Karin and Don flew to meet Erik and Mallory at Charles de Gaulle. We stayed at a nice Air B&B near Erik and Mallory's place in the 11th Arrondissment. 
The first of many delicious meals, just down the way from their apartment.
Don enjoyed the baguettes.
A day around Paris,
Visiting Appartement-atelier de le Corbusier,
24 Rue Nungesser et Coli, 75016 Paris. Where he lived and worked before WWII.
up six flights of stairs
One of Corbusier’s contributions was his use of large areas of glass in residential buildings, which illuminated spaces with diffuse light, as illustrated in his Appartement-atelier. 
Le Corbusier attended neither university nor architecture school. He was mostly self-trained and influenced by his secondary-school classes in drawing and decorative arts in his hometown of La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland. The young le Corbusier traveled through Europe. He sent postcards home,
and drew pictures of animals,
Le Corbusier designed the gamut, from furniture to buildings, from single family homes, to large apartment buildings. All were original and distinctive. One striking edifice is Unite d'Habitation, 1952, the 18-story residential block in Marseille, France, that illustrated his ideal of urban family lodging. It is a vertical mixed-use community, with a shopping floor halfway up and facilities on the roof to be shared by all. The living rooms are two story, and the elevators stop on every other floor.
Erik and Mallory on the roof of Appartement-atelier de le Corbusier
another shot of them with Paris in the background,
Next, we visited Fondation de Louis Vuitton, Ave du Mahatma Gandhi, 75116, Paris, designed by Frank Gehry. The building is a metaphorical sailing vessel with massive panels reminiscent of spinnakers.
Inside the sails are huge areas of open space. While the majority of reviews are positive, a minority do not approve of the concept, his egoistic statement and "attempt at majesty," or of "Gerhy's solipsistic excesses." Other critics do not see the best of Louis Vuitton in the exhibits. The drama of dueling critics made the visit a big hit for us.
We had a good time climbing the structure, a great meal in the dining room, and a long wait for the facilities which were down for quite a while during our visit. Mallory identified a famous actress there, Fran Drescher.
Karin and Erik at Fondation Louis Vuitton with le Tour Eiffel in the background.
On to a great bar, Le Baron Rouge, known by Mallory and Erik.
The place was so popular that we had to stand waiting for a place. We saw lots of action, and people having a fantastic time. Mallory and Karin found a place to sit.
A spot at the wall opened up and we had all kinds of goodies and spectacular wine.
Later we visited Jardin des Plantes, where Karin and Don visited in 1975 on one of their honeymoons.
One of the metro stops for their apartment,
Léon Blum was the prime minister of France before WWII. His story in Wikipedia is fascinating and moving,
"As a Jew, he was heavily influenced by the Dreyfus affair of the late 19th century. He was a disciple of French Socialist leader Jean Jaurès and after 1914 became his successor. Blum rejected the class conflict model of Marxist socialism, instead defining socialism as the highest use of the power of the state, under the guidance of well-educated experts like himself, "to define, protect, and guarantee the condition of the working class."[2] As Prime Minister in a "Popular Front" government of the left 1936-37, he provided a series of major economic reforms. Blum declared neutrality in the Spanish Civil War (1936–39) to avoid the civil conflict spilling over into France itself. Once out of office in 1938, he denounced the appeasement of Germany. When Germany defeated France in 1940, he became a staunch opponent ofVichy France. Tried by Vichy on trumped-up charges, he was imprisoned in Buchenwald concentration camp. After the war he resumed a transitional leadership role in French politics, helping to bring about the French Fourth Republic, until his death in 1950."
Drinks in the afternoon.
The next day we were off to the south of France!
The bird refuge is close by
dinosaurs ok
and the signature flamingos.
An idyllic night in
and drew pictures of animals,
Le Corbusier designed the gamut, from furniture to buildings, from single family homes, to large apartment buildings. All were original and distinctive. One striking edifice is Unite d'Habitation, 1952, the 18-story residential block in Marseille, France, that illustrated his ideal of urban family lodging. It is a vertical mixed-use community, with a shopping floor halfway up and facilities on the roof to be shared by all. The living rooms are two story, and the elevators stop on every other floor.
Erik and Mallory on the roof of Appartement-atelier de le Corbusier
another shot of them with Paris in the background,
Next, we visited Fondation de Louis Vuitton, Ave du Mahatma Gandhi, 75116, Paris, designed by Frank Gehry. The building is a metaphorical sailing vessel with massive panels reminiscent of spinnakers.
Inside the sails are huge areas of open space. While the majority of reviews are positive, a minority do not approve of the concept, his egoistic statement and "attempt at majesty," or of "Gerhy's solipsistic excesses." Other critics do not see the best of Louis Vuitton in the exhibits. The drama of dueling critics made the visit a big hit for us. We had a good time climbing the structure, a great meal in the dining room, and a long wait for the facilities which were down for quite a while during our visit. Mallory identified a famous actress there, Fran Drescher.
Karin and Erik at Fondation Louis Vuitton with le Tour Eiffel in the background.
On to a great bar, Le Baron Rouge, known by Mallory and Erik.
The place was so popular that we had to stand waiting for a place. We saw lots of action, and people having a fantastic time. Mallory and Karin found a place to sit.
A spot at the wall opened up and we had all kinds of goodies and spectacular wine.
Later we visited Jardin des Plantes, where Karin and Don visited in 1975 on one of their honeymoons.
The French hero of evolution is Lamarck.
In bloom
Then back to their apartment on the Paris Metro.
A poster that we found humorous,
One of the metro stops for their apartment,
Léon Blum was the prime minister of France before WWII. His story in Wikipedia is fascinating and moving,
"As a Jew, he was heavily influenced by the Dreyfus affair of the late 19th century. He was a disciple of French Socialist leader Jean Jaurès and after 1914 became his successor. Blum rejected the class conflict model of Marxist socialism, instead defining socialism as the highest use of the power of the state, under the guidance of well-educated experts like himself, "to define, protect, and guarantee the condition of the working class."[2] As Prime Minister in a "Popular Front" government of the left 1936-37, he provided a series of major economic reforms. Blum declared neutrality in the Spanish Civil War (1936–39) to avoid the civil conflict spilling over into France itself. Once out of office in 1938, he denounced the appeasement of Germany. When Germany defeated France in 1940, he became a staunch opponent ofVichy France. Tried by Vichy on trumped-up charges, he was imprisoned in Buchenwald concentration camp. After the war he resumed a transitional leadership role in French politics, helping to bring about the French Fourth Republic, until his death in 1950."
Drinks in the afternoon.
Next day outing to Musée de l'Orangerie in the west corner of the Tuileries Gardens next to the Place de la Concorde where we
enjoyed Monet's waterlily murals.
No photos allowed, so we use one from the New York Times
..."Most striking, though, is how these paintings, particularly those of dusk, come close to abstraction: it is as if this master of Impressionism had chosen to leap beyond post-Impressionism, Fauvism, Cubism and other new movements and prepare the way for Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko more than two decades later."
Mallory cycled from her French lessons at Sorbonne to meet us at l'Orangerie.
A ferris wheel photo for Lucia, on the Seine in the Tuileries adjacent to l'Orangerie. MorMor in the foreground.
We had to have a look at Arrondissment 1, the prime guide book destination in Paris, site of the Louvre, oodles of luxury stores, and busloads of tourists. The opulence of this shopping area is rivaled only by Beijing and Shanghai.
Instead of shopping, we headed for the famous Harry's Bar, where Hemingway inter alia, hung out. Harry's slogan is Frenglish for the bar's address, "Sank Roo Doe Noo," 5 Rue Daunou.
From the Wikipedia,
Karin had the Bloody Mary. We had beat the crowd.
"...conflicting claims of who invented the Bloody Mary.
Fernand Petiot claimed to have invented the Bloody Mary in 1921, well before any of the later claims. He was working at the New York Bar in Paris at the time, which later became Harry's New York Bar, a frequent Paris hangout for Ernest Hemingway and other American expatriates.[2]"
Karin had the Bloody Mary. We had beat the crowd.
The next day we were off to the south of France!
We drove from Marseille to The Camargue, the largest salt marsh in Europe. It is a natural region south of Arles lying on the Mediterranean between the two arms of the Rhône River, Le Petit Rhône and Le Grande Rhône.
Our destination was
Surrounded by salt marsh and flamingoes!
Le Hôtel de Cacharel dates from the years after WWII when Denys Colomb de Daunant and Monique Bonis, the granddaughter of the Marquis Folco de Baroncelli, began the institution. In the early years it had no water, electricity, or telephone. Translating from the webpage, it became "a meeting place where men and ideas, free from urban and conventional constraints, allowed free rein to the creative spirit...breeding ... bulls and horses." Women certainly also had ideas and shared these freedoms there.
Its white horses and wild landscape were subjects of French "westerns" in the 1950s.
The rooms are interesting and comfortable.
And the grounds
the service
et le charcuterie
concerned about high water
gecko
Lots of white horses and others.
The bird refuge is close by
No dogs in the bird refuge
dinosaurs ok
lots of birds
and the signature flamingos.
A memorable and ample meal at Chez Bob, beaucoup de boeuf délicieux et bon vin
Close by Le Hôtel de Cacharel in Les Saintes-Maries de la Mer
Seafood restaurants galore
On the road to further adventures
to Aix en Provençe (that's "X" in English)
Mallory plied her craft and scored a private tasting in Bandol at
We tasted the Rośe, once praised by Robert Parker as the greatest rosé in the world (http://kermitlynch.com/our-wines/domaine-tempier/). We also tried the red,
We purchased and enjoyed several bottles during the duration of our trip.
Mallory and Erik were looking good in the courtyard of Domaine Tempier.
Madame Lucien Pryraud is Lulu, the lady of Domaine Tempier and master cook of the Provençal Table. We saw Lulu in the garden tending her flowers.
An idyllic night in
then on to Marseille for a sailing adventure on the Boulegan,
a fine Dufour 36
Motoring out of the harbor
Our coxswain
A ferrous wheel for Lucia in Marseille harbor
With our hosts
If the sea was calm, we were to visit Les Calanques, but the weather was instead
So we sailed to the protection from the wind in the harbor between the islands of Pomègues and Ratonneau.
We hiked on Ile de Pomègues
This island has a fascinating history as a key port of quarantine during the times of plague in Europe.
a fine Dufour 36
Motoring out of the harbor
Our coxswain
A ferrous wheel for Lucia in Marseille harbor
With our hosts
If the sea was calm, we were to visit Les Calanques, but the weather was instead
So we sailed to the protection from the wind in the harbor between the islands of Pomègues and Ratonneau.
We hiked on Ile de Pomègues
This island has a fascinating history as a key port of quarantine during the times of plague in Europe.
"The word "quarantine" is from Venetian dialectal Italian, quaranta giorni, meaning 'forty days,' the required period of isolation of ships before entry to harbor to ensure the absence of plague infected crew and passengers during the time of the Black Death.
In France, a quarantine harbor was a lazaret. Ile de Pomègues was known as the great lazaret of Marseille, founded in 1526.
We walked on the quay
After a few more days with Erik and Mallory and a few more great meals
Karin and I had to return to California, with memories of a spectacular trip.
