Here is the first installment (days 1 and 2) of our trip to France. This is our first entry written in tandem. Days 3 through 6 will follow shortly.

Day 1
9:00
Scheduled departure time. We get out of bed and zip the backpack, then take the Metro to Avis.

10:00
We zip out of the Avis lot in Opie, a silver Opel Astra. He’s small but peppy. From this perspective – the inside of a car – which is one we haven’t had in months, Barcelona’s drivers look even more lethal.

10:30
We’re a bit north of Barcelona, and the landscape is starting to look real nice. There are castles. However, there are also strip malls.

10:35
No one’s moving. People get out of their cars and wander around. We get worried. But we take some pictures, because, “Hey! We’re in a car. In Europe.”

10:40
The police wave everyone through the small roadblock. A huge truck carrying oranges has overturned. It is the best-smelling traffic mishap either of us has ever encountered. We review other food disasters from history:

1. Thirty thousand pounds of bananas in Scranton, PA
   
2. The North End Molasses Spill (If you have an interest in engineering and a lot of time on your hands, try here for more on this one.)
   
3. Once, in this cheese plant in NJ, a worker fell into an enormous vat of something like Velveeta and was never heard from again. This really happened.
   

10:57
We pay our first European toll: nine Euros.

11:00
We zip into France at about 130 kph. That’s one hundred and thirty. No fear. Live to ride, ride to live. There is exactly one visible employee at the border, and he is looking at the scenery. The signs are in French, and we immediately realize that, our inability to talk notwithstanding, we are definitely more literate in Spain.

11:45
Following the directions we copied from Mapquest-Europe, we pick our way to Collioure. It’s a pretty charming little seaside fishing village where Matisse did a lot of painting. In the winter, it looks like Cape Cod: pretty much closed. Ok, not quite. There are people milling about, places to buy French things, and some restaurants. The restaurant we had read about in our guide book in closed but we find a funky Breton (as in de Brittany – the Celtic part of France across the Channel from England) crepe place. The kitchen of the restaurant is set up inside an old VW bus, which is inside the restaurant building and it’s full of crazy chotchkes and decorations. We settle on a Roquefort Omelet and a crepe with a fried egg in it. Who knew these people had greasy breakfast down so well? There should be French diners at home.

2:00
We’re back on the road to St-Remy, way over in Provence. We flip through the radio. We have avoided the radio in Spain, because it reminds us that we don’t know what they are saying, and also because Spanish popular music is very…well, it’s not to our tastes. Actually, it consists of a lot of Mariah Carey. French popular music, on the other hand, is rap and rap alone. In French and English. Diners and a hip-hop community: so far, France is sort of like Essex County. Feel the romance?

4:00
We pull over at a rest stop. But it’s a rest stop in France, remember. It’s very romantic. Even coffee from a machine is good in France.

5:30
We pay our first French toll: 16 Euros. Then we get off the highway and drive through Nîmes. Did you know that denim was invented here? As the story goes, (according to the Fodor’s guide) Christopher Columbus used the lightweight, densely woven fabric produced in the city for the sails of his ships. The material became very popular and was exported worldwide from the ports of Genoa (“Gênes” in French – get it?) Then Levi Strauss got hold of it and used it for goldminers’ pants, changing the name bleu de Gênes to the more American-sounding “blue jeans.” The name of the fabric, of course, comes from de Nîmes.

The town itself is not much to look at. It’s pretty industrial and is described as a “feisty, run-down rat race of a town,” by Fodors, though it apparently also has a fair amount of cool old stuff. It looks like Route 22 in Union. Still New Jersey! Just as we had dreamed.

6:15
We see signs for St-Remy. French roads, aside from the big highway, seem to connect nearly every tiny town. Everything is perfectly marked. We pull into St-Remy as it is getting dark, stopping to ask directions to the Chateau. Saint-Remy-de-Provence is a beautiful, little village full of narrow streets and old buildings. Apparently it’s become quite popular among the Paris set, (and Princess Caroline lives there) but during our visit it is calm and serene. Plus, since it is the holiday season, there are tiny white lights everywhere. Very beautiful and romantic. We make our way to the Chateau, which is a little outside of the town, down a country road.

6:20
We arrive and check in. We explain that we speak un petit peu of the French. No one working there speaks English or Spanish. The gall of those French. We look at each other and the nice women who run the place.

6:22
They give up on staring and begin speaking to us in French. Since they are also walking up the stairs with a huge key (as in, about six inches long), we figure out that we are supposed to follow them. We are set up in the Nostradamus room. His name is everywhere in St-Remy as this is his hometown. The room is big, and it has heat. Perfect. It is eclectically decorated, with a good-sized wooden table in the middle, antique dressers and chairs, and red velvet curtains from floor to ceiling over the enormous windows. The color scheme consists of dark green with dark pink molding. Plus, the room comes equipped, for the celebration of Christmas, with a free bottle of wine and some beignets, which are stale French donuts. We are very content.

6:24
We remember that someone has given us the advice to tell all the French people we meet that it is our honeymoon. Apparently, they are so in love with love that they will give us lots of free things. We say, “Vin rouge, pour lune de miel!” The woman smiles and excuses herself.

6:25
We begin eating the beignets. They are stale, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t French.

6:27
The beignets are gone. We look in the guidebook for a place for dinner. Nearly all of them seem to require reservations. Knowing that talking to someone on the phone in French will be as successful as a vegan restaurant in Spain, we ask the hotel owner to help us make a call, so we can have dinner, on our lune de miel. She politely says no, explaining in great detail (in French) why they are not able to make dinner reservations for guests. Understanding nothing, we say “oui, je comprends,” and return to our room.

6:45
We decide to drive back into town and take our chances. We find a very delicious restaurant in which the myth that French food will not fill you up is laid to rest. There are courses in between courses. Everything is perfect. One of us gets poulet and the other saumon fume – fried chicken and lox – the love affair continues.

9:30
Having finished dinner, we do our best to lavish complements on the waiter, who speaks pretty decent English. He brings out the chef as we are leaving. He says, “The chef,” then vanishes. We ask him if he speaks English. No. We all look at each other, Leah fluttering her hands as she tries desperately to think of the right words. Finally, we yell, “Magnifique! Merci bien!” and run away.

Day 2

10:00
We check out of the Chateau and wander straight into four or five nice dogs that inhabit the premises. The largest has chased the smallest into an iron gate, and when the smallest tried to jump through, he got stuck. He is furiously trying to get out, but as he walks, the gate moves. We step in and rescue him. It’s like a movie. We feel great. We tell the dogs that it is our honeymoon, and one of them agrees to pose for a picture.

11:20
We sit in a creperie in St-Remy. Leah decides to order the “andouille et fromage” crepe. The waiter says to Leah, “You don’t like it.” Dan sticks with the fried egg version.

Leah says, “Pour quoi?” He is no match for her. He gets the cook.

The cook says, “If ten Americans eat it, nine do not like.”

Leah says, “What is it?”

The cook says, “It is sausage…special sausage. From pig. You don’t like it.” Leah decides that she will order the andouille and that she will like it. It must be consumed, lest Americans be classified as wimps by the French. We will be the tenth American.

11:30
The andouille crepe arrives, as does the fried egg crepe. The fried egg crepe is great; it tastes like a fried egg in a crepe. The andouille crepe tastes like sneakers. Leah is undaunted, thinking maybe the taste will improve if she keeps eating. Though stubbornness can, at times, be an asset, there are other times when it’s not so helpful.

11:38
The fried egg crepe is gone. Much andouille remains.

11:41
Dan is enlisted to uphold America’s reputation as a nation of tough guys. Patriotism prevails over taste. The cook comes out and sees the empty plate. He says, “Pretty good.” We decide that it was not worth it and still wonder what exactly French andouille is, though we have our suspicions.

1:00
We get back in Opie and drive to Avignon. Among other things, this city a few miles north of St-Remy has a palace where Popes used to live. We go to the palace and get the audioguides and wander around. It is a very drafty palace, which might explain why the Popes picked up and moved camp back to Rome. Much of it is under renovation, so the audioguides say, in their very proper British accents, things like, “Now turn and face the east wall. Walk towards it. In the corner, in the display case, you can see a series of small photographs of the tapestries that are being restored. It is hard to appreciate the grandeur and beauty of the Papal Tapestries from these photographs, but take a moment to study them.” Thanks. Maybe if it weren’t so drafty, you people wouldn’t need to renovate everything while we’re on our honeymoon.

5:00
We wander out onto the famous bridge. These audioguides play the Bridge of Avignon song. It’s a nice bridge. We refrain from dancing on it.

6:00
We find Opie and scram for Arles. We are staying in a hotel that Fodor’s recommended, and that Leah called and e-mailed to confirm our reservations. We weren’t really worried about the confirmation, but it meant more ways to mention that it was our honeymoon. We talk about what free stuff we might get.

7:00
We check in to the Hotel Muette. Leah asks to make sure that the second night she asked to add via email, is all set. C’est une lune de miel, she adds. They nod. They haven’t received the email and unfortunately are full for the second night. We ask about other hotels. They give us a map. However, the room is nice and the hotel has “12th-century exposed stone walls, a 15th century spiral stair, weathered wood, and an Old Town setting” (Fodor’s again). We wander around Arles for a little while. It’s a nice old city and is where Van Gogh lived for awhile until they threw him out.

9:00
We head to dinner, where we gorge ourselves yet again on absolutely delicious food and wine.

This time, among the highlights is this fish soup that comes with huge croutons that you can dunk in there. There is also crème brulee, which always makes for a good evening. It has a fruit on it that we have never tasted before. We ask about it. The waitress says, “fruit exotique.” Indeed it is.

9:30
Back in the hotel, we find “andouille” in the French-English food glossary in our Fodor’s Guide. “Chitterling sausage,” it says. We are solidly among the nine.

Stay tuned for days 3 through 6 of the Lune de Miel.