Advertisement
Published: January 15th 2011
Edit Blog Post
From Pas De Le Case to Provence, 22nd December to 13th January
The last 23 days seem to have gone rather quickly. First Christmas, then my birthday, then a quick zoom across Southern France to Northern Italy to take in a week skiing, it all just happens without you really noticing.
We’re currently in Provence. Somewhere I never really thought I’d ever come to. And somewhere I now want to return to. It’s not that I had anything against it, apart from the French (and I’m even warming to them, weird eh!), it’s just that I thought that there wasn’t all that much here. How wrong you can be.
Anyway, back to it, Christmas and my Birthday was spent in Aurignac, near the French Pyrenees. Having family dotted all over the place it’s excellent to be able to stop in when passing. A week went by with numerous walks around the local countryside, led by my cousins’ grandmother Ester charging off at a pace. A thoroughly enjoyable time was spent eating and drinking too much and thankfully avoiding the illnesses that seem to be besetting one member of the family! Thankfully I didn’t get roped in to helping
finish off the one or two bits left at the newly built house my uncle and his family have just moved into, wouldn’t want to delay my trip now would I!?!
From here the long slog to Italy, but we really had to stop at Carcassonne, which was quite an incredible place. I’ve only included about 5 photos, but there could be 100’s, even more in the summer I’d have thought. The place is fantastic, it’s been renovated, but some of the renovations were started back in the late 1800’s. Then again you wouldn’t expect a place built as long back as the 13th Century not to need renovating. It was ‘a bit’ dreary on the day we visited, but it was still quite amazing.
There were no other stops really until Sauze D’Oulx in Italy where a week was spent skiing and drinking. There was a permanent level of drunkenness that peaked but never quite disappeared I found. A fantastic week with a fantastic bunch of people.
The last few days have been spent driving down out of the Alps, experiencing a swing of 20+ degrees in temperature, arriving in and starting to explore Provence. The
time here has included a day hiking in the mountains, a couple of days visiting the quaint villages, and a day of general sightseeing, even a stop off at the fantastic city of Avignon. Like I said earlier, I’d love to come back, I think it would be even more amazing in the summer with fields of Lavender, sunflowers etc dotted around, leaves and grapes on all the vines in the vineyards, and all the local artists open trying to show off their wares. The sun seems to give all the buildings and even more glamorous look from my experience. If you’re after a two week holiday in the south of France, hire a car and take a tour around this region.
That’s it really, not a quiet 3 weeks but a quick and very enjoyable one!
Au Revoir!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.091s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 14; qc: 63; dbt: 0.0561s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb