On Thursday, I worked, then I took her to Versailles to see gardens at the Chateau. We also grabbed a bite to eat and just generally wandered a bit in the town. And then the time came to pack for our ten-day stay in Provence!
I only led us on one wrong turn while making it to the train station, which is not that bad if I do say so myself. We arrived in Avignon without any problems, and made our way to rent a car. My mom opted for the supplemental insurance, which I have got to tell you was a magnificent thing to do. But we'll get to that later.
My directions out of Avignon were a bit difficult to follow, especially since a lot of roads were not clearly marked. Somehow (a miracle, I think), we got out of Avignon on all of the right highways and even made it to our Bed and Breakfast just outside of Mouriès without any problems. We were early, so we just drove around in the town a bit and got oriented. When the time was right, we went to the B&B and checked in. We were the only guests on our first night, and I never really realized how a B&B worked. The owners were a bit crazy, as in overly hospitable. We were greeted with an aperitif, and they both recommended a restaurant to us, and they also made the reservations for us. To my surprise, the restaurant they recommended was in Les Baux de Provence, which is where I went when I was in Cannes with my study abroad group three years ago. I don’t know what it is about that place, but I think it is my favorite place in France. Oh, I love the ruins, it’s just great, but I’ll talk a lot about this location in this entry, so be ready!
The restaurant was actually at the entrance into Les Baux, so we didn’t get very far in looking around. The dinner, I will say, seemed rather mediocre, and the special was some garlic fish dish (which it turned out was the plat du jour everyday). After dinner we went back to our b&b and crashed.
I must admit that I’ve waited so long to write this entry, and I didn’t take the notes that I normally do, that I’ve forgotten in which order most things happened, or even everything that did happen. So I’ll just take it in strides and describe the main highlights of our trip. There was lots of sleep, and both my mom and I needed it.
One of the amazing things we just stumbled across on our journeys was a roman aqueduct. It was in ruins, and we drove past it once and noticed the signs. In Arles there was a traffic circle that had bits of a roman aqueduct in the center, and we wondered if it was related at all. We then drove past the signs for it again and decided to go in search of the aqueduct. There were a lot of bikers stopping and wandering around the aqueduct as well, and a few people had driven there. We walked along the ruins, and eventually came to this big drop off from a cliff. Most of the aqueduct was gone, but you could still see the base work for it and where it would have gone off in the distance. We also had some fun there taking a few pictures. I particularly liked this one of my mom peaking out from behind the arch.
Also on this drive towards Arles from our b&b there was an old abbey. We didn’t really stop by it, but it was very impressive looking and I took a couple of photos.
Since we were rather close to the water, we decided to spend a day in Marseilles. Getting there was hassle-free, and we even found a parking spot without any difficulties. We did the tourist thing and bought tickets for the little white trains that seem to frequent the cities in the south of France (and maybe everywhere else in the country, too). We hopped on the first one that took us to the top of the hill to Notre Dame de la Garde. It is the highest point in Marseilles, and the view was absolutely amazing. The sky wasn’t very clear (pollution or humidity, who knows?) but it was still worth the visit. We went up, down and all around. Inside the cathedral there was a nautical theme with boats hanging from the ceiling.
After the cathedral, we went and ate at a restaurant by the vieux port. Unfortunately, I got a bit of a sunburn sitting with my back to the sun, but I bought sunscreen immediately afterwards so it didn’t get any worse. The view onto the port while eating was wonderful, though.
After the lunch and the sunscreen, we jumped on the other petit train that went through another part of the city. This train didn’t really have a stopping point where you could go see a different part of the city, and it really wasn’t as great. At one point, a group of rowdy locals shouted some insulting comments about tourists and threw something at the train, but no harm done. All we really got out of this other train ride was another view of the city, which is good.
After the train we just walked around the shopping area a bit and then took off on a grand adventure back to our b&b. This time my travel sense was not as keen as it should have been, and I accidentally directed us towards Aix-en-Provence instead of Salon-en-Provence. No big deal, really, it just took us about 45 minutes out of our way, and we were able to see even more lovely French countryside ☺.
One of the days, my mother and I went to La Camargue and Stes. Marie de la Mer. The town was quaint and cute, and we ate lunch there. We ran through the water (well maybe, not run, but walked) and looked at all of the stuff the tide had carried to shore. There were actually a lot of remains of crabs along with other sea creatures. The water wasn’t very warm or else I would have dove into it. The beach was so beautiful.
After wandering the streets, we left the town in search of the pink flamingos. Horseback riding is really big there, but to be honest it looked rather boring – one of the groups I saw had all of the horses roped together and they were going along at a snail’s pace. We stopped on the side of the road and decided to walk around to try to see the flamingos a little bit closer. They were in the middle of a swamp like area, possibly rice fields, and they were actually flying from location to location. Something I didn’t know that they did was fly, and they were actually pretty good at it.
The most adventurous part of our journey was in Les Baux de Provence. I guess I needed a different kind of memory of it from just being good old fun, but I still experienced the fun side of it as well. The unfun part actually started early in the day, and it came in stages. Near Les Baux, there is a place called La Cathédrale d’Images that our B&B hosts had been pressuring us to go to. We decided to visit this place on the Monday after Easter, which was really NOT a good idea. You see, in France, that Monday is a holiday, and tout le monde ventures out into the world to see whatever tourist attractions they can. It was this way that day. The roads in this area are narrow (as anywhere in France), but it was seriously only comfortably wide enough for a car and a half. So imagine two way traffic, plus pedestrians walking down either side of the road since there are no sidewalks and there is a cliff face up on one side and down on the other. Then, imagine trying to drive this road… Luckily, we found a parking space right next to the Cathédrale, and got right in. The Cathédrale really isn’t a cathedral, it’s more of a huge room that has been carved out of solid rock. The interior is pitch black, and there are projectors set up so that there are images and videos playing on all of the walls. The exhibition while we were there was for Picasso. It was rather neat to walk through, and a very unique idea.
The problems started to come when we left the cathedral. Traffic had gotten even worse, and before we knew it our car had bumped mirrors with another car parked on the side of the road. We were only going between 5-10 miles per hour, and before we could even process that we had hit the other car, a group of pedestrians walked by and pushed the person closest to us into the car. Looking back, the person was glaring at us like it was our fault that his friend had pushed him into the car. Then, finally, we got to the parking lot for Les Baux. There were 3 cars in line, and while we were waiting one of the cars in front of us decided to give up. So they were backing up on a decline, and we were forced to go back, too, but didn’t realize it until the car in front of us nearly bashed into our car. About ten minutes later, we were in the parking lot. Going along very slowly, we wound up the side of the hill looking for a parking space. In one of these very narrow parking lots, we turned a corner, on an incline, and noticed a huge van coming down the hill. It was at a spot where it saw us, and saw that there was not enough room, and decided to come down anyway. My mom stopped our car, blocking their going down the hill, and they were blocking us going up, and looking at us like we could easily fit through. My mom cranked the wheel of the car, and started to go forward, and before you knew it we had hit the side of their van. They were in shock, and my mom decided to go in reverse to get away from them. We went back just a little bit, and the side panel popped back into place (revealing little to no damage), and she put her car in gear to go back up. But something went wrong with the steep hill… The car rolled backwards into another car that was parked in a spot where it should not have been. The people in the van by this time had gotten out of their own vehicle and were inspecting the damage, and looking at us like we were absolutely nuts. We decided we better get the security people there to help guide us through this, and I ran down the hill (literally). I was a bit crazy there for a while… Not good with that kind of conflict, I guess. I got the security, and they helped us give our information to the owners of the parked car, and in the meantime the van people decided we had worse things on our plate and that their damage was practically nothing. Also, after we ran into the second car, we decided it would be good to have the van owners drive our car to a parking spot since we were both a bit shaky. The people in the security office were very nice, and they even brought in the tourism director to speak with us. She offered us a free parking pass (how cool is that, have a wreck in the parking lot and get free parking!), and sent us on our way. To calm down a little bit my mom and I stopped at a café to get some ice cream. We decided to try to salvage our day, and went to the top of the hill to go into the castle ruins. We arrived at the top of the hill and were in line to get the tickets when my cell phone started to ring. It was the owner of the parked car we hit, and they wanted us to meet them at the bottom of the hill to fill out the insurance information. It turned out that they were German and spoke better English than French, so to be honest that worked out even better. They were very nice about it, and seemed grateful that we had even left our contact information. I guess that would be rare in the US, too, but when there is damage of that scale how can you not? After filling out all of the forms, we gave up the day for lost, and went back to the B&B.
We waited a couple of days before going back to Les Baux, and it was much better the second time around. Parking was nothing, and we even got into the castle rather quickly. I have always wanted to go into the castle again, and I have to say that it was the playground that I remembered it to be. Unfortunately mom stumbled a couple of times among the rocks, but I got to climb about like a little kid while she admired the view. The stairs up on one side are absolutely terrible, but they weren't as scary as the first time I attempted to climb them three years ago. So in all, I’ve decided to separate the two trips in my memory. I still love Les Baux, even though some unfortunate situations occurred there. And I would go back again.
A lot of time was also spent in the local markets. Two of the main ones we went to were in St. Remy de Provence and St. Martin de Crau. The former was rather filled with tourists, and the latter was more of a local market where you could buy clothes and household goods as well. My mother had a heyday in buying all of the tablecloths that she could! I bought a nice little hair clip that I had noticed at several other markets around Paris. There were also a couple of bullfights going on in the towns near us, but we didn’t go to any because, frankly, gore is not fun. We did however spend some time by the pool, go on drives around the countryside, and we found a nice little crêperie in a nearby town that we went to twice. My mother also had a heyday using me as her person interpreter with our hosts at the B&B. And our B&B experience was good overall, but definitely different than either of us had expected. We asked about going to a church service for Easter and just got blank stares, and then it was odd having to make conversation with these complete strangers every morning at breakfast. We also did a table d’hôtes, which included a 3-course meal and a full table of people, and while the food was good it just felt awkward. So, lesson for the future is that the Chambres d’Hôtes in France are good, but be ready to be chatty with your Hôtes. And they were also very compassionate when I took a somewhat bad stumble one day after reading by the pool. I hadn't noticed that there was a step that was less than 6 inches, and I was carrying a lot of electronics. My knee started swelling immediately, but after getting ice on it, everything was good. I still notice a bit of soreness in it (two months later!) especially when jogging. But the hosts made sure I was okay, and even gave us quite a bit of ice.
And so our trip was over. We drove back to Avignon to grab the train, and there were no difficulties with our accident, really, due to the supplemental insurance. We went back to Paris, and then back to Jouy. On my mom’s last day here I took her to my favorite crêperie in Paris, then we just walked around for a bit since she has already done the main tourist attractions. We grabbed some food to eat for dinner, and then headed to the hotel my mom had booked near her hotel. We just relaxed that evening and ordered a film in the room, and after a bit of hassle in the morning with flights that wouldn’t connect (she was booked to fly from Paris to Barcelona, then Madrid to the US, but nothing between Barcelona and Madrid), my mother was flying off away from Paris.
To see more photos: link.
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