Bill attended a meeting on cellular secretion in La Londe les Maures, France in April. The seminars were held in an ancient observatory (Astrolabe) overlooking the Mediterranean Sea.
The meeting's organizer, Wolf Almers and Bill are pictured at the top. Below them are Andy Henkel (left, a former postdoctoral fellow now in Heidelberg), Manfred Lindau (right, a friend who recently moved from Heidelberg to Cornell) and his little daughter Bianca. That's Bill with Erwin Neher (Goettingen).
Next come some views from the Astrolabe, with postdoc Ute Becherer pictured before an especially beautiful sunset on the evening of the celebratory banquet.
One afternoon everybody walked to Port Miramar and took a speedy catamaran to the nearby island of Porquerolles. That's Ute and Tom Parsons (recently moved from Heidelberg to Penn).
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After the conference came a special treat: Ute's parents, Rudy and Gerda Becherer, had invited Bill to visit at their home near Aix-en-Provence. They even provided a car and chauffeur! Ute and Bill drove through the beautiful countryside of Provence, lunching in the little village of Collobrieres.
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The Becherer villa, La Foliette, offers expansive views of the French countryside. One looks out to the hilltop village of Venelles and beyond to Mt. St. Victoire on the eastern horizon.
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In this pastoral setting, Rudy and Gerda have created a home of extraordinary beauty and repose (securely guarded by the ever-watchful Dendra), and their gracious hospitality made Bill's stay perfect. His only disappointment occurred when he learned that his train to Paris would not be delayed by an ongoing strike.
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From his hotel room in Paris, Bill could see the College de France, and before it the statue of one of the greatest physiologists in history, Claude Bernard.