Friday was our last full day in Kotor, as much as we liked Kotor, we were ready to get back to France. We just hung around the city. I started the morning with coffee and a sketch, back at the same square. This is another of the views, from a different cafe this time.

The cafe I was at, Konoba Scala Santa, was actually owned by the family of the man who had stopped to comment on my sketch of his father’s building, this cafe is part of that building. His granddaughter is the manger and she, along with other servers, saw me sketching and took time to chat. As a thank you I did a sketch for her of the pump in the center of the square.

We went back to a familiar place for lunch to share a snack board – they do like meat in this part of the world. This was a lot larger than just a snack, that is for sure, we took some back to our apartment for later that evening.

We had a taxi booked for Saturday at 14h00 so had lunch at the Lave Gastro Bar, the same gastropub we went to after our boating adventure. We ordered the same pizza that I had ordered the first time, but this time we shared it.

I started working on a sketch of Perast, which I finished here in Aix.

This is truly a special part of Europe and we are so glad we came. People ask if we would go back, yet at this stage of life we are finding less interest in returning to places, what is most appealing is staying in one place for long stretches of time with far less city-to-city hopping. I like immersion in a place; getting to know the server at “my” cafe. Also, I must confess that the moving from place to place and the crowds has made me more testy than my normal testiness level, so i am hoping when we get to Paris and are in one place for almost three weeks I will be more mellow.

Saturday’s calm start came to a sudden stop when we arrived at the airport in Podgorica. It is a small airport, the whole ambiance of it was chaos and noise. Horrible acoustics made the crowd’s sound reverberate. There did not appear to be any staff in charge of much, even the lady that Tricia bought chips for me from was grouchy, that was our first clue of what was to come.

As is common in a lot of European small airports you can’t check in until they post which windows to use, then there is a mad dash to get in line, thanks to a bit of maneuvering that would have made a rugby wingback proud we were at the front of one of the lines. A uniformed lady motioned us up. The staff in Kotor go to friendliness classes for the most part, we were learning that one of the job requirements for the airport was surliness, we got our boarding passes without even a thank you. Tricia gave her a big smile, a thank you, and wished her a good day – casting pearls before swine I think.

It was to get even more fun. At the security line we loaded things into the bins, first place in the last few years where we were told to take iPads out, but hey, we complied with a smile. I went through first, it beeped, no big deal, a reasonably nice man swabbed my hands and let me go. By now though, my duffel bag was in the grasp of one who must be the role model for the surliness and non-customer service standards of the airport. With hardly a word she unzips the bag and starts pawing through, TSA agents usually know what part of the bag was suspect and they go for that, but I am guessing their equipment was not sophisticated enough so she went on an expedition, grabbing every pouch and roughly picking things out, asking “what is this,” then throwing them back in. It was a total mess when she was done, I have the sense that she was not looking for anything specific, just hoping to find some contraband. They did the same thing with Tricia, even dumping out some of her pouches into a bin then grabbing the bin, without a word to her, and took it back to run through again. Needles to say by now we really just wanted to get to France.

Our tightly packed Transavia flight was almost an hour late, not that we were surprised considering the last couple of hours. So we got to Paris Orly at about 23h30. Then had to wait for over 30 minutes for a taxi, since we missed the last bus for our airport hotel. We got to bed about 01h00.

The good news was that we were in France, where we know the language, the customs, the places, ahhhhhh! We took a taxi to Gare de Lyon, from where our TGV to Aix would depart. We had plenty of time for coffee and a croissant. AND, our French was working fine, neither of us had used a word of English so far. With un double café long, and une pain de chocholate I was trés content.

The train station even has a Moleskine store, I broke in the new, small, journal by sketching a few people that were using a kiosk.

We got to our apartment in Aix-en-Provence, changed clothes, and walked into the old part of Aix. After a glass of rose at the first cafe we came to, we found a place on the Rue de Mirabeau where we shared a salmon and avocado tartar, which of course came with frites.

Keeping the tartar theme going, I had beouf tartar for lunch the next day. Then we went back to the apartment and sat on the deck.

The food here has perfectly welcomed us back to the land famous for epicurean delights. Tuesday we found an out of the way restaurant Jardin Mazarin, that had a menu du jour. Tricia had some incredible raviolis, I had salmon and fennel presented in the most creative way.

It was quite hot so the cold melon soup for dessert just made sense, so we shared a bowl, it did the trick.

Wednesday, I had aubergine that was mashed, stuffed back in the skin, then under the broiler with cheve. I will definitely be adding this to my aubergine collection.

We shared a creme brûle, as we often do. Yet we have never seen one done like this. It was whipped to a light foam texture and the top was more crispy bits than a solid cap as is traditional – the server was correct when she said theirs was the best.

Tricia had a hair appointment which meant I had some time for people sketching.

After lunch we went to the Caumont Center d’Art which is housed in an elegant old house with a manicured garden.

Thursday we walked a bit of the Cézanne trail that they have marked in the city, past significant places from his life which I believe was spent mostly in Aix.

And of course there are always some interesting people to capture photos of along the way.

To day we are off to Marseille to visit with Tricia’s cousin and partner, they are always great to be around so it should be a good weekend. I hope your week is going well, a few adventures, and hopefully a bit of sketching. I am working on more tutorials, so let me know if there are any request.