travels

guide books

Guide book time. I like having a couple reference books with me when I travel, for basic context and for the maps. A good guide book gives me a sense of the flavor of a place, what to expect, and what secret treasures might be hidden from plain site. Sometimes I feel that if I read enough random descriptions of hotels, restaurants, shops, landmarks, and other sites, eventually they come together to create a place. I know this particular place exists only in my head but I prefer having a hypotheses.

My standards are Lonely Planet and Rough Guide but for this trip, I'm trying new ones. My Amazon package is winging it's way in my direction and it contains:

Eyewitness Guide's Provence & The Cote D'azur

Michelin's Green Guides for Provence and The French Riviera

Fodor's Provence and the Cote D'Azur

and what I'm most excited about Michelin's Red Guide 2005 France

I love good food and I'm looking forward to eating well for my two months in France. While I'm sure that many of my preconceptions about what French life is like will be proven wrong, I don't think the French love of quality ingredients and well prepared food is one. The Michelin Guide is a bible for many foodies and I'm looking forward to finding for myself the difference among one, two, and three star establishments.

I'm also looking for the 2005 Gault Milau Hotel and Restaurant Guide. It's only published in French, so it will be good for my language acquisition skills and my understanding is that it is a very complete and reliable guide to finding great food in France.

I'll browse through these and see if they have the information and feel I'm looking for. I've still got Lonley Planet and Rough Guide on the bench and an Amazon search turns up hundreds more. I'm sure a couple will make the cut, reside in my day pack, and end up dogeared and torn by the end of May.

and so it begins

Inspired by my friend Shannon and looking forward to sharing my experiences with friends, family, and random surfers, I begin this blog. I'm currently planning a two month trip to the south of France and am so excited by the prospect that logging my plans and eventually the trip itself, seems like a reasonable proposition.

What I know so far:

I leave on April 2 from Boston. I'm hoping Delta airlines will take some of my 700,000 or so random frequent flyer miles to book me in business class on one of their direct flights. If Delta won't take me, I'll have to fly some circuitous route on United or pay actual money.

I spend the first two weeks in an intensive language program in Provence. Though I've been studying French for about nine months, on and off, I'm definitely elementary so I hope I'm not getting in over my head. The logic here is that two weeks of being stationary will allow me to get my bearings and anything that aids my language skills makes the rest of the trip more enjoyable. There is also a glimmer of hope that I'll actually acquire a second language.

I'm leasing a 307 Peugeot Cabriolet. Apparently if you're traveling for more than two weeks, leasing allows you to avoid rental tax of 17%, a significant savings. The logic of renting a convertible has something to do with an image of driving the narrow, twisting roads from Nice to Monaco wearing large black plastic sunglasses, a head scarf, and lipstick a la Grace Kelly. That's Grace Kelly's drive in _To Catch a Thief_, not the other one. I know German cars but not French, so this one took some research.

I'm staying until the end of May and will probably end my week at a yoga retreat.

The rest of it is up in the air. As long as I have a car to throw my stuff in, I'm not inclined to make too many reservations as I have no idea what to expect and I'd rather follow my instincts than a predefined itinerary. I'm continuing to research the area and may make plans around the places I determine are not to be missed.