walmart, only maybe bigger and just more weird. And kinda....smelly. I went through as quickly as possible to grab a few things I thought I would need -- more cheese, more bread, some wine, and some green beans -- and got the hell out of there. I meant to take a picture, but it was just too soul-sucking to manage.

Back at the homestead I immediately set in on step one of dinner -- some wonderful goat cheese and bread:


Then some green beans with coppia and shallot.


I've noticed that my approach to cooking is completely different when I travel than when I'm at home. At home I figure out what I want to make, put together a grocery list, then go to the store (or with me, more like three stores -- first the farmer's market, maybe the butcher, then the PCC), then cook whatever it was that I planned to make. While traveling, I go to the store, or happen upon a market, buy what looks interesting/fresh/edible/unusual, then take it home and figure out what to do with it using whatever materials I have. Both of these approaches seem to work, although the latter always makes a decent meal feel like a real success.

And after dinner some reading, crossword, and blogging. Haven't done a self-portriat in awhile, so here's one of me in the verandah.

First Full Day in Pertuis: Lounging around my homestead and exploring Lourmarin

Got up a little late, and once I arose, I immediately went outside to check out the morning and survey the surroundings. So beautiful in the morning:

Panda and this week's maison:


I'll have to give the outdoor shower a try:

(don't worry, there is also an indoor shower)

View from the patio:


Grape arbor shades the patio:


Then got the coffee on -- French press, which is always delicious, and some bread that Julia had kindly offered me the night before, and my trusty strawberry jam. Breakfast on the patio, naturellement:


and cleanup in the cheery kitchen:


The patio was so absolutely charming, and the weather so perfect -- warm but not hot with a pleasant breeze. I thought I might never get off my butt to go exploring. But finally I gathered my things and set out, planning to go out for lunch and try to find a place with wifi. Turned out that finding a grocery store open on Sunday was much easier than finding a place with wifi - just as I was arriving in the center of Pertuis, hoping to find a restaurant, I happened upon a grocery store that was actually open on Sunday. Woo hoo!

Yay, Spar, "Ouvert le Dimanche Matin"


Got a few things and went straight back to the cottage for lunch. (The melon was from Phillipe's wife Julia's goodie bag, and boy was it good):


Eventually roused myself to go exploring. Destination: Lourmarin, home of Peter Mayle, famous for his book A Year in Provence. The drive was just beautiful.

tons of tree-lined roads such as this:


Arrived in the lovely town and walked all around, checking out the chateau (though not going in -- I was truly torn whether to pay the 5.50 Euro fee...somehow I doubted whether it would be worth it, and so I passed):

chateau from across the way:


cool fountain near the chateau -- looks like the faces are puking mossy concrete:


chapel near the chateau:


tower at the chateau:


and checking out the town:

quiet little rue:


kitty sacked out on another quiet rue:


another quiet rue (not all the rues were quiet, but those are the ones I took pictures of):


adorable kitten:


adorable kitten more interested in that drain pipe than in me:


pretty shutters:


one more rue pic and I'll stop:


...then checked out the graveyard where Albert Camus is buried:

view of Lourmarin from over near the graveyard:


most of the graves look like this:


but Camus and his wife's graves look like this:



... and then a rest at a cafe:

(yep, those are ice cubes in my rose...I guess that's good since it was pretty hot outside)

Sadly, there was no free wifi to be found. I guess everyone's having such a nice time in Provence drinking rose and pastis and eating cheese and baguettes that they have no time for wifi. Or, more likely, they're all just using their smartphones and have no need for such bourgeous things as "wifi". For a Sunday, this town was pretty hoppin', with about 50% of the shops open, and a nice little market going on in one of the squares. I felt that I really ought to buy something, but I tend to be somewhat psychologically handcuffed when it comes to buying souvenirs. I did, however, wander into a kitchen store, where, believing after a fairly earnest search, that my cottage was without a cheese grater, I bought "The Italian Job", a grater for hard cheeses that has its own little stand so that you can prop it up, plus it has grates in both directions for maximum output.

Then I made my way to the Pertuis Best Western, which is located somewhat out of town from the center of Pertuis, but I had driven past it while lost the day before, and I thought I had remembered that they have wifi. And so I pulled in, asked the kind lady at the front desk, and she showed me out to the charming outdoor cafe, where one can sit poolside and, among other things, enjoy the free wifi. Had an espresso and caught up on correspondence before heading back to the homestead for the evening.

Next, dinner of pasta with garlic, tomatoes, and grated Parmesan. The Italian Job totally rocks.





After dinner the sun went down...


...and I set up for cello practice on the veranda.


And thus ended another spectacular day on my vacances.

Villefranche to Pertuis

I never seem to take any pictures on travel days. I guess I'm so consumed with trying to get packed up, not forget anything, not get lost on the way, find my new home, and so on, that I'm not thinking about documenting. Which is too bad, because there were plenty of things to take pictures of, but whacha gonna do?

Left my apartment in Villefranche with some sadness, as it had been such a luxurious pad. And yet, it was so hot in there that I was working up a good sweat just gathering up my things, then full-on full-body sweat when it was time to get my things down my little staircase then up the stairs of the pedestrian street to my car (for the record, Shelley DID come help me, which was splendid, although I had done the worst of the job already). So while I was sad to be leaving this cute little village, I was also psyched to get into my air-conditioned Panda and hit the road.

My itinerary for the day was to get to Pertuis, find my cottage and get settled in, then head to the home of Phillipe, who is the organizer of the chamber music program I had hoped to attend but which was cancelled due to a problem getting use of the music school. However, Phillipe said that several players would be around and that we could get some playing in, and why don't I just come by around 4:00.

Travel was generally uneventful, and the ham sandwich at the highway service area was delicious. Tolls on the highway were more than I had expected, so I was left with just enough to pay the cash-up-front cleaning fee you need to pay for your home rentals. There was one traffic jam, but it didn't last too long and had cool scenery.

(note huge butte-like structure in the background)



And the radio stations seemed slightly better as I got closer to Aix-en-Provence. Still a wasteland, but with a few more oases.

I'm not sure if this is the European way of giving directions, or if it's just coincidence, but both of my directions (one for finding the cottage, one for finding Phillipe's house) were very, um, imprecise. Like "you get into town, go through a few traffic circles, then turn right at the light, then go a couple miles and look for an intersection sign", or "get to this town then follow the road toward the next town for 1km, then look for four cypress trees and 4 mailboxes." I'm kind of more like a "give me the exact address and/or longitude and lattitude so that I can find it on Google maps, print out the instructions with turn-by-turn maps." I couldn't even get the owner of the cottage to give me an address or even a street name, but now that I'm here, I'm not sure there is one. Anyway, armed with their descriptions and my best attempts to guess at where these places where and get Google directions (which so far have been excellent), I only got moderately lost finding my to the cottage (good thing I had looked over the general layout of Pertuis AND reviewed the list of road signs and their meaning that Rick Steves includes in his book -- the sign for "intersection" is an X not a +, and with no words, and in my particular case, paired with another sign that said the equivalent of "flood risk", which initially made me think that the X just meant to stay the hell away). Fortunately it is a lovely cottage, and Pietro and Sylvie showed me around fairly well considering my weak French and their complete lack of English.

Once I unloaded the car and took a moment to catch my breath, and once I learned that the wifi in the cottage is totally unreliable (major argh), I grabbed my cello and got back in the car to look for the road out of Curcuron toward Cabriers d'Aigues and the four cypress and four mailboxes. Well, after much travel up and down the road to Cabriers d'Aigues I eventually landed upon the home of Phillipe, where there were several musicians about. Phillipe did not have wifi but was kind enough to let me hop on his laptop (a Mac, which I can barely negotiate on a good day, with a French keyboard, which I don't think I'd ever seen before), so I just took a moment to email Jim and let him know I had arrived in one Then Nick said "shall we play some trios", and so I got out my cello and played through some Mozart trios with him (an Englishman who lives in Paris) and Werner (I didn't quite catch his country of origin, but he's a professional violinist who lives in Nice and is usually one of the teachers in the chamber music program). Normally I would be kinda nervous in a situation like this, playing with total strangers, sightreading music I had never heard nor played before, but after spending the bulk of the day in the nervewracking world of routefinding without a navigator and in a foreign land, I was completely unphased by the idea of playing music. Certainly I was worried that I would suck and they would politely dis-invite me from any further musical activity, but I figured if that happened I could just laugh it off and go exploring the Luberon region. Turns out they were perfectly happy with my playing, invited me to stay for dinner (I had to decline, fearing that I would never find my cottage in the dark), and invited me to come back and play during the week. I did stay for a little refreshment on the poolside patio, which was very pleasant -- and nice to converse in English, as everyone in the group was either native English-speaking or very fluent. The mistral winds (which I had only recently read about in my travel guide) were picking which was dramatic but also really nice afster the still heat of the Riviera. Phillipe's wife was generous enough to send me home with a few things to eat, as it was too late to hit the grocery store, and the following day was Sunday, when everything would be closed. A lifesaver! And so I headed home as the sun was setting (absolutely beautiful -- I really, really should have pulled over for a Kodak, but the edge of not knowing for sure if I could re-find my cottage was just too sharp), and made it to my cottage before dark. Enjoyed some bread and fruit along with the parmesan cheese I still had from Florence (now I'm really glad that I bought a big chunk), and off to bed. (A really hard bed with a lumpy futon, but hey there's air coniditioning so it's a reasonable trade-off).

Villefranche Days 5 and 6: Domestic Bliss, 'Sploring, Gorging...

Okay, so day 5 was pretty much just hanging out in Villefranche. Did a little food-shopping, hitting the boulangerie:

and then the little vegetable stand (which I didn't get picture of).

Next it was time for laundry. My apartment has a washing machine, which is awesome (although European machines seem to take two hours to finish the cycle...weird). Then it was time to hang everything out to dry, preferably without dropping it three stories down to the rue de Voilu:

(concentrating)...


...and success:


Then a little lunch of salad with lovely tomatoes and fresh mozzarella:


...and off to the beach, where I spent the entire afternoon. I was hoping to work on my base tan (okay, my base burn-and-freckle), but it was so damn hot that I huddled under my little beach umbrella pretty much the whole time, except when swimming. I don't know how those people do it -- there were tons of people just roasting in the sun, without any shelter at all. Most of them were a dark bronze, indicating a long-term relationship with things like tropical beaches, but even some of the really pale specimens were just sprawled-out like it wasn't a bazillion degrees. I don't know how they do it.

After the beach it was time for dinner


(nothing like boiling up a big pot of water for pasta when it's a zillion degrees and you don't have air conditioning), followed by cello practice and a generally mellow evening at the homestead. Discovered a really cool light in the apartment:


On day six, my last full day in town, it was time for some exploring. Step one: breakfast of salad with poached egg (which blogger seems to want to present to you in portrait form, even though landscape is the artist's intention):


Then a visit to the Chapel St. Pierre whose exterior I photographed on my first day here, but I had not yet ventured inside. It's a 14th-century chapel that was decorated by Jean Cocteau in 1957, and it's way-cool:


After a few minutes of gawking, the kind woman at the door did a little talk about the chapel, although she mostly spoke in French, so I only caught bits and pieces. Plus I was kinda distracted because she looked strikingly similar to Jim's Aunt Georgianne. Anyway, the chapel was definitely a special thing, and I was glad I had a chance to venture inside.

Got a snap of my favorite little grocery store on my walk back up the hill to my pad (note the rotisserie out front -- home of delicious roasted chicken):
.

Then it was time for a road trip to a couple towns in the mountains. First, a little traffic, in Villefranche:


and near Monaco (well, it was pretty bad traffic until I got to this stop light -- doesn't look like much here):


Then it was time for a dozen or so hairpin turns, up the side of a mountain to the Grande Corniche and to a town called La Turbie. First stop, lunch at the Cafe de la Fontaine, which was well-reviewed in my Lonely Planet guide. Delicious first course of artichoke hearts with prosciutto and greens:


next course, duck with poached pear, sinfully buttery potato puree, and cheezy zucchini:


While I was savoring my incredible duck, I noticed the table next to me getting dessert. Oh my god...gotta have the chocolate tart, I said to myself. If French women don't get fat, maybe American women visiting France don't get fat either, I said to myself. No, I shouldn't. No, I mustn't. Yes, I will. When the kind waiter came by and asked if I wanted dessert, "tarte au chocolate" came out of mouth before I even knew what was happening. Oh, man it was so good:

The tart was densely chocolate yet light in texture, surrounded by delightful dabs of whipped cream, some sort of gelato (looked like coconut but wasn't -- just tasted "white" and vanilla-like...not sure exactly what flavor it was), and a sort of coffee mousse. It was pretty much dessert heaven.

Then coffee and the bill (they brought it without my even having to ask...I guess I had already eaten everything possible, so they knew it was time). The bill was the least-expensive I had seen since arriving in France. Wow -- biggest, most delicious meal, and the least-expensive bill. This place rules.

Then it was time for a stroll, in hopes of regaining my digestive composure (I'll admit there was belching for a good hour post-dejeuner). Strolled around La Turbie:

(note Roman ruins in the background...close-ups coming soon).

House of Barb's Extreme Gluttony:


View of Monaco from the little park, waiting to enter the Trophee des Alps:


And then into the park that houses the Trophee des Alps, or the Trophy of Augustus

"The Roman Senate ordered its construction in 5BC in honour of the emperor Augustus to commemorate the conquest of the Alps and the submission of 44 Ligurian tribes during Augustus' campaigns in 25, 16 and 15 BC. Their submission joined Gaul to Italy. The inscription on the side of the monument, shown below, is said to be the first page of French history. "

Wow, that's old. And beautiful. And with stunning views. And a great thing to walk around and climb up while digesting my lunch!





view of Cap Ferrat from up there (every time I see that cape I'm so proud of myself for walking all the way around it):


and view to the East from atop the trophy


and the little museum, which had a scale replica of the full monument, plus lots of bits and pieces from the site:


Next I hit the road for another town, way further into the mountains. Took me awhile to find the correct roads (the D2204 to the D15 to the D815 to the D19), and involved exponentially more hairpin turns. Here's a screenshot of the actual google map with satellite of a piece of the D815:


Just as I thought I couldn't handle another hairpin and that I must be lost and that whatever the hell was up there couldn't be worth all this twisting and turning, I came upon my intended destination, the town of Tourrette-Levens. Well, it turned out to be worth it -- such a picturesque town, with lots of lovely fountains and little landscaped gardens and modern sculptures here and there, and at the top of the hill an old chateau with museums. The first museum was, well, about making stuff (I don't remember exactly what it was called, but it had all these displays with historical kitchen stuff and shoe-making stuff, and blacksmith stuff and cobbler stuff, and then a contemporary art exhibit upstairs for no discernible reason, and it was really cool...and it was free):

shoe-making stuff:


cool old wrenches:


Then up a little further along the centuries-old cobblestone way:


to the museum of natural history, best-known for its butterfly collection. There was literally no one there -- not a soul. The place was clearly open, with a sign saying that it was free and that it was open until seven o'clock, so I went in and looked about. Some of the rooms had the lights off, but I just switched them on and checked everything out. Two rooms of butterflies:


(close-up of the best blue ones):


(close-up of the best blue ones):


and a room full of beetles:




and on the top floor the requisite creepies:


and crawlies:


(funny how when you're looking at stuff like this you have an undeniable sensation that bugs are crawling all over you).

Then a look at the "natural history" stuff, which was mostly a small room of fossils. I really liked the mastodon tooth, but I didn't get a kodak.

Then a look around the grounds. Still not a soul around -- I was sure I had walked into some 12th century "land of the lost", and at any moment some ancient castle-dweller was going to abduct me. But no, just a quiet and lovely stroll around:

view towards Nice and the sea:


the side of the chateau:


pretty courtyard with big-cat statue:


ruins and fig tree growing inside the ruins:


By then it was after six, and I was ready to call it a hellofa day. Drove back the D19 to the A8 (fewer hairpins on this route, thank goodness) and on to Villefranche. Spent the evening playing cello and relaxing, with digestion of sinful meal ongoing.

And I bid you goodnight. Off to Provence tomorrow!