You may well ask why I didn't visit Avignon's Palace of the Popes (supposedly one of the 5 biggest tourist attractions in France) and which is one of the largest medieval Gothic buildings in Europe. It was once a fortress and papal residence / palace and was the seat of Western Christianity during the 14th century. Well, its pretty simple - the excessive entrance fee of €14 and a palace full of empty rooms, hundreds of shops and thousands of tourists. I drove around the massive walled structure twice (due to badly signposted roads!) but I am tiring of old palaces full of expensive tourist shops and restaurants. (see my Carcassonne comments). It seems that they are turning these sort of monuments into medieval Disneyland's. They should follow the UK's National Trust example and leave buildings as they were. I would much rather wander around an old village then waste time on places like the Palace of the Popes.
So today I visited more of the country side in Provence and glad I did. Completed a nice hike and saw some waterfalls at Les Gorges du Toulourenc, I also visited a number of small hillside towns including a tiny village called Faucon where I stopped for lunch at the local boulangerie. The shop had a number of home made quiches (about 6 or so different ones from which to choose). The owner also made all the deserts - see the images below... I then drove to the olive capital of France (Nyons settled about 500BC) and saw a 3.5m virgin on a three story pyramid- Up the hill from a Roman bridge. No idea why.
Another project was to map out and visit some of the domaine's (vineyard estates) and check out the "caves" (cellars) of some of the wines I have been having for dinner! My other project is to see how long during the day I can go without speaking any English - Today made it till 4pm....
Comments