Day 20, Wed. 9-29-10 L’Isle Sur La Sorgue
I woke this morning with the thought of, could there be a more perfect place on earth for me - a place where eating bread, cheese, pastries and drinking wine is a way of life........... yes, it is the french way of life I truly adore, and I must admit - quite excel at ...... We decided that since GyPSy is doing such a great job, that instead of taking the train to Nice, we will drive tomorrow. Our first mission of the day today which proved to be our most difficult was to find the closet Hertz office to make the appropriate changes. We drove to where GyPSy indicated one would be, but learned it had moved. I found a woman in an employment agency who I was able to communicate with between french and english, and she was able to find the new address for us, and off we went. I will not mention that it turned out to be the same we place we took the car to get the GPS connection fixed last Friday. Finally we were off. Today we planned to drive to Camargue, with no specific destination, but with the goals of finding, black bulls white horses, and pink flamingos. I am pleased to say we were successful on all all three, and I have 500 more photos to prove to it. The only other "wild" flamingos I have seen were in Ecuador, so I may have taken about 300 pictures too many of them. We spent the morning in the seaside town of St. Maries de la Mer, wandering around and ate a lunch at a very good little cafe. We then decided to drive to try to reach the other side of the marsh where the Rhone river empties out into the sea. We ended up driving quite aways and found ourselves in the town of Salin de Giraud. This was one of favorite surprises of the of day as they had the largest salt mining operation we have ever seen, complete with miles of salt fields, the trucks transporting the salt that was harvested, then a long conveyor belt system that transported the salt from the truck’s drop off area, to the salt processing center - I know it sounds boring, but it truly was fascinating. We then drove till we could drive no further and the road ended. There we were treated to one side of the road that was a vast marsh full of flamingos, and the other side was fresh water from the Rhone river, that was full of giant white swans. We then headed off and somehow ended up on car ferry and went across the Rhone river. We then found ourselves in the port town of Port St Louis. This was a town dedicated to marinas, and large cargo transport shops - again, very interesting to us. The last goal I had for the day was to go to St Remy, to the asylum Vincent Van Gogh went to after he cut off his ear. For any Trivial Pursuit fans, if you are on the brown category, one of the questions is which ear did Vincent Van Gogh cut off and the answer is his left ear. Van Gogh painted many of his masterpieces while in Arles and St Remy, one of my favorites being "Starry Night." The asylum is still open and treats females, so we were only allowed in a small section but it included the cloister that Van Gogh use to pass his hours in, as well as beautiful gardens. We also stopped in Ganum and viewed some of the ruins there. It was a full day and we got back late, so we literally ate bread and chesse for dinner (with wine of course) and headed to bed at 10:00 PM. It turned out to be a mostly unplanned day, and we really enjoyed the landscapes that we saw today including the vast salt marshes, the sea, craggy rocky hills, and fields of olive groves. The light really is magnificent in Provence, and everything looked like a painting waiting to be painted.
I woke this morning with the thought of, could there be a more perfect place on earth for me - a place where eating bread, cheese, pastries and drinking wine is a way of life........... yes, it is the french way of life I truly adore, and I must admit - quite excel at ...... We decided that since GyPSy is doing such a great job, that instead of taking the train to Nice, we will drive tomorrow. Our first mission of the day today which proved to be our most difficult was to find the closet Hertz office to make the appropriate changes. We drove to where GyPSy indicated one would be, but learned it had moved. I found a woman in an employment agency who I was able to communicate with between french and english, and she was able to find the new address for us, and off we went. I will not mention that it turned out to be the same we place we took the car to get the GPS connection fixed last Friday. Finally we were off. Today we planned to drive to Camargue, with no specific destination, but with the goals of finding, black bulls white horses, and pink flamingos. I am pleased to say we were successful on all all three, and I have 500 more photos to prove to it. The only other "wild" flamingos I have seen were in Ecuador, so I may have taken about 300 pictures too many of them. We spent the morning in the seaside town of St. Maries de la Mer, wandering around and ate a lunch at a very good little cafe. We then decided to drive to try to reach the other side of the marsh where the Rhone river empties out into the sea. We ended up driving quite aways and found ourselves in the town of Salin de Giraud. This was one of favorite surprises of the of day as they had the largest salt mining operation we have ever seen, complete with miles of salt fields, the trucks transporting the salt that was harvested, then a long conveyor belt system that transported the salt from the truck’s drop off area, to the salt processing center - I know it sounds boring, but it truly was fascinating. We then drove till we could drive no further and the road ended. There we were treated to one side of the road that was a vast marsh full of flamingos, and the other side was fresh water from the Rhone river, that was full of giant white swans. We then headed off and somehow ended up on car ferry and went across the Rhone river. We then found ourselves in the port town of Port St Louis. This was a town dedicated to marinas, and large cargo transport shops - again, very interesting to us. The last goal I had for the day was to go to St Remy, to the asylum Vincent Van Gogh went to after he cut off his ear. For any Trivial Pursuit fans, if you are on the brown category, one of the questions is which ear did Vincent Van Gogh cut off and the answer is his left ear. Van Gogh painted many of his masterpieces while in Arles and St Remy, one of my favorites being "Starry Night." The asylum is still open and treats females, so we were only allowed in a small section but it included the cloister that Van Gogh use to pass his hours in, as well as beautiful gardens. We also stopped in Ganum and viewed some of the ruins there. It was a full day and we got back late, so we literally ate bread and chesse for dinner (with wine of course) and headed to bed at 10:00 PM. It turned out to be a mostly unplanned day, and we really enjoyed the landscapes that we saw today including the vast salt marshes, the sea, craggy rocky hills, and fields of olive groves. The light really is magnificent in Provence, and everything looked like a painting waiting to be painted.
Day 21, Thurs. 9-30-10 L’Isle Sur La Sorgue
Up early again, and on the road. Today we headed to Lourmarin of Peter Mayle. "A Year in Provence" fame. It was an adventuresome ride over mountains, with lots of hairpin curves. This challenging drive was made more complicated by the multiple bicyclists you can not pass because the roads are too narrow, so you end up trailing bicycles - uuggghhh We arrived in Lourmarin and toured a castle there. The grounds were actually more beautiful than the actual castle. We then walked through town. I bought my usual "pastry de resistance," and nibbled on it as we walked through the narrow streets. We passed several elders on the street, and one of them yelled out to me, Bon appetite ! To my horror, I then remembered reading in one of the 100 guide books I read before we left, that it is considered rude to eat while walking, and the exact quote was, "don't be surprised if someone yells out to you Bon appettite !" This of course was a tongue in cheek reprimand, and not an actual conveyance of wishes to enjoy what was I was eating. I just burst out laughing, waved to the gentleman, and in my limited French told him I loved Lourmarin and was having a wonderful visit, to which he also started to laugh, then wished me a good day - oh well.......After Lourmain, we returned back on the same route, so back over the hills and hair pin curves, through Bonnieux which was an amazing village perched on a hill top with views to match. We drove on to Menerbes, which was pretty, also hill top, but nothing special for us. Our next stop was heart stopping for us, and one of our favorite stops the whole trip - Vieux Oppede. Also on top of a hill, we walked up to the main square for lunch, then hiked up to the top which included a visit to a church that was being restored, then crawled and climbed through the ruins of a old fort. It was amazing for us, and we thoroughly loved the adventure of it, and also being the only ones there. Next back to L'Isle Sur La Sorgue for our last night. We realized we had not really spent any time walking around town, so that is exactly what we did. The town is surrounded by a river and we enjoyed all of the working water wheels, the groups of men playing bowling on gravel pits, similar to Bocci, the ducks, the people out strolling about, as well at the couple of water rats we spotted !! We headed back home for - red wine, then out to dinner. It was a wonderful close to our last night in L'Isle Sur La Sorgue and in Provence. We loved our time here, and especially being in L'Isle Sur La Sorgue as it is wonderful spot, and very central to all of the places we wanted to visit. Again, I must say that it is true what they say about the light in Provence, it was captivating, the colors, the hues and shadows,it is no wonder so many artists love to paint in Provence.
Up early again, and on the road. Today we headed to Lourmarin of Peter Mayle. "A Year in Provence" fame. It was an adventuresome ride over mountains, with lots of hairpin curves. This challenging drive was made more complicated by the multiple bicyclists you can not pass because the roads are too narrow, so you end up trailing bicycles - uuggghhh We arrived in Lourmarin and toured a castle there. The grounds were actually more beautiful than the actual castle. We then walked through town. I bought my usual "pastry de resistance," and nibbled on it as we walked through the narrow streets. We passed several elders on the street, and one of them yelled out to me, Bon appetite ! To my horror, I then remembered reading in one of the 100 guide books I read before we left, that it is considered rude to eat while walking, and the exact quote was, "don't be surprised if someone yells out to you Bon appettite !" This of course was a tongue in cheek reprimand, and not an actual conveyance of wishes to enjoy what was I was eating. I just burst out laughing, waved to the gentleman, and in my limited French told him I loved Lourmarin and was having a wonderful visit, to which he also started to laugh, then wished me a good day - oh well.......After Lourmain, we returned back on the same route, so back over the hills and hair pin curves, through Bonnieux which was an amazing village perched on a hill top with views to match. We drove on to Menerbes, which was pretty, also hill top, but nothing special for us. Our next stop was heart stopping for us, and one of our favorite stops the whole trip - Vieux Oppede. Also on top of a hill, we walked up to the main square for lunch, then hiked up to the top which included a visit to a church that was being restored, then crawled and climbed through the ruins of a old fort. It was amazing for us, and we thoroughly loved the adventure of it, and also being the only ones there. Next back to L'Isle Sur La Sorgue for our last night. We realized we had not really spent any time walking around town, so that is exactly what we did. The town is surrounded by a river and we enjoyed all of the working water wheels, the groups of men playing bowling on gravel pits, similar to Bocci, the ducks, the people out strolling about, as well at the couple of water rats we spotted !! We headed back home for - red wine, then out to dinner. It was a wonderful close to our last night in L'Isle Sur La Sorgue and in Provence. We loved our time here, and especially being in L'Isle Sur La Sorgue as it is wonderful spot, and very central to all of the places we wanted to visit. Again, I must say that it is true what they say about the light in Provence, it was captivating, the colors, the hues and shadows,it is no wonder so many artists love to paint in Provence.