Heading to Provence!

Provence...where to begin?!  There are so many sights to see in Provence, we really had a hard time picking a home base.  We knew we wanted a least 5 nights here because we wanted to have time to visit Cassis on the coast, the bustling walled city of Avignon, the tiny quaint hillside towns, the lavender fields, the Roman ruins at Point du Gard and Isle-sur-la-Sorgue...and more.  We ultimately decided on Avignon and were excited to stay put for 5 nights!  It is here that we will celebrate our nephew's  graduation from his Masters program at Vanderbilt, Mother's Day, and John's birthday...woohoo! With 5 days to spend here, and a car...we have been able to hit many of the tiny towns that dot the Provence region.  Some we just drove through, some we accidentally stumbled upon, and some just stole our hearts! (This is a long one, so bear with me!)

Roussillon 

Truly a hill-top town, Roussillon is unique in its red ochre buildings.

The famous ochre cliffs that this town is built on.  From prehistoric times onward, ochre has been used as a pigment/coloring agent.  It's also used as a thickening agent and in making rubber.  

We see the red poppys everywhere...between vineyard rows, growing alongside the roads, between the cracks in rock walls, in fields...literally everywhere!

What a view of the Luberon Valley!  (And I really can't get enough of the clouds!!)

Cassis

This is a charming fishing port, at the base of a dramatic rocky outcrop.  Our first Mediterranean stop at Collioure was as the far western part of the coastline bordering the Med...Cassis is between Marseille and Monaco on the eastern side of the coast.  Both coastal towns were great...Cassis has a bit more of a sophisticated feel though.  

Just a couple of bros...

Isle-Sur-La-Sorgue

We originally drove through this town on Sunday which is their market day.  The town was so crowded, bumper to bumper traffic.  As much as we wanted to see their market, we didn't want to see the town just jam-packed, so we decided to drive on through and return on another day.  As it turned out, it was practically on our way home the day we drove to and from Cassis.  The center of this town is lovely...the Sorgue River flows through it, splits, and then re-joins...leaving a little island in the center of the town.  This little gem is considered the "Venice of Provence" due to all the little bridges crossing the river.  The source of the river is a spring 5 miles away, with a constant flow it never floods.  There are 9 waterwheels still in the river, remnants from the 1800's when it had 70 water wheels.  At that time, Isle-Sur-La-Sorgue competed with Avignon as Provence's cloth-dyeing and textile center.

Lots of these little bridges, many with hanging baskets of flowers.

This was behind a lovely shop that sold picnic type foods...we loved the sight of  these folks sitting out back in the sun, enjoying their appero nibbles (and sharing some with the ducks!)

Beautiful views in every direction!

This building sits on the island in the middle of the river Sorgue.

Birthday dinner for this guy!

And I couldn't resist this photo as it reminds me of my sweet grandson Henry! ♡

Cavaillon

We missed a turn on the roundabout, and ended up driving through this town.  We had to pull over at the Lavender museum!!!  And they had a lovely spot for a picnic (and we just happened to have a cooler in the car with cheese, jambon, and rosé...all we had to do is run across the street to get a baguette!  

Pont du Gard

The Pont du Gard is an ancient Roman aqueduct bridge built in the first century AD.  It was used to carry water over 50 km over the Gard River to the city of Nîmes.  It's amazing to think that this well preserved aqueduct is over 2000 years old!  And a true testament to Roman engineering to accurately calculate the degree of fall to keep the water running smoothly and continuously all the way to Nîmes.

There we so many groups of school children here...what an amazing field trip!  From young children to high school kids, most on foot, but some entire groups on bikes!

It's always easy to spot Gary in a crowd thanks to his big white hat (and his doctor will be so happy that he is protecting his face from the sun!)

Always working on our selfie skills!

Avignon

Avignon was not originally on French soil, it belonged to the duke of Anjou, a vassal  of the Pope.  In 1309 a French pope was elected, and it was decided that it would be too dangerous for him to live in Rome, so the Catholic Church "bought" Avignon and a Papal Palace was built here (on top of solid rock and a Roman Ruin).  Seven Popes resided in Avignon and this remained the sole capital of the Church until the Great Schism when there were 2 Popes ruling at the same time; one in Avignon and one in Rome. 

France has the third-largest Jewish population in the world, after Israel and the United States.  There is a rich Jewish history in Provence, especially in Avignon where there is a large and active synagogue, but also in nearby Isle-Sur-La-Sorgue, Cavaillon, and Carpentras.  In the 14th century, the Jews living under the protection of the French Pope became knows as "the Pope's Jews"...les Juifs du Pope.

Ancient Roman ruins on which the Papal Palace is built.

Built on solid rock.

Who know the children's nursery rhyme: "Sur la pont d'Avignon, on y danse..."  This is the bridge in the song.

The Papal Palace is not beautiful...it's a bit "fortress-like"...but I guess that was it's purpose! - to keep the Pope safe!

The wall around the old part of Avignon is 3 miles...our apartment was within the city walls.

Our apartment, while quite nice inside, had a few major flaws.  When we booked it, we did not realize that most of the restaurants and shops were on the other side of the town (still within the walls though)...it made for quite a long walk for dinners!  Also, the week before we left California, the owner of the apartment notified us that they were doing major sewer line replacement in Annecy.  They were running ahead of schedule and the street in front of the apartment was scheduled to be worked on during our stay.  She offered to refund our money if we wanted to cancel, or to refund us $50 each week day that work was being done.  We opted for the latter solution as we figured we would be out an about each day sightseeing.  Naively we assumed that the work would be similar to work done at home, where a trench would be dug with minimal inconvenience to the residents.  We were quite shocked to see that the entire street and sidewalk had been destroyed to rubble/gravel!   We are in the 2 story building in the center of this photo!

And here is John dragging his suitcase out the the end of the block when we were leaving...

And this is our pile of *%#@:  4 suitcases, 2 CPAP machines, 1 jug of distilled water for the CPAP machines, 2 backpacks, 3 personal bags, a soft sided cooler for our picnic lunches, a bag of groceries/gluten free bread and crackers for Gary, 2 pillowcases full of dirty laundry, and a box of wine that we keep dragging along (We keep drinking it, but we also keep buying more so the box remains full!) All of this had to be dragged along the crushed gravel sidewalk for a block to get to the car...no small feat! And putting all this in our car was like a game of Tetris!

Our apartment had a nice back patio complete with hot tub.

See ya later Avignon...we are moving on to Annecy, near the Swiss border!