PRETTY PROVENCE

Provence is a region in southern France. I decided to use the city of Avignon as my home base. The train from Paris to Avignon was a high speed train. In some places we were underground in tunnels for 10 - 20 minutes at a time and we traveled at a speed that was hard to determine but it did make my ears pop so I assume it was very fast.

It was an easy but crowded bus ride from the train station into town. Avignon is a completely walled city and the walls remain intact with only a few entry/exit points. The Rhone river runs along the city.

This medieval city has cobblestone streets in most places. But not regular cobblestone streets where it seems that small brick sized rocks are almost completely flush with the mortar holding them together. Oh no. Imagine large russet potato sized rocks placed on end, the long way, with about 1/3 of the rock sticking up out of the mortar. Not a flat street. Not the least bit comfortable to walk on but then again, you are distracted by the beauty of the area.

At one time in history there were 2 popes: one in Rome and the other in Avignon. After years of conflict, they decided that they could only have one Pope - the Roman one. The Palace of the Popes (Palais des Papes) is the palace, part garrison and treasury. Here are some pictures.

From a park just above the Palais de Pape you can see the Rhone River. Part of the Pont de Saint Benezet (also named Pont d'Avignon) was washed away in a flood and the town could not afford to rebuild. Only this part remains.

My hotel was well decorated in bright cheery colors and welcoming.  This is the staircase; of course my room was at the top of the stairs.

On the first night, we went to dinner and the food was not good, in fact it was just plain bad. Ordering was entertaining though, our waiter, a young man of about 23, spoke no English at all and we had to mime lamb by making "baa" sounds.

We took a small tour of the area with a local guide who spoke excellent English. There were only 8 of us in a mini-van and it was the perfect type of tour: only a few people, only a few but beautiful stops and great details from our guide. We drove through a lot of countryside. This view here below was from a vantage point in Gordes.

The small town of Gordes.

The town of St. Remy.

The town of Beaux.

This shop was full of crockery (pottery kitchen pieces) painted in traditional colorful Provence patterns. They were tempting but definitely would not make the trip home without breaking.

The small towns are quaint and charming with a lot of places for you to spend your money. It only takes an hour or two to explore and take about a million photographs. Once you are done you realize that there really isn't anything else to do there except eat pastry. Exactly my idea of how to spend a day!

The Pont du Gard is an ancient Roman aqueduct bridge built to transport water. It once carried 44 million gallons of water to a town called Nimes (pronounced Neem). And the cotton fabric made in Nimes is "de Nimes" or "denim" to us. We did walk across this enormous bridge to the other side.

That night we went to dinner at about 7:45pm which is early for the French. The aroma in the first restaurant we went to was like a siren's song: pulling you in and resistance was futile. The hostess asked us if we would come back in about 1 hour. It was just too early for them to feed us and we could not wait. The next restaurant was recommended as fine dining by both our hotelier and Rick Steves. There wasn't one thing on the menu that interested either us, so we left. Eventually we went to a place in the tourist area and had a perfectly adequate meal which I ate with gusto. We hadn't eaten since noon and I was famished.

Sadly it was time for Leigh to head back to Seattle and I was on my own again. For lunch I decided to try the market - what we would call a farmer's market - but since they are far less industrialized than we are, all of their food is "farmer's market" quality. Up to now, there had been very few people in the Provence region who spoke English. The people in the market were in the 30 - 50 age group and they spoke perfect English.

Over the years I've heard about how delicious roasted chicken is in France. So, I buy half of a roasted chicken and some potatoes. Just outside the market is a large square with a lot of benches. I settled in with my napkins and lunch. I'm the only one sitting on a bench in the entire square and along come two women who are probably on their lunch break. Being French, they naturally sit next to me, forcing me to move my chicken to lap instead using the bench as a table. Then the wasps show up, buzzing around me. The sauce is going all over my clothes and hands. I don't have a stable flat area from which to eat so I have to pick the chicken with my fingers. Quel disastre.! (what a disaster). In the end, I stand over a garbage bin gnawing on the chicken like I haven't eaten in years hoping that no one can see me. Not one of my more ladylike moments. The chicken did taste good but most was wasted. All I could do was laugh at the situation.

I saw was a group of nuns, in light gray habits, walking down a narrow street and passing as I stood fascinated. There were about 60 of them touring the area and carrying bags of souvenirs. It didn't seem right to take a picture somehow but I will always remember them.