MARY ELIZABETH AND I had decided to have one last hurrah before Charlotte was born so set aside 2 weeks in July, 1998 for a trip to the south of France.  With Mary Elizabeth 18 weeks pregnant and on the other side of morning sickness, we flew to Paris and boarded the TGV (Train Grand Vitesse) at the airport and headed – with grand vitesse – to Avignon, where we would spend the next 10 days driving around and exploring.

What we hadn’t realized when we booked the trip was that the Festival d’Avignon was just beginning and would be in full swing most of the time we were there.  While we weren’t staying in the city, we had planned on spending some time there so we were excited to be a part of it.  I had booked the TGV tickets and rental car together through an agency, so was quite surprised when we got to the rental agency and found that there was no car for us.  They did however have a reservation for us exactly one month later – which was delightful but not much help at the time.  After a few heated phone conversations with the agency, we wound up with a promise to pay for another rental car, but we had to find it – which we did, except for the next day. I explained that we were stranded – and pregnant – but because of the Festival d’Avignon it was’t possible.

So we wound up getting a cab to take us the 5 miles to our hotel, which was situated on the Ile de Barthelasse in the middle of the Rhone across from Avignon.  The hotel had only a handful of rooms and was a 16^th century farmhouse, surrounded by sunflower fields and orchards.  The building had a roughly cobbled courtyard in front with a massive plane tree shading the windows and facade.  There were numerous outbuildings (which I later found out were rentable bungalows) and a lovely garden.  The taxi departed and we rang the bell next to the open front door, framed by ivy and potted plants.  The mid-afternoon sun was hot, and the droning of the cicadas made for a very languid feeling.  We were however standing in front of an open door, waiting it seemed for nobody.

The hotel had a very thorough web site, documenting each of the six rooms (which were named after artists) with numerous pictures.  Mary Elizabeth was hot and wanted to lie down, so we went inside and up the well-worn stone steps to the second floor, where we saw another open door with a sign reading “Matisse” which we knew to be the room we had reserved.  So in we went with our bags and Mary Elizabeth sat down in a chair by the open window, while I scoped out the room.  Within about 60 seconds, I heard footsteps coming up the stairs, and we were joined by Mme Sonya, who was an affable looking lady in her late 40s, slightly stout, with blond hair and a florid complexion.  She looked like she would ordinarily be very jovial, but she was at that precise moment hopping mad at us, and unleashing a torrent of rapid-fire French, the general gist of which I caught which was “How dare you just come traipsing in and making yourself at home, without being invited!” I tried to explain who we were and that we had a reservation for the week and that we rang the bell several times and nobody answered.  She would have none of it, and spoke in English what would become an oft-uttered phrase, “Zees ees a guest ‘ouse, not an ‘otel!” with an almost comical and emphatic falling inflection on “‘ouse!”  Mary Elizabeth, who was eyeing the bed longingly and who spoke no French, asked me what was going on, and I calmly and pleasantly explained to her that Mme was very angry at us for barging in uninvited. I had a trump card however and realized that it was high time I played it.  “Excusez moi Madame, mais ma femme est enceinte.” This declaration of my wife’s pregnancy brought Mme’s tirade to an abrupt end and it turned very rapidly into warm congratulations and a glass of orange juice and a plate of cookies for my now supine wife.

We were now able to relax in the lovely room, which actually was a couple of rooms joined together and lie on the bed, listening to the whining of the cicadas outside under the provencal sun-bathed sky. Our plan was to use the hotel as our base of operations and take day trips farther afield.  It turned out to be the perfect location, sited close enough to Avignon for some culture, but within an easy drive of Orange, Arles, Nimes, Charpentier, Isle sur la Sorge and Gorges.  We even managed to head south the the Camargue and dip our toes in the Mediterranean.

A highlight of any trip to older cities is an opportunity to see old churches.  I’m a fan of church architecture and I had converted Mary Elizabeth over the years as well.  So wherever we were, we managed to stop in on at least a handful of churches.  On this trip however, we had additional motivation.  Mary Elizabeth had decided that whenever we visited a church, we would drop a franc or two (this was pre-Euro) into the box and light a candle for a healthy baby. On that trip, we must have spent at least 50 francs in churches stretching from Notre Dame in Paris, to the Cistercian Abbaye de Senanque in Provence to the charming walled town of Aigues Morte, surrounded by the salt meadows of the south, where sea water was evaporated in large fields to yield the renowned Fleur de Sel, a delicately flavored sea salt.

I don’t know if it was all the candles we lit that summer or the prenatal vitamins, but six months later, we welcomed a healthy and hearty baby Charlotte into the world.

Go to next chapter: St Paul’s Cathedral