The rest of the trip ⇒
As promised, here is the update for the remainder of our trip. I couldn't get it out any sooner due to getting life restarted and jet lag and a myriad of other things...you know how it is.
When last we met, Nige and I were heading off to go jump off a cliff with fabric attached to our backs. Turns out that this is most enjoyable and highly recommended! The photos Christine took are up in our gallery, and I will put the ones that the instructor took as well.
The next day we left our wonderful hosts, packed our chariot and headed down to Provence and our next base for the next 5 nights, Avignon. Avignon's claim to fame is for like 70 years, the papacy was moved there for political reasons. The church basically completely rebuilt the city and created some amazing buildings and a great palace. Once there, we picked our travelling companion for the next 5 days, Elise's godmother, Sherry. From the train station we went on a frustrating journey to find our wonderful accomodations that included an ever shrinking street. However, we did eventually find it and we settled in for an enjoyable week.
During the next week we saw:
- the Pont d'Avignon and the Palais de Papes
- the stunning town of Rousillon, which is reknown for its ochre-coloured buildings
- the hilltop town of Gordes
- the market in St. Remy
- Paul Cezanne's studio in Aix en Provence
- the green river of Fontaine de Vaucluse
- one of the 350 vineyards in Chateauneuf de Pape
- an amazingly cute town and castle of Les Baux de Provence
As you can see, we really did enjoy ourself. I can not adequately describe how beautiful Provence is, and if you only have a short amount of time to spend in France, may I suggest the western part of Provence?
We, unfortunately, had to leave Sherry at the train station in Avignon as we made our way back to Grenoble to return a few things, including the car. From there we took the TGV, the wicked fast French train system, to Paris for 3 days and nights. An added bonus to our Paris trip was the chance to hook up with my cousin Jennifer, who is living in Angers, for the day. With her, we saw the Louvre and attempted to go up the Eiffel Tower. I have to say that I was completely blown away by the size of the Louvre. You just can't image how big it is and how much art is in there. It turns out that the line-ups at the Tower are quite long (who'd a thunk, eh?), so we didn't manage to get up there that day. We did, however, manage to get stuck in a wicked rainstorm without any rainclothes, so that was fun.
Monday took us out to the palace at Versailles, which we discovered is closed on Mondays. So we spent the afternoon wandering around the absolutely amazing gardens. The attention to detail is incredible. Right now the gardens are only 800 hectares; can you imagine when they were 8000 hectares?
Tuesday was spent wandering around Paris trying to fit in all the sites we could. We took one of those hop-on, hop-off tours to get around and managed to see the Notre Dame, with its amazing stained glass windows, the Tower (which was waay lined up yet again), the Louvre (again), the Thinker and various beautiful and historic buildings. After the tour we wondered up the Champs all the way to the Arc, just taking in the people and the sights.
We took a train to Lyon Tuesday evening and spent Wednesday wandering around old Lyon before catching our plane back to Vancouver.
It was a phenomenal trip that I would do again in a heartbeat. France is a beautiful country with friendly people, great food and wine, ancient history and amazing scenery.
If you ever get the chance, I would make your way to France.
As usual, all the pictures are up in our gallery.