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Top articles
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Lumière in La Ciotat
La Ciotat is a port some 35 kms east of Marseille. It has never been the place you would take visiting friends on a Sunday afternoon (unlike its' neighbour Cassis), but something has happened over the last two years, so I decided to take a friend there...
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The Battle of La Bonne Mère
70 years ago, on 25 August 1944, Paris was celebrating its liberation from the German occupants, but in Marseille the Germans were still occupying Notre Dame de la Garde, also known locally as La Bonne Mère. The highest point of town was considered a...
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Holes
One of the most popular articles on my blog is A Normand Hole which I wrote following a weekend of excessive eating in Normandy. Since I am back in Provence I have, however, taken a keen interest in another kind of holes, namely potholes, also known as...
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A real Agent 007 yacht
Friends recently invited me to the Antibes Yacht Show, and whereas I expected it to be a big, flashy event with one exhibition hall after the other with big, shiny boats, I was actually wrong. It was a rather intimate affair where I felt at home between...
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A Soap
I have passed this non-descript white building thousands of times without ever realising that the Maison des Combattants used to be the head office of the biggest manufacturer of oïl and soap in Europe. It was a pure coincidence that I stumbled on the...
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Brasilia in Paris
Ex-boyfriends actually serve a purpose, though you might not want to admit it right after the break-up. Years later you won't remember why you broke up, but you will remember what you learnt from the guy. I remember the one who introduced me to The Queens...
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Lille, a northern town
The second town on my personal Tour de France was Lille. I knew three things about Lille before I went there on the TGV on Saturday morning: the Eurostar stops there, the mayor, Martine Aubry, is the daughter of Jacques Delors, and the railway station...
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Which cake are you?
In today's La Provence readers were asked if they were galette des rois or gâteau des rois. Currently 58% have voted for the gâteau and 42% for the galette. On a national level I am certain that the galette beats the gâteau because, to be honest, it is...
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Are you ready boots? Start walkin'!
Those are the last lines of a well known song but they could also be my motto since I moved to France. Weekend after weekend I have been walking in Provence with my rucksack, my thermos bottle and my dog. Between vineyards, along rivers and canals, in...
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The Rhône
Two months ago I finished my work contract in Paris, packed the car with my clothes and books and headed south on the A6. After a stop in the Morvan Regional Park in the western part of Burgundy for some hiking, I continued in direction Marseille which...
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Rivers and streams
In Denmark we have no rivers. We have one word to describe the natural watercourses found in Denmark ("å"), and I suppose that the word "stream" would be the best translation. We do have a word to describe a river ("flod"), however, we do not have any...
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In the body of an old man
For four days and nights I have been living in the body of an old man. It is a rather frightening experience, and even when the old man died last night, I was left with the feeling of decay. No, I have not gone mad, but I have been reading Daniel Pennac's...
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Little Mermaids
As a Dane I have undoubtedly a special relationship to The Little Mermaid, be it the fairytale by Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen, be it the the sculpture sitting on a stone in the harbour of Copenhagen. The fairytale was published in 1837, whereas...
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India in Marseille
When you have visited a Provençal market, you will undoubtedly have noticed the colourful textiles used for tea towels and table cloths. They have lots of printed details and are in green or red or blue or yellow. I must admit that I never liked these...
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Champagne Capital of the World
This Saturday the Tour de France started in the south of Corsica, and I started my own Tour de France in the north of France. Though I am working over the summer, I have decided to visit towns in northern France every weekend. The French railways have...
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César, the ferry boat
The other morning when cycling around the Vieux Port I was pleasantly surprised to see César moored near the Hôtel de Ville. It has been years that I have not seen the old ferry boat (pronounced ferry-boite) which was taken out of service in 2009 to be...
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Malpasset
In the second half of November 1959 it rained incessantly for 10 days in the Var (east of Marseille). The water dam Malpasset near Fréjus, which had been finished only in 1954, broke its wall and spilled 50 Mm3 of water into the marsh land north of Fréjus....
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Paul Gauguin's Danish Connection
Paul Gauguin, loved for his warm and colourful Taiti paintings, actually had a lot less exotic connection - his Danish wife Mette Sophie Gad. They met in 1871 in Paris and married in a Lutheran church in Paris two years later when she was 23 and he was...
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A bright, new hospital
Today a doctor had given me an informal appointment in his consultancy in the Hôpital Européen not far from work. I was a bit puzzled as I had never heard about this hospital though I have lived in Marseille for more than 10 years. In a town where swimming...
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Saint Hubertus
On Sunday mornings in my childhood we would have a boiled egg with a slice of rye bread, and my dad would have a tiny bottle of Jägermeister. My dad was a hunter, and when I was born, he had a hunting dog called "Plet" (Spot in English). I recall his...
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Getting to the Airport
It has been more than two years since I took a plane from Marseille-Provence Airport so I thought I would check out any developments on the costs of going to the airport. When leaving on vacation I have always found it convenient and relative cheap to...
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Amélie at l'Alcazar
Just over 11 years ago I walked off the TGV from Paris with a rucksack and a suitcase. It was my first visit to Marseille, and to the south of France generally. and I had signed a job contract without knowing what to expect. The year before, only 6 weeks...
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120,000 flats
Last weekend I was torn between the Archelogical Days and the National Week of Social Housing but ended up attending two walks around the subject of social housing. It was more a choice between exploring the past and the present, - and the present won!...
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Black Diamonds
From mid-November to end March it is the season for the Black Diamond of Provence, and the season started with an exhibition in the Maison de la Région on the Canebière in Marseille. The Black Diamond is the truffle, and it is worth its weight in gold!...
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When Sandre reads Ford
When you leave Marseille on the motorway that passes through the Euroméditérranée, you pass an orange building that I always thought looked unapproachable, almost like a huge German bunker wrapped up in orange textile. As a matter of fact I thought for...