Some friends we made along the way.
St. Vallier de Thiey:
Castellane:
Gordes:
Orange:
Forcalquier:
Annot:
Entrevaux:
Tuesday, December 31, 2013
And the rest (Part Three)
...and the view from the top of the hill:
Annot, for our last night:
(But just because you live in an idyllic mountain town apparently doesn't mean you have to get on with your neighbours).
Entrevaux, a place that was mostly closed that day. We walked to the top of the fortress, but the reward wasn't great enough for the energy expended. It's in a state of advanced disintegration, in spite of apparent heroic restoration attempts.
This was our last day. We drove back to Nice with an accidental diversion by a tiny, horrific, and apparently endless mountain road (my fault); then struggled with getting petrol to fill the car up at the airport; then offloaded the car with some relief, and came home.
And the rest... (Part Two)
St. Michel l'Observatoire, with a beautiful old and empty church at the very top of the village:
Tasteful dustcatcher on the wall in our hotel in Oraison, the Grande Bastide, where we had another terrible mosquito encounter. This time the walls were textured, and no matter how much you hit them the mosquitoes just floated off to lurk elsewhere. We also had a strange fish incident with dinner - pricey "fresh" fish turned out to have paper slips still stuck on their underside, one with what seemed to be date of freezing on it. They took the price of the fish off the bill, but once we'd been charged separately for the cheese and dessert courses it turned out to be an expensive meal anyway. Still, I suppose at least it was a memorable one.
Forcalquier, where we should have stayed, and which was perhaps the nicest place that we saw on our trip (helped along by the fact that people still seemed to live normal lives there):
And the rest... (Part One)
The Roman theatre at Orange in the pouring rain:
The Pont du Garde:
L'Isle sur la Sorgue - watery and colourful:
Monday, December 30, 2013
Avignon and Orange
Day 5 - To Orange by way of Avignon
We left Goult and drove the short distance to Avignon. On the way out, we paused to photograph the local toilets just outside the hotel gates and next to the bus stop, which I'd noticed the night before. It brought back memories - I came to appreciate squat toilets from living in Japan, but when I was a child travelling with my parents, the French and Italian ones I encountered caused me substantial angst. They're hard to deal with when you're small and uncertain of your footing. I liked that they still had them here in Goult, though. It seems civilized to me to have free and accessible public toilets that can easily be kept clean-ish. Frankfurt is short on such things, rather like London.
The approach to Avignon is off-putting, with American style highway and sprawl, and gangs of people descending at the lights to wash your windscreen whether you want it done or not. Once we'd struggled to the historical centre and managed to park it turned out the be a pleasant place, though.
We parked close to the famous bridge, which for all its fame and song I hadn't realized would be missing a big chunk. How's that a bridge? It should clearly be called the Pier of Avignon. I was almost as disappointed as when I first went to Covent Garden and there was no garden, or Crystal Palace... or the beautiful winding silvery Serpentine that turned out to be nothing more than a muddy duckpond (it appears that London has produced a disproportionate share of disappointments for me).
We saw the papal palace from the outside, having been advised by my parents that it wasn't the most exciting thing to visit. We went to the Musée Lapidaire with its interesting collection of Roman, Egyptian and Romano-Gallic artefacts, and also visited a couple of bookshops.
And we crossed some roads...
In the afternoon we drove off (and then drove off again when we accidentally ended up back in the middle) to go to Orange, where we'd booked two nights at the Hotel Kyriad Orange Centre. This was an odd hotel - the room was probably the nicest we stayed in of our trip, modern, spacious and clean - but the hotel itself seemed to be disintegrating a little (or perhaps it was only the roof). Our room was also full of more mosquitoes than I've had to spend the night with since Taiwan, for some reason. We spent a good long time both evenings and in the middle of the night hunting them down - and all of them already full of (presumably) our blood.
We left Goult and drove the short distance to Avignon. On the way out, we paused to photograph the local toilets just outside the hotel gates and next to the bus stop, which I'd noticed the night before. It brought back memories - I came to appreciate squat toilets from living in Japan, but when I was a child travelling with my parents, the French and Italian ones I encountered caused me substantial angst. They're hard to deal with when you're small and uncertain of your footing. I liked that they still had them here in Goult, though. It seems civilized to me to have free and accessible public toilets that can easily be kept clean-ish. Frankfurt is short on such things, rather like London.
The approach to Avignon is off-putting, with American style highway and sprawl, and gangs of people descending at the lights to wash your windscreen whether you want it done or not. Once we'd struggled to the historical centre and managed to park it turned out the be a pleasant place, though.
We parked close to the famous bridge, which for all its fame and song I hadn't realized would be missing a big chunk. How's that a bridge? It should clearly be called the Pier of Avignon. I was almost as disappointed as when I first went to Covent Garden and there was no garden, or Crystal Palace... or the beautiful winding silvery Serpentine that turned out to be nothing more than a muddy duckpond (it appears that London has produced a disproportionate share of disappointments for me).
We saw the papal palace from the outside, having been advised by my parents that it wasn't the most exciting thing to visit. We went to the Musée Lapidaire with its interesting collection of Roman, Egyptian and Romano-Gallic artefacts, and also visited a couple of bookshops.
And we crossed some roads...
In the afternoon we drove off (and then drove off again when we accidentally ended up back in the middle) to go to Orange, where we'd booked two nights at the Hotel Kyriad Orange Centre. This was an odd hotel - the room was probably the nicest we stayed in of our trip, modern, spacious and clean - but the hotel itself seemed to be disintegrating a little (or perhaps it was only the roof). Our room was also full of more mosquitoes than I've had to spend the night with since Taiwan, for some reason. We spent a good long time both evenings and in the middle of the night hunting them down - and all of them already full of (presumably) our blood.
Sunday, December 1, 2013
Gordes
Day 4 - Gordes
(Already two months later - I'm making this holiday last a long time.)
We visited Gordes from Goult. It was beautiful, but also not quite what I expected. There was little sense there of a living town - and it appears that much of it was in ruins until artists began to move in in the 1950s and rebuild. Now it seems to be largely a tourist town - busloads of them (us) each day, and all the businesses in the town dedicated to feeding them and selling them lavender-coloured teddy bears and soap. Or art - we did visit a small exhibition of sculptures by an artist called Alice Morlon: flattened crowds of horses and riders made of wire and mesh, looking like Celtic hunters, and strange parchment-winged angels like giant insects.
As we viewed the town from the edge - at the scenic point from which everyone stops to view it - my attention was caught by a French guide talking to her elderly American charges as if they were recalcitrant children. "Could you... just listen, because I'm not going to repeat this." Then as she told them things about the town - for instance, how expensive the houses were now - a particular lady would immediately ask the obvious questions - "So how much would a house like that be now?" The guide would respond in a voice of barely concealed irritation, "I'm just going to tell you that." What a painful trip that must have been for all involved. It seemed an odd failure of communication, too. I suspect the American lady was doing her best in her very American way to show that she was listening and to show her interest to a guide she knew was easily ruffled; while for the French guide it simply came across as impatience and ignorance. She was clearly in the wrong career.
Apart from the exhibition, the most interesting thing we did in Gordes was to visit the Caves du Palais Saint Firmin - in essence an exhibition about life and industry underground in this town. It's comprised of only a couple of vaulted rooms and their side chambers, but it was informative - lots about olive oil processing that I knew nothing about, and before that a short film that gives the history of the town. Also, there was no-one else there, and it felt special to be underground while all those busloads of people tramped around over our heads.
When we left Gordes, we went back to Goult, drove up to the windmill at the top and then picked up some supplies in a shop in the village for dinner.
Then we went back to the hotel where I had a quick swim and an evening walk.
(Already two months later - I'm making this holiday last a long time.)
We visited Gordes from Goult. It was beautiful, but also not quite what I expected. There was little sense there of a living town - and it appears that much of it was in ruins until artists began to move in in the 1950s and rebuild. Now it seems to be largely a tourist town - busloads of them (us) each day, and all the businesses in the town dedicated to feeding them and selling them lavender-coloured teddy bears and soap. Or art - we did visit a small exhibition of sculptures by an artist called Alice Morlon: flattened crowds of horses and riders made of wire and mesh, looking like Celtic hunters, and strange parchment-winged angels like giant insects.
As we viewed the town from the edge - at the scenic point from which everyone stops to view it - my attention was caught by a French guide talking to her elderly American charges as if they were recalcitrant children. "Could you... just listen, because I'm not going to repeat this." Then as she told them things about the town - for instance, how expensive the houses were now - a particular lady would immediately ask the obvious questions - "So how much would a house like that be now?" The guide would respond in a voice of barely concealed irritation, "I'm just going to tell you that." What a painful trip that must have been for all involved. It seemed an odd failure of communication, too. I suspect the American lady was doing her best in her very American way to show that she was listening and to show her interest to a guide she knew was easily ruffled; while for the French guide it simply came across as impatience and ignorance. She was clearly in the wrong career.
Apart from the exhibition, the most interesting thing we did in Gordes was to visit the Caves du Palais Saint Firmin - in essence an exhibition about life and industry underground in this town. It's comprised of only a couple of vaulted rooms and their side chambers, but it was informative - lots about olive oil processing that I knew nothing about, and before that a short film that gives the history of the town. Also, there was no-one else there, and it felt special to be underground while all those busloads of people tramped around over our heads.
When we left Gordes, we went back to Goult, drove up to the windmill at the top and then picked up some supplies in a shop in the village for dinner.
Then we went back to the hotel where I had a quick swim and an evening walk.
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