Of French villages and cheese
Trip Start
Mar 19, 2006
1
16
32
Trip End
Apr 16, 2006
Tarascon,
France
Monday, April 3, 2006
So, back to the day. We spent the day exploring all sorts of villages west of our gite. First we went to market day at a village called Cavaillon. Most of the villages are built on hilltops and driving in and around them includes a maze of narrow and winding alleys and streets. I had fun, although Nancy had some nail-biting moments (we had to fold the car mirrors in to get through some spots)
Hiking above Barben Chateau
. The market was different than what I expected and vendors were offering anything from the standard market foods to housewares and clothes.After depositing our purchases at the gite, we headed to Tarascon to look for a church I wanted to photograph. We checked out the two churches in the village but couldn't find "it" so Nancy thought we should go across the river to Beaucaire, its twin village. We drove around aimlessly in Beaucaire until we saw signs for an Abbey and followed them. Well, we missed the turn off and while looking at the map saw that Pont du Gard was only 12 km away. Nancy liked the idea of seeing this giant 2000 year old Roman aqueduct so we headed that way.
First lesson: never enter a parking lot at a tourist site if you don't see the prices posted. Luckily, we turned around without paying 5€ to park or 10€ to see the visitor centre and parked for free along the road.
After a quick stroll which included Nancy slipping and falling when venturing off alone, smashing her knee on the rocks (no injury, only a small loss of dignity), we headed toward Les Baux-de-Provence, a hilltop village and chateau, the former home to the Grimaldi family who became the princes of Monaco
Nancy with her ruin
. As we bypassed Tarascon, Nancy noticed a church next to the road. I pulled over and voila, it was the church we were looking for earlier. I was very impressed because I had only vaguely described the church to her - that it had trees at each side. This leads to the second lesson: there are tons of things to discover in Europe. While I was taking pictures of the church, Nancy ventured off on a path up the hill behind the church, looking adventurously for a cave. She decided to stop getting so close to the edge of the escarpment after her earlier fall at Pont-du-Gard, and stumbled upon some old ruins. They weren't marked on the map so it was pretty cool to just come across them. They seem to be old Roman watch towers or something, with symbols on each brick. See the pictures of Nancy standing in the entry door.
We then continued on to Les Baux. Our original idea was to stay there until sunset (magic hour for photography), but to be honest, Les Baux was kind of boring. Neat place, but too touristy; plus, we got hungry, so we went to St-Remy-de-Provence to find something to eat. We liked St-Remy, but everything was closed except for meals that cost upward of 24€. We continued driving in the direction of our gite to Cavaillon.
France has this cheap restaurant called Flunch. We think it may stand for "Fast Lunch." We wanted to avoid McDonalds--which was across the road--so we justified it by at least consuming French fast food. We looked at the cafeteria-style counter with raw meat dishes that they cook in front of you, and decided to go for a safer choice: pizza...
...which leads us to the third lesson: "Cheese Lovers" is defined differently in France than in North America. Flunch's only vegetarian pizza was topped with four cheeses. We took our box home and opened it, planning to spruce it up with some sundried tomatoes, olives, and other vegetables. Now Nancy is very conscious about best-before dates and food. Any food that is nearing the expiry date is suspect. To her, aged cheese is well beyond the expiry date: cheese with anything green on it--particularly pizza with islands of mold on it--isn't fit to sell to the public. It was a good thing we had left overs from the night before!
