DAY ONE
The bus picked us up terribly early (6:30am, ick), and we were on our way. First stop: Orange. This city boasts a theatre that was built in 40 b.c. (which makes it over 2000 years old), and has preserved the back wall of the stage. Our guide told us that it's one of the only stages in the world that can make that claim. I was astounded to see what incredible shape it was in.
These are the arches that you walk through to get in to the theatre.
Some of the walls just before the entrance to the theatre. There are some excellent ruins to the right.
Stage left, and some of the seating. Theatre was originally very popular, but eventually degraded to a state of pornography, fell out of popularity around 390 a.d. This place was abandoned and later sacked by barbarians.
The wall in all its glory. The holes you see used to be covered by wooden doors that eventually rotted away. There was originally a huge wooden roof that protected the theatre from the elements. The organization that cares for the theatre is trying to rebuild it. The statue in the middle is the emperor Augustus, who ordered the theatre to be built.
Bronwyn and I being fabulous.
The ruins of a temple that used to sit beside the theatre.
The theatre is still very much in use. I'm not sure what this play is, but the Phantom of the Opera is currently playing. The theatre can seat 6000 to 10000 people.
This made me giggle. It's good to know that Tupperware is alive and well in Europe.
The plaque sas that, in September 1924, the city of Orange experienced a terrible flood, and that there was water up to the line that Marko is pointing to. This man is 6'4" tall. That's a lot of water.
An example of the countryside we were driving through all weekend. Gorgeous.
At the top of the hill is Les Baux-de-Provence, a tiny village with which I immediately fell in love.
Some more awesome scenery. The area is covered in huge boulders. Rather than move them, people tend to just cut houses into them.
Olive trees for sale.
One of the charming streets.
Even though the city is made of stone, plants have found their way into some surprising places. This is someone's home. I love it.
Some pottery from the area. The wierd bug things are cicadas, and we saw these ceramic beasties everywhere. It was too early in the year to see or hear any live ones, but apparently there are tons of them in Provence in the summer. They make a very distinctive noise.
Some beautiful houses in the valley below the village.
Another house cut into the stone. It blows my mind that people live here.
I wandered into a tiny church to find this. All the walls are painted to represent the Nativity, and at the back of the room is the tomb of Sainto Estello, a saint that lived in the 1600s.
A tree growing in someone's courtyard.
Another charming little street.
Candy! This store was called "La cure gourmande". There's that word again. I'm still working with it. This is one of the most incredible sweets stores I've seen. Cookies, chocolate, nougat, candied fruit, caramels, hard candies, suckers... This is the kind of thing that Willy Wonka would do after he retired, just to stay busy.
Some fabulous old steps up to a lookout point. I was worried I was walking through someone's backyard. Maybe I was.
I'm not sure what this is, but it looks like it was once some sort of stronghold. I've tried to research the village, but came up with nothing. I just think it's beautiful.
I love the way this country mixes the old and the new. The tunnel walls and stairs look like they were cut by hand centuries ago, and there's a rope railing on the stairs, and someone just left their bike there.
A Ferrari that some incredibly fortunate individual had parked at the bottom of the hill. So pretty.
One of my last looks at Les Baux-de-Provence. Olive trees and a little grotto. What a beautiful place.
Dinner time! I was incredibly sick Friday night. The weather was very hot (28 degrees Celsius before noon), and I didn't drink nearly enough water. I ate this salad, which was rice with little pieces of chicken, tomato, and pepper, and I started to feel not-so-great.
Our main course: bull. Yes, bull. The bulls of Camargue (the region) are famous for their flavour. To me it just tasted like steak. The sauce was some kind of wine reduction. I only ate a few bites, but it was enough to say that I ate bull.
It was such a shame that I could only eat some of this wonderful dessert! Pineapple, cut incredibly thin, with a caramel sauce, raspberry syrup, chocolate something, and that stick. I knew I needed to eat something, so I had about half of the pineapple. My neighbours shared the rest. After dinner, I went back to my room to drink a ton of water and have a cold shower, and I was asleep by 9:30. Not a great first night.
DAY TWO
Saturday morning I felt much better. I was rehydrated and well-rested. This is what we saw when we drove into Arles: caravan city. This made me think of the movie Snatch, where Brad Pitt is a gypsy bare-knuckle boxer who lives in a city like this. Kind of crazy to see that these things really exist.
The door to Arles. Water was very important to the Romans, and a fountain was a sign of a city's wealth.
One of the supercute little homes in Arles. I love that so many buildings had vines growing on them.
The arena. 2000 years ago, slaves and prisoners fought wild animals and each other for the amusement of the people. Now it's home to an annual bullfight.
Our group. I stand out less now! Yippee!
This picture turned out better than I thought it would. It shows the inside and outside walls of the arena, as well as the huge amount of pollution that has built up on the stone over the years.
Wow. What a contrast. The arena is being cleaned. The right side has been recently cleaned by laser, which is a very slow and very expensive process. The left side has not.
Yes, I'm still taking pictures of keyholes. :)
This is glycine, a plant that grows everywhere and smells fantastic. It inspired Vincent Van Gogh to paint "Le jardin de la maison de santé", or the Garden at the House of Health. He stayed there for a bit when he was first starting to go crazy, before he cut off his ear.
Another old amphitheatre. In decidedly less-awesome shape than the one at Orange, but I still think it's incredible that it's still standing.
A near-mishap between some silk dancers. They were warming up, and running into each other, and tourists, and children... Kind of a disaster. I hope their show was better.
A man smoking on his balcony. One of the more French things I've seen.
Huge thanks to Marko for taking this picture for me! This is the enormous market at Arles. We wandered for a very long time. This goes on for several blocks. One of my favourite things about being here is the smell of the market. I'll be walking along, and suddenly catch a whiff of exotic spices...
... and then I'll see the table that they're being sold at. Next I'll smell some of the freshest seafood in the world...
... and then see a table covered in slowly melting ice, displaying some incredibly fresh fish. Next smell, spicy Spanish food cooking.
Enormous plates of Paella, full of fresh mussels and huge prawns.
The olive booths smell wonderful too, all the different vinegars and spices are intoxicating.
A booth selling sausages. Smoky and salty-smelling. Note the horns on the table.
Even the vegetable booths have a smell. Earthy and green. These tomatoes looked incredible.
Some of the most incredible olive oil I've ever tasted.
Mmm, the smell of roasting chickens and potatoes with garlic.
The freshness of the produce never ceases to blow my mind.
This little guy was adorable! The woman that owns him makes and sells throat lozenges made with honey so that she can take care of him. Or so she told me. She also told me (after I told her I was Canadian) that her favourite singer is Celine Dion. I'm learning to take vendors with a grain of salt.
A small monument to Vincent Van Gogh. He spent quite a lot of time in Arles before he died. This statue only has one ear. It looks like it was carved that way. I found that to be unsettling.
Soaking up some sun! Clockwise from the left: Bronwyn, Marko, and Isabelle. The weather was beautiful all weekend. Yes, Mom, I bought AND applied sunscreen. I got a little colour, but I didn't burn. Win!
Lunch! We bought all this in the market. Clockwise from the top: enormous grapes, tasty baguette, wonderful strawberries, bull sausage, smoked gouda cheese. One of the best lunches I've had yet.
A beautiful old Roman building at the back of the park.
I'm shocked at how much bamboo there is here! It's all around the bottom of this huge tree. It's also in a lot of farmer's fields, probably as a wind breaker.
Ice cream, and the fabulous bracelet I found in Les Baux-de-Provence. The bracelet is hemp with faux pearls and silver, and the ice cream is lavender-honey. So refreshing.
There was accordion music all over the place. Some buskers here are quite talented, others aren't. This guy was somewhere in the middle.
There are a lot of little squares here like this one. A huge tree in the middle of a bunch of restaurants, who put tables around the tree so their clients can eat outside. Fabulous idea.
This was nearly a disaster. These guys were lost, so they just lifted this guy up so he could see where they needed to go. They nearly dropped him. The guy on the far right has intense dreadlocks.
The further south we got, the more colourful the houses became.
A cute little street covered in vines and glycine.
One last picture of the arena. Stephane explained that the arenas were a way of disposing of slaves and prisoners. Not many survived. Also, once a year, cities would make their prisoners run down a narrow street while the citizens hurled rocks down on them. This is how the city would be cleansed of all its evil. Later, the prisoners would be replaced with goats. This is where the term "scapegoat" came from; the idea that punishing a small group of goats could cleanse an entire city of sin.
As we left Arles we drove through some very pretty countryside. This is one of the many rice paddies that we passed. I had no idea that Provence grew so much rice.
Some of the famous Camarguais bulls. This was dinner Friday night.
Flamingoes! This country is full of surprises. I wish I had gotten a better photo, but we were driving pretty fast.
There's a legend behind the founding of this city. Victims of pursuits in Palestine, the Saints were arrested, embarked on a vessel, then abandoned on a boat with neither sails nor oars. Guided by Providence, they landed here. The legend says that Mary Jacobé and Mary Salomé, persons who were close to Jesus and Mary, landed at this place accompanied by Lazarus and Mary Madeleine. The Saints settled here, and every year thousands of people travel here to make pilgrimage.
The Mediterranean Sea. Vast, salty, and wonderful.
All I did was dip my feet, but that was enough for me. The day was beautiful and warm, albeit a little breezy. Nothing like back home, though.
Hundreds of boats docked. What the heck are they waiting for?
I wandered around barefoot for as long as possible. My poor boots have been through a lot here.
I love you, Jason.
After all the salt-water breeze, we were all feeling a little grungy. Stephane decided he needed a shower.
There were little places everywhere that you could book a trail ride on a Camarguais pony.
More bulls. I wonder what they do with the cows? I didn't see a lot of normal beef on the menu.
These horses really are stunning.
Right alongside the horses, flamingoes, and rice, there were vineyards everywhere. I'm really going to miss seeing vignes all over the place.
Following the Romans, our next stop was Aigues Mortes, or Dead Waters. This was a very successful place in the salt trade, as it's right on a canal that allowed for easy transport. The city is completely walled, and was under attack many times in the past because it was so wealthy.
Saint Louis IX. The town of Aigues Mortes is laid out to be a cross. This statue marks the exact middle of the cross.
One of the ancient archways that break up the streets. The trees are being trained to grow flat!
I love this photo. Kids playing soccer in a square in front of an old church. This feels a lot like Spain.
Adorable little garden outside someone's house. The grass makes me think of the Home and Garden Show back home, when vendors bring in rolls of turf for their displays. Again, the colours here are great.
A charming cafe with an awning dripping with glycine flowers. This street smelled fantastic.
Rings made of whole seashells! They were enormous, uncomfortable, and frail, but so pretty.
I can't get over the enormous contrasts of old and new in this country. Also, this car was awesome.
The canal that allowed Aigues Mortes to become the commercial juggernaut that it was. Now it's used for fishing and tourist boat rides.
Our last stop on Saturday was Nîmes, the Rome of France. This is their Monument aux morts, or Monument to the Dead. It's different from all the other ones I've seen so far. You can actually enter this one.
One of the many churches in Nîmes, lit up by the sunset.
The arena. It still floors me to think that these places are over 2000 years old!
Dijon has Chouette, Nîmes has a crocodile and a palm tree. Our mascot is cuter.
Very lifelike crocodile fountain.
This salad was incredible! Fresh greens, corn, tomatoes, olives, cucumber, wonderful vinaigrette, and brandade in puff pastry. Brandade is a specialty of Nîmes. It's a purée of salt cod, olive oil, and milk that's served warm. It tastes incredible, and was just what I needed to quell my seafood craving.
It was dark after we finished our dinner, so I got to take some very neat pictures of the arena. This is a staircase with the shadow of the gate. I love the colours.
The arena is very well-lit at night by floodlights in the ground. There were some kids playing with the lights just to the right of this photo.
This matador represents the strong history of bullfighting in France. It's strange to think that Spain will be abolishing the bullfight in 2013. I'm not sure what France will do. I understand the animal rights activists' point of view, but it's such a huge part of the histories of these countries.
Picking up a couple pointers. You know, for bullfighting.
I make a pretty fierce bull. After dinner we headed back to the hotel to rest up for our last day. Well, most of us rested. A small group of kids decided to get wasted and my roommate woke me up when she stumbled in at 4:30 in the morning. I love teenagers.
DAY THREE
This little guy was hanging out on the wall of the hotel, watching us eat breakfast. Our neighbours in Dijon have little guys like him that live in their stone wall. I catch them out sunning themselves in the morning, but they're too quick for me to take pictures. I think they're adorable.
On our way to the Pont du Gard, an aqueduct that's over 2000 years old. I love that the stairs barely stick out of the side of the mound on the right.
Izzy and Bronwyn pretending to be muses. Insert me on the right.
Our group in front of the Pont du Gard. I have no idea what the guys in the back are doing.
The olive tree on the right was planted in the 1600s. That makes it over 400 year old!
The pieces of the bridge interlock like a puzzle. Genius.
Me in the Gard river. It was freezing, but nothing like Waterton. It was a beautiful day!
Enjoying the gorgeous weather.
It looks like it was built yesterday. What incredible architecture!
This little guy was so neat! And he grossed out the other girls. He's some kind of beetle that rolls into a ball when threatened. I carried him around until he unrolled.
Here he is all unrolled and wandering around my hand. I bought this ring in Saintes-Marie-de-la-Mer. It's made of leather. I'm kicking myself for not buying more.
Lost in translation. This made me giggle. A lot.
This was our last stop before going back to Dijon: Avignon. Every July this city is home to an enormous theatre extravaganza. Over 1000 plays in 3 days. Apparently every corner of the city has something going on, and it attracts tourists from all over the globe. Sounds intense. The building in this picture is the Palais des Papes, or the Palace of the Popes. In front of the palace is a statue of an elephant standing on its nose.
I just realized that this upright bass has feet. There's a guy behind the bass playing accordion.
One of the cooler doors I've seen.
Inside the courtyard of the palace. At one time there were two Popes: one in Rome and one in Avignon. They were constantly in conflict, and there were a lot of battles fought over which pope would have ultimate power over the Catholic church. Eventually the one in Rome won.
The benediction window on the right, and some kind of well or cistern on the left. When the theatre festival happens, a huge stage is constructed in this courtyard and it's packed with people.
Crazy gargoyles. The one on the left looks like it's peeling its skin off.
A bigger view of the courtyard. At Easter, the French Pope would appear in the window (like at the Vatican) and bless all the believers present in the courtyard. The guide explained to us that about 6000 people can fit in there at one time. A pickpocket's dream come true.
I wasn't supposed to take pictures of this room, but it was too pretty to resist. A lot of the walls in the palace had intricate, beautiful frescoes painted on the walls. This was one of the chapels, adorned with images from the Bible.
There are a lot of places where the faces look like they've been cut out of the wall altogether.
An inner courtyard. The grass was calling me to run around barefoot, but the heavy chain fences in front of the grass told me it wasn't a great idea.
A grand dinner hall. The only word I can use to describe it is immense.
The floor in one of the rooms that I wasn't supposed to take pictures of. I love all the colour!
More frescoes. These are grapevines. If you look really closely (click to enlarge the picture), you can see some grapes on some of the vines, and birds eating the grapes off the vines!
Some walls had open birdcages on them, and other walls has the escaped birds. I love the detail and though that must have gone into creating this.
A fresco showing some hunting. The dog on the left is biting a deer, and the swan on the right is incredibly pretty. Unfortunately, there was a fire in some of the rooms in the palace, and some of the frescoes are gone forever.
The benediction window. This is where the Pope would appear to bless his followers.
Leaving the Palace, there were wonderful houses along a twisty path to the middle of the city.
The cobblestones were spaced so far apart, there were little flowers growing in some of the cracks.
The Pont d'Avignon. There's a famous French song about dancing on it, that has a double meaning regarding prostitution. The bridge once reached all the way across the river, but the river flooded and swept away a large part of the bridge.
More ice cream! This one is violet-flavoured on top, and lavender underneath. It was like a cold, refreshing, edible bouquet of flowers.
Easter is one of my favourite holidays, if only because there are so many bunnies everywhere. Bunnies get hosed all the rest of the year. These little guys look like they're made of dryer lint.
Hotness! One of the last things we saw before leaving Provence. This trucker was just sunning himself in a gas station parking lot. Only in Europe. I hope.
Well, that about does it. I had a blast this weekend, and learned a bunch of great information about the history of this incredible country. At one of our stops I bought some hand-made lavender soap, because Provence is known for its lavender, and now al my clothes and backpack smell like lavender. I'm pretty happy. It's one of my favourite smells.
This is my last week of class before Easter, but I'm still not sure what I'll do for my break. I have a Scout day Saturday from 10 to 5, and then I'mm free as a bird till April 26. Then I have the Scout Centennial Rally. 5 days, 100+ kids, 8ish headers. Oh boy, am I worried. I'm sure it'll be fine once we get there, but I have to get my 10 kids there on the train. By myself. With 10 excited kids. Yikes. But if I can do the Paris Metro by myself, I can do anything. Deep breaths. I also have to figure out how I'm going to dress up for the weekend as one of the characters from Avatar.
This week you can look forward to some more pictures of Dijon. I'm planning on wandering the gardens here, which are numerous and beautiful, and I want to show you all just how pretty this city is. Our backyard is pretty dang nice too. More of that to come.
À bientôt!
Every time you post I think to myself "ok that one is my favorite" lol and then I change my mind every time theres a new one! Loved seeing all the old ruins! It looks so beautiful there, I cannot wait till everything is blooming here in Edmonton!
ReplyDeleteUnbelievable! I absolutely LOVE that everything is in full bloom there, and very green. We can only wish for that here. The glycine is beautiful! They look so delicate. Looks like you had yet another unforgettable weekend and memories to last forever. Dad and I really love coming along with you for your adventures, if only through your blog.
ReplyDeleteLove you Lots ~ Mom