Adventures in the South of France

 This morning we headed out for a 3 day/2 night adventure in the South of France.  Our first stop was to see the Roman theatre, which is the only Roman structure still standing in its entirety.  It was built during the time of Augustus Caesar... that's pretty old! :-)  Rodger and I saw this in 1998 so it was neat to see it again with the kids.  We had a guided tour in English, along with a Dutch family.  It was pretty impressive, and I think the kids enjoyed seeing it as well.  (As an aside, there is a strong history with the Dutch and this City, and royalty is still known as the princes and princesses of Orange, hence the colour orange being connected to Holland.)

 

 As the City itself isn't very interesting, we didn't bother to wander the streets.  So we headed to Avignon.  By this time it was very HOT and it was about 12:30 pm.  We circled the walled city a couple of times, looking for parking in the huge parking lots, to no avail.  Yuck!!  I already don't like this City.... maybe I was just feeling overheated,  We gave up and drove to St. Remy de Provence, a little town that Van Gogh made famous.  I think he cut off his ear and admitted himself to the asyllum here.  Anyway, big disappointment:  We arrived just as the big market was packing up for the week!!  Wah!  I was incredibly disappointed, because that was our last chance at visiting a Provencel market.  But we got to experience the packing up of the stalls, which was actually pretty entertaining.  We were amazed at how the marketeers managed to squeeze their banged up vehicles into spaces that seemed to be smaller than their cars... narrowly missing curbs, barricades, buildings, unsuspecting tourists who thought that sitting in the main square on the steps was a good place to eat their lunch... ahem... they almost drove over our toes a few times, before we got up for the 3rd time and moved to a better spot.  ;-)  They cleaned up their market stalls like clockwork... they clearly had a "system" and it was interesting to see how they helped each other pack up if they were done quicker.  A very friendly atmosphere.

 

 

So that was basically all we saw of St. Remy... it was hot, messy with post-market cleanup underway, super busy... did I mention hot??  Stopped at the grocery store for a drink before heading to our next destination, our AirBnB in a small town of Comps, across the river from Avignon, and very close to Pont du Gard.  The owner had emailed us to say that  key would be waiting for us at her neighbour's house because she didn't get home from work until 5:30 pm.  After knocking on the door of the neighbour's, and some frustrating moments of trying to communicate with him (not a word of English, and Simon didn't understand and was also getting frustrated), we all realized that she had forgotten to give them the key.  He was helpful enough to call her at work and it was sorted out.  20 minutes later her husband rode up on his bike to let us in. Not a great start but it ended up working out well.  They live next door and were quite accommodating and helpful.  She left us some homemade tapenade and a bottle of rose wine.

 Okay, so let's talk about the apartment for a minute.  It was definitely "charming"!  It was very old... like built in the 18th century with stone walls, stone floors and terra cotta tiles, and it was situated on 3 floors... but quite small and quaint.  The stairs to the 3rd floor were very steep and narrow so I didn't want to stay up there, even though the best (?) double bed was there, as well as a super single one.  The 2nd floor had a small bathroom and a twin daybed which had a double mattress... so it sort of hung over the edge.  That was one of the most uncomfortable beds to sleep on, it turns out! And it sounded like the mattress had a crinkly plastic bag wrapped around it... a bit noisy.  The lovely courtyard was a garden oasis amongst the old stone buildings of the dreary town where there doesn't seem to be any life. Closed shutters and doors, no greenery to speak of, generally.... we sat outside to eat our dinner.  Anyway, despite our terrible bed situation the history, quaintness, kind hostess, price and location made it perfect for us.  It really was an experience.

After dinner we went to Pont du Gard, which was only about 15 kms away.  We've all been talking about seeing the Pont du Gard for months, all of us were so excited.  We looked at photos online, researched it, etc.  You know those moments when you're somewhere famous, old, historic, mindblowing, whatever.. and you get that feeling of "I can't believe I am here and seeing this in person!"?  We've all had those moments, either at the same time or different throughout this trip... this was one of my moments.  And only mine, or so it seemed.... snapped back to reality by overexcitement of three kids. About something completely different.

 

So we're walking across the incredible aqueduct, and I mean incredible... you can't fathom how big this structure is until you see it... and all the kids were talking about was swimming in the river there, and which rock they were going to jump from, and how many times, blah blah blah.  I wanted to yell "shut up!!  Don't you realize where we are?  Don't you understand how old this massive aqueduct is and how impossible it must have been to build it?  And can you believe it is still standing, 1000's of years later?  Don't you get it??"    Augh... blissful moment it was not, but we all got over it, oohed and awwed about it, then the kids jumped in the river.  And I get it... it's been hot and they've been dragged around a bit... that's what travelling is about... but they are kids and they are hot.

You know, there are so many times when I hear about other people's amazing family vacations to exotic places and I think to myself that no one talks about the less than happy moments of travelling. Is it just us?  It's hard work.  It's tiring.  It is definitely stressful.  It's not always going to be sunshine and roses.  Public toilets in France are almost always disgusting and rarely have toilet paper. And sometimes you get locked inside because you don't know that you have to press a button to unlock the door. That sucks.  And sometimes kids just want to swim.

We stayed until it got dark and they lit up the aqueduct with a light show of changing colours.  Again, so amazing!!  We were all pretty impressed by it, both in the daylight and at night,  Incredible.

We are in France.  And that's a pretty amazing gift.  I'll try to remember that when we fight or we're so hot we might die.  And I will try to remember to bring my own toilet paper tomorrow.