Blogs from Saint-Remy-de-Provence, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, France, Europe

This morning was my last breakfast in France. We forgot to buy milk yesterday, so muesli with water and Nescafé Instant coffee . Very French, not. It’s 9.46am, and we’re driving through small villages with serious speed humps every 200 metres, and large gated villas with German Shepherd dogs patrolling the gates as the welcoming committee. Lush bowling (?) greens dominate the drive through the village and are being attended to by volunteers; it’s always volunteers, right ? The hillsides are covered in grapevines and olive trees, and the trees are starting to turn vivid yellow, orange, and red as autumn overtakes summer. We just snatched a ticket from yet another toll station, and dodging the speed humps, roundabouts and rough country roads always justifies the fee . The highways are smooth, high speed, and have ... read more

Today we are going to Avignon, a city that is known as being the City of the Popes. In the 14th century Pope Clement V and his offsiders fled from Rome and established the Palais Des Papes, and between 1309 to 1377, the 7 French born popes invested huge sums of money building and decorating the Palace, in order for them to live in the manner to which they had become accustomed. That last bit is not necessarily a fact, but rather is just moi’s thinly disguised attempt at a social opinion. The town is encircled by 4.3 kilometres of preserved stone ramparts, and is considered to be the jewel in the crown of the region of Provence. Before we talk the short drive to enjoy all that Avignon has to offer, Tim and I will ... read more

We were up, showered, packed, and sitting at a table in the Rue de Moulin, opposite the 1850 open air town market building , by 8.30. The village of Levignac seems to be undergoing somewhat of a renaissance of its own. It is only a 30 minute drive from Toulouse and this village is a perfect blend of commuting and quiet old world charm. A doer upper from the 18th Century will set you back about 150k€. Many of the houses in our street were undergoing refurbishment while still maintaining the period features such as heavy aged beams and lintels, and stone corbels supporting them. Rickety weathered window shutters, barely hanging, seemed to be compulsory, and might be heritage listed, as no work had been done on them. The French country side is changing as we ... read more

Sometimes sightseeing goes differently from the sunny, postcard sort of picture in your mind's eye... Sunday morning we opted to stay in and listened to the new Hillsong album and then an excellent John Dickson message he gave at Wheaton College. Feeling edified and rested we decided to take a trip to a well known town only half an hour from here called L'Isle-Sur-la-Sorgue. Sunday is its huge market day, but these generally close down around lunch time so we thought we would be able to park -the constant challenge- and enjoy wandering beside its waterways and famous water wheels, find some lunch and enjoy the local colour. That was the plan. It was another beautiful drive. By putting in the ‘no tolls’ on our maps, we end up on some amazing back routes, down tiny ... read more

This post is going up in the interest of transparency - I feel a little reluctant, but it's a good story... Avignon was on our list of day trips from St Remy, and we got there, but not to see any places we had planned - we ended up in the emergency department of the Centre Hospitalier. The night before we decided to look at all our research on the places we wanted to see and to spread the expeditions out on our calendar for the two weeks remaining here in St Remy. The more we see, the more Peter has to paint so the experiences are piling up, and some of it has been unplanned, so we wanted to be sure we dont miss anything. We decided to go to Pont du Gard, the Roman ... read more