Sigh…
July 14, 2012
Vendredi en France
July 13, 2012
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- North Arles as viewed from the Arena
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- The old walls of the Arena
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- Lower levels of the Arena in Arles
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- The (Bull) Ring at the Arena
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- Bell Tower of St. Trophime Church
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- Syd and Kim resting at the Cloisters of St. Trophime
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- More details
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- The (late) afternoon swim
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- Self Portrait
Today Arles and Saint-Rémy-de-Provence floated to the top, not so far away as yesterday, we could do both in an easy drive.
First up was Arles, another city that was founded in the Roman days and has the world heritage sites to prove it. The main stop was the Roman Arena in the center of town, for those fans of the movie Ronin this was the site of the gun battle in the arena where Robert De Niro’s character was injured. Known as the Arles Amphitheatre it has been around since about 90 AD and is currently still in use. Currently there are Bull Fights going on (the bull is only killed on Easter we were told) and when Sydney saw a man wetting down the central arena for dust control Kim and I (and another man) spent a few minutes telling her that they were rinsing the bull blood from the sand. Poor kid… After the arena we visited the Cloister at St. Trophime Church. The cloister has been around since the 12th century and is an important example of Romanesque architecture. Or so we were told, there was much remodeling going on so only part of the Cloister was visitable. Oh well, that is life on the road 🙂
Van Gough lived in Arles for awhile so we tried to see what we could on his inspiration, then tiring of the heat we bolted for Saint-Rémy…. Ahhh screw it, we had had enough of sightseeing and decided to head back to our quiet hill top town for a swim, enough already. Only our town was not so quiet anymore, the weekend has come and a holiday weekend to boot. Much busier and the hotel was fuller. Not enough to stop us from slowing down though…
East of Avignon
July 12, 2012
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- Entering L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue
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- Walking through L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue
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- A special street name with a special date for a special person
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- The water calls Sydney as usual…
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- The river at L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue had a Monet look according to Kim
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- Conduire la vieille école
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- Taking a break
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- The Luberon Valley as viewed from Gordes
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- The Village of Gordes
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- Abbaye Notre-Dame de Sénanque and its Lavender fields
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- The fields as you approach the Abbey
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- Abbaye Notre-Dame de Sénanque
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- An inspired pair
With so many places to see in this part of France picking someplace to go can be a bit madding so we came with a list and decided to pick destinations on the fly as each day came on. Today L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue floated to the top so we decided to see it and whatever we could in the area around it L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue was noted in its time for its mills but now is more of a tourist town with many antique shops and cafés. We are not big shopping but enough old style ambiance and that je-ne-sais-quoi of the area made it a very nice visit.
After we were done we took off to see some of the noted Lavender fields located near by. The fields we targeted were at the Sénanque Abbey near the hill village of Gordes. As the pictures show this area deserves its reputation. Since the Lavender fields are at an abbey quiet was requested which was mostly observed… Syd was great, other visitors not so true. But when it was silent combined with the sight and aromas one could see why the monks find this location so special.
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