This Australian Artist In France 2022

After much anticipation throughout covid we were finally able to return to France this month for nearly a month of holiday and artistic inspiration in one of my favourite parts of the world. These were some of my favourite places and moments. Email me if you are travelling to France and would like any further info on the places we stayed and visited - happy to help!

We flew Singapore Airlines with a three hour stopover in Singapore. All in all it was a smooth trip (that amount of time in a plane is never fun but definitely worth it once you get there). Brisbane International was incredibly quiet - corridor after corridor of empty chairs and very few planes leaving. Singapore and Charles De Gaulle in Paris though were a bustle of activity and flights! No problems at all with covid requirements. Most tourists in France were still domestic tourists and definitely not at peak numbers which was good from a travel peacefulness point of view…. and a good chance to really practice my french as there was little English is some places and few English speaking tourists. You had to fill out a form for the Australian government before flying home and this was the trickiest part of all because the form kept messaging that it had unfilled sections despite being complete but apparently did this to everyone and then once you are home a few later it finally arrives saying completed! So not so well managed on the Australian front there but we felt reassured it wouldn’t be an issue after reading about this issue online.

I have arranged all my photos by colour rather than place (far more interesting I think!).

Our first stop was a few nights in Paris - our 4th time in Paris which we fall in love with more and more each time. This trip we tried to have a more local experience by avoiding hotels and staying in air bnbs. We chose a tiny apartment in my favourite area of Paris - St Germain on the left bank. It was in an artists enclave - combining workshop spaces and living spaces. Beautiful character, lovely and quiet, bit of a detraction with the drain smell (seems to be a very common thing in Paris!) which got pretty bad in the middle of the night for some reason but bonus points, it did have a bathtub which was great after a crammed day of walking and sightseeing.

This was my first time visiting Musee D’Orsay to see many of the impressionist masters in person. We got there early so was lovely to see these paintings with “space” around them! Here is me below with a Monet. The paintings that really really captured my attention though from an energy point of view were the Van Gogh paintings. I have never been a huge Van Gogh fan but after visiting the location he stayed in in St Remy Provence a few years ago (see this blog) and reading a book my husband gifted me of all of his letters to his brother, his story really captivated my attention. As many artists will know, it is really hard to photograph the energy and essence that a painting emits in a photograph and this is definitely the case with the Van Gogh works. In person they certainly had a vibrancy and energy that felt high above all the other works in the museum. And to think that he died thinking he was a failure as an artist, having sold only one painting…. In his works I loved the blue against the golden yellow. At this time of year in France the wheat fields against the blue skies are truly magical.

I love to visit the food stores and flower shops in Paris - truly a work of art!

We then took the high speed train to Nice. About 6 hours and a good chance to see lots of beautiful countryside, villages and fields. The train food was really really good! Time to pick up the hire car and adjust to driving on the other side of the road. Horrible smell of wee around the car hire garage (again a bit of a common theme in some areas of France that is a less romantic aspect!!!) and a very scary carpark tiny circular exist on many levels to negotiate. We stayed at a blissful house at St Maxime on the french riviera coast (about an hour from Nice and close-ish to St Tropez). This was our favourite accommodation of the trip as it was really beautiful but at the same time secluded and peaceful - surrounded by other houses with pretty terracotta rooves that seemed to be pretty much empty (early June before the season fully starts) and surrounded by the most vibrant summer flowers I have ever seen, pines that make a sound like the ocean when the wind moves through their needles and the odd gum tree ;).

We did a day trip to St Tropez by ferry and I was surprised how quaint and beautiful it was - we are really not fans of designer focused or how shall I write it…… self image focused environments?

Australia wins hands down on beaches though!

We did a day trip to the beautiful region of the Verdon Gorge - slightly scary driving territory! It was a great plan to bring a little insulated snack bag of goodies with us as it can be tricky sometimes finding food and snacks and an impromptu picnic somewhere lovely is often far more fun!

Absolutely loved the hilltop village of Eze - masses of star jasmine in bloom and a magical garden with equally magical views across the coast. The exotic garden features the most beautiful sculptures - ‘Earth Goddesses` by Jean Philippe Richard. It is one of the most beautiful gardens on the French Riviera, at the very top of the village at the site of the ruined castle.

This time of year we noticed masses of yellow flowers in fields that looked like what I would call Australian Broom. A quick google and it is called Spanish Broom. What a contrast between the yellow flowers and the blue sky. This will be showing up in a painting sometime soon I think!

Sad to leave the beautiful Cote D’Azur house, we then drove to the medieval town of Carcassone where we stopped over for two nights in a very old former stables right in the centre of town and thank goodness it had a carpark underneath. And what a carpark….. it would have made the most amazing beautiful studio space - all cobblestone and beautiful timber and stone walls. The air bnb owner also ran a local restaurant and it was lovely to try his food and the local dishes.

Then further driving to reach the Dordogne region. This was our first time visiting this area but having seen it on one of those English shows where they found properties in France, it looked like our kind of place! Really beautiful rivers, dotted with magical castles, fields of wheat and sunflowers (that sadly weren’t quite open for another couple of weeks) and lots of historic caves. This area is one of the earliest areas of human habitation. Lascaux 4 was particularly spectacular and moving.

There was a heat wave while we visited and one 40 degree day we decided to swim in the Vezere River. I had an interesting experience in perceptual shift. Driving over a beautiful stone bridge and looking down at the river we were dismayed to see it looked like being covered in swathes of algae looking completely uninviting for swimming. But when we walked down and saw closer, it was in fact the most beautiful mass of tiny white flowers all swaying in the water and being visited by irridiescent blue dragonflies and swimming in the river and canoing down it, was one of my favourite experiences of the entire trip. The river was edged by ancient rocks and the water made the most beautiful patterns of light on the rocks.

We hired e bikes for the week and often the roads were completely empty in this part of France, making for a relaxing ride through fields and admiring the stone houses and outbuildings. My favourite place was beautiful village called St Leon Sur Vezere.

We then got the train from Bordeaux back to Paris (2 hours) and stayed for a final few nights in one of the outer arrondissements in a traditional Parisian apartment for a different experience but with a great view of the Eiffel tower. It didn’t get dark until 11pm so we waited up each night to see the magical flickering lights that come on each hour. We did a 3 hour chocolate and pastry tour of Paris, visited the Musee Carnavalet, and Museum of Decorative Arts which had a Little Prince exhibition on. We also visited the catacombs (photos below) - hard to believe all that is below your feet in the city. Also a tour of Pere La Chaise famous cemetery - I think if we did again I would skip the tour and prefer to just wander.

It was great also to wander through lesser known areas of Paris and see some street art. Second row below - surely this is a Tip Bird/Bin Chicken/Ibis Brisbane style!!!!

I visited Charvin art store on the left bank, stocking up on some paint goodies for home. So that was France 2022!