Avignon

Hello everyone and thank you for your lovely comments on our travels.  We are having such a lovely time and very much appreciate the wonderful opportunity to explore and experience this part of the world.

We left Avignon about 5 in the afternoon as we had spent most of the day in Aix.  We got caught in peak hour traffic but as Avignon is not too far from Aix our journey was relatively quick.  We stayed in a hotel inside the old city wall which was in walking distance to shops and restaurants.

We spent the morning of the next day wandering around the old part of the city including the old papal palace.  We had a look at the old bridge which I thought was rather lovely although part of it has been washed away due to past floods.  Here are some photos taken on our wanderings.

Some old arches in a lovely park and next to a big church.

As we've walked around the streets we've had fun looking in shop windows.  We saw a little dog wearing a baseball cap, he was sitting inside the door of a dog accessory shop and presume he belonged to the shop owner.  We saw very colourful mens shirts, unfortunately I couldn't convince hubby to buy any.  We even saw very interesting toilet paper, I kid you not.  Here are the photos we took.

Sudoku on loo paper!!!

We had to attend to laundry in the afternoon and were very happy to discover cafes next to the laundromat.  We were able to spend the time sitting outside under trees and sipping on a drink or two.  We also had fun people watching, observing the fashions and even some romantically inclined people.

The next day we had planned to visit some of the surrounding areas of Avignon including St. Remy, however we discovered it they were having an annual festival and it was absolutely crowded.  So we drove to the Lesbaux de Provence area which had the most marvellous rock formations.  We had a fantastic time walking around and having a bit of a climb. The scenery was spectacular, my photos don't do the area justice. Here are some photos or the rocks, pine trees and wildflowers in bloom.

  On the way to our next destination we stopped at a roadside fruit and vegetable stall and bought strawberries, apricots and cherries.  I've never seen such perfect strawberries, they were the best I've ever tasted.  The cherries were good too.

We decided to have a look at Gordes, another old hillside fortress town.   As we approached we could see it was quite similar to St. Paul de Vence and though we would just drive around.  However we got lucky and found a parking spot very close to the centre, the first 50 minutes of parking were free.  That being the case we decided we could have a quick look around and were very glad we did. We had enough time for a coffee and wandered into a café thinking it was rather deserted.  To our delight we discovered chairs and tables outside on a balcony with the most spectacular views.  We scored a table right on the edge with the best view.  Here are some photos from our time spent there.

 

The view from the cafe balcony.

Looking down from the balcony.

This little boy must have been exhausted.  He look so cute I couldn't resist taking a photo.

 On the way back to Avignon I saw these roses growing by the side of the road in some kind of wild hedge.  It was just delightful and I had to stop for a photo.

 So this ended our stay in the Avignon area.  The next couple of days we spent driving quite a few hours in the car and my next post will be about those experiences.

Bye for now,

Anne  xx

Colle sur Loup, St. Paul de Vence and Aix-en-Provence

Hello from a lovely warm France.  Our introduction to the Provence area of France was by staying at a gorgeous little village called Colle sur Loup.  We had lovely accommodation with a beautiful view.

The walled village we could see from our window was St. Paul de Vence.

We spent the next morning looking around the lovely village of Colle sur Loup, which has gorgeous buildings, houses and shutters.  He are some photos from our time spent wandering the streets.

We had a coffee sitting at these tables.

A French mum and her daughters going for a stroll.

The lovely French mum you see  in the photo above was to help me out about 30 minutes later translating French to English so that I could pay a parking fine we received.  Oops, we over stayed our welcome in our parking spot.  The French bureaucracy is alive and well.  I took the ticket to the Municipal Police office and they said I had to go to a tobacconist/bar to buy stamps (which is their way of proving you have paid the fine) to put on the ticket and then show them.  It was all very confusing trying to figure out what to do with people who spoke next to no English.  This is where my newest French friend helped me out.  Walking into the bar was quite intimidating as there were about six Frenchmen all staring at me and chuckling and murmuring when they saw I had a parking ticket.  With stamps on my ticket I went back to the police who told me I had to give them the original ticket which the barman had kept.  I went back to the barman to get the original and he said he had to keep it.  At this point after an hour of running up and down French streets, trying to do the right thing, I decided they police and the barman could work it out themselves.  I'd paid my fine, end of story.  Experiences like that really add to holiday memories and I wouldn't have missed the experience for the world.

This policeman and lady had rather a loud altercation while we were drinking our coffee.

After our enjoyable morning, we drove to St. Paul de Vene, a hilltop walled large village which is home to many artists and other people.  It is very quaint, quite touristy but despite many people milling around we had a wonderful time.  Here are some photos from our visit.

I loved this beautiful sculpture and took heaps of photos.

I took this photo of St. Paul de Vence through the trees as we were walking back to the car.

Our next destination was Aix-en-Provence a city I have long wanted to visit.  Our hotel was in a gorgeous old building in the heart of the city, a tree lined street.

 
  The view from our bedroom window.

There are many lovely fountains in Aix.

By night

By day

I managed to step into this one the night before as it wasn't working or lit up.  One soggy foot and shoe.

 

We looked inside this church and the pipe organ was being tuned.  Don't quite know how they would do that.

The lovely dome in the church.

Engravings on the floor.

I much preferred this church to St. Peter's Basilica, it was much more simple and not too ornate.

I was very sad to leave Aix as it is such a beautiful city, one day was not long enough so I will just have to come back.  :)

My next post will be all about Avignon and some of the places we visited nearby with spectacular scenery.

Bye for now,

Anne  xx