Avignon

April 13, 2013

The first challenge of the day was to see if all four of us could really be up and out by 8:15.  And so we were!  We headed to Avignon where today was a market day.  I’m not sure if we found the “real” market but the one we did discover had fruits, vegetables, all kinds of meat, and clothing catering primarily to Muslim women.  Lee and Cathy both bought strawberries.  All of this was outside the city walls.

We managed to work our way into the center of the city without too much difficulty and no map.  First stop was a store to buy Bev a jacket.  Then we had tea and coffee while sitting in the sun.  Finally, we got ourselves up to the Palace of the Popes, the Church of Notre Dame and the Pont d’Avignon.  Along the way, we did a little shopping.  Bev and I both got mugs that we will bring home with us so we now have four working mugs (there is a non-working mug in the cupboard).

And then, of course, we stopped for lunch – salads for Cathy and me, albeit different ones; steak, potatoes and zucchini for Bev and a pizza for Lee.  Wine to go with. ;-) 

We were pretty sure we knew the direction out but I stopped and asked a nice police woman if we were right.  I think her exact directions were:  “Ça, et toujours, toujours, toujours” or “just keep going that direction until you get to the gate.”  She was right and so were we.

Not many people bother to go across the river to Villeneuve-les-Avignon.  There’s a castle and abbey there.  The abbey is well known for its gardens and we went to see them.  Cathy is a big fan of gardens.  This one was lovely even though we are a little early for many things to be blooming, like the roses.  Still, it was a nice end to our day.

The GPS and Lee got us home with a stop in Pernes les Fontaine for bread, dinner and breakfast, all from the same boulangerie.  And now Lee has gone off to take a picture of La Roque sur Pernes because the light is just right.

On our first day here, we drove past a field that had what looked like dwarf apple trees growing in it.  It turned out they were apple trees and they cut them back so that it is easier to machine pick the apples.  There is also another method of growing them that we didn’t see until today.  The “tree” is a just a straight trunk with a few flowering branches hanging down sort of like willow branches.  The top of the tree is anchored in a pole that runs the length of the row.  There are nets attached to the poles that cover the trees once the fruit begins.  It all looks very strange but does, we understand, produce very good apples.  So that’