Provence and Riviera tour (artists and landscapes)

September 15-26, 2003

Early Booking Price, before May 15, 2003: $2990

Regular Price, from May 15, 2003: $3290

Single Supplement $410, Deposit $600

Tour Director: Professor Peter Gravgaard

Itinerary

Day 1 (September 15, 2003)

You fly from the USA to Paris, France.

Day 2 (September 16, 2003)

In Paris you change plane and fly to Nice, where the tour director will meet you and take you to your hotel in Antibes (four nights).

Day 3 (September 17, 2003)

Our exploration of Nice begins with visits to the Chagall Museum and the Matisse Museum in Nice.

Day 4 (September 18, 2003)

Today is Jean Cocteau day: we begin with a visit to Villefranche where we will see the Chapelle St Pierre which Cocteau has decorated with frescoes. After lunch I will take you to Menton to see the Jean Cocteau Museum and his Salle des Mariages at the Mairie.

Day 5 (September 19, 2003)

We drive to Cagnes sur-Mer where you will see the Auguste Renoir Museum. The next visit goes to St-Paul-de-Vence where we will visit the magnificent Art Collection (Utrillo, Dufy, Matisse, Picasso, Leger.) In nearby Vence we will see the Chapel of the Rosary which was planned and carried out by Matisse in 1949-51 for the convent of Dominican nuns.

Day 6 (September 20, 2003)

Today we will see the Picasso Museum in Antibes and then drive to Vallauris to visit a town whose declining ceramics and pottery industries were revived by Picasso who lived here for ten years. From here we drive to Bormes-les-Mimosas (where we will stay for two nights).

Day 7 (September 21, 2003)

The program today is to explore the area between Hyeres and St Tropez and see Hyeres, le Lavandou, Cavalaire, St Tropez and Grimaud, returning to Bormes-les-Mimosas for the night.

Day 8 (September 22, 2003)

We drive from Bormes to Brignoles and then to Aix-en-Provence via St Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume where we will visit the great Gothic Basilica of St Maximin which according to the Pope (in 1279) possessed the authentic relics of Mary Magdalene. This meant that Vezelay in Burgundy, which has claimed for two hundred years the possession of the relics, was now demoted by pressure on the pope by St-Louis (King Louis IX of France).

From la Sainte-Baume we drive to Aix-en-Provence where we will stay for four nights.

Day 9 (September 23, 2003)

We spend the day exploring the delights of Aix-en-Provence, the enchanting capital of Provence - surveys have shown that more French people dream of retiring here than to any other town in France.

There are many interesting sights to see in Aix. We could walk down the Cours Mirabeau with its lovely plane trees, magnificent patrician palaces and numerous fountain, bookstores and sidewalk cafes. We could visit the old streets around the St-Sauveur Cathedral and try to find time to see the Foundation Vasarely, in interesting modern museum. We could visit the Fine Arts Museum of Aix (the Musee Granet) in the Palace of the Knights of St John, St-Sauveur Cathedral is interesting with its triptych of the 'Burning Bush', painted by Nicholas Fromet in 1474 for Good King Rene. The old Archbishop's Palace houses the Museum of Tapestries with its famous Don Quixote series of tapestries. After lunch I will take you up to Cezanne's workshop to see the place where modern painting was decisively re-invigorated.

Day 10 (September 24, 2003)

Today we visit the city of Arles. There is plenty to see here: the Roman Amphitheater ('les Arenes') is large enough to hold 12,000 spectators and is still used for bull fights and other performances. Then we will see the fine abbey church of Saint-Trophime with its magnificent porch and cloisters. Here the German Emperor, Frederick Barbarossa, was crowned King of Arles, and Good King Rene married Jeanne de Laval. This is where Caesar made his headquarters when Marseille annoyed him by supporting Pompey. Later on Constantine the Great made Arles his administrative center for Roman Gaul. Vincent Van Gogh came here to paint in 1888, and we can visit the hospital where he was admitted after attacking Paul Gauguin and mutilating himself. It has now been transformed into a cultural center: l'Espace Van Gogh.

But the most endearing sight in Arles is the Museon Arlaten, the museum which holds the Provencal Collection of Frederick Mistral, the poet who sang of Mireio and the Rhone, the savior of Provencal Culture and of the Langue d'Oc, the reformer of the Felibrige (the Guild of Provencal Poets), the poet who received the Nobel Prize for Literature for all these achievements, and who used part of his reward to build up the collections of the museum. It is endearing in its mothball-defended determination to preserve everything he loved. We will visit the new Museum for Roman Arles - very grand, very impressive. Then back to Aix.

Day 11 (September 25, 2003)

Like yesterday you may, of course, just stay in Aix and enjoy yourself, but we offer you an excursion to the area of Orange and the vineyards to the east. We begin visiting Orange with its Triumphal Arch and Roman Theater (the best preserved theater in Europe!) East of Orange we will drive to Seguret to see a lovely little town which has become an artists' colony. From here we drive through the vineyards of Gigondas and Vacqueyras.

Back in Aix we will have our FAREWELL DINNER.

Day 12 (September 26, 2003)

It is time to say AU REVOIR to Provence. We drive to Marseille Airport to catch your plane to Paris and back to the USA. We can get you to Marseille Airport by 10.00 hours AM.

GET HOME WELL. BON VOYAGE.

Bibliography

James Bentley, Provence & the Cote d'Azur, London 1992
Henri Bosco, Le Mas Theotime
Albert Camus, The Plague; The Outsider; The Myth of Sisyphus
Alphonse Daudet, Letters from my Windmill
Jean Giono, Harvest
Peter Mayle, A Year in Provence
Maryvonne Miquel, Quand le bon roi René etait en Provence (1447-1480), 1979
Frederic Mistral, Mireille (Mireio)
Ian Norrie, Next Time Round in Provence
Marcel Pagnol, Jean de Fleurette; Manon des Sources
James Pope-Henessy, Aspects of Provence
Stendhal, Travels in the South of France
Freda White, West of the Rhone, London 1964
Laurence Wylie, A Villiage in the Vaucluse, Harvard Univ. Press 1977