The South of France

After the long drive over from Croatia we were excited to be back in France and explore Provence, starting with the town we chose to camp in, Aix-en-Provence, famous as a small bohemian, university city. We were very lucky to discover that we had arrived on market day, turning the city in to a hive of activity with stalls selling clothing, shoes, antiques, homewards, jewellry and endless amounts of food. Wanting to take advantage of the overwhelming range of local produce we decided to pack a picnic for our drive through hills to Avignon (taking the scenic route), we quickly selected a goats cheese filled with honey, basil cheese and lavender salami. We then heading towards the lavender musem and took the 'long' road, i.e. Typed the wrong address into our GPS. After the museum we saw a place called the wine and truffle museum in the small town of Menerbes and while the museum was extremely disappointing the town itself was beautiful and well worth stopping in for a wander and to take a few photos. We also managed a little drive through a town I vaguely remembered as a beautiful market town from my first visit to France called L'isle sur la Sorge, unfortunately this time it wasn't market day this time but still a gorgeous town.

For our next night we decided to stay in the city of Avignon, in a camp ground on the island that looks back over the palace of the popes and the old city walls. After wandering through town and enjoying a quick meal we heading back to our camp and dangled our legs over the river while Ryan got a few excellent nighttime photos. The next morning we headed out to the remaining section of the 50km long Nîmes aqueduct - the Pont de Gard - another vague memory from my first trip to France. While not nearly as big as what I remembered it was still an amazing sight, showing the ingenious methods used by the Romans in the 1st century AD to transport water from the Uzès spring.

After missing out on getting into a Michelin starred resturant in the north of France we again attempted to get into another during our stay in the south. However, unfortunately due to our laid back approach to travel planning - no knowing what we want to do tomorrow - we were again not able to get a table. We left France with a resolve to book another in Spain to ensure we could fit in at least one, more on this later!

- Louise -