Adventures in Provence

On May 10, we went to Fou de Fafa for my birthday.  Lovely restaurant owned by Antonia and Russell, who settled here from England 14 years ago.  It's a small quiet place.  Antonia runs the dining room, and Russell runs the kitchen... so there are only 3 employees including the owner, and it appears that they limit their business to what they can handle.   That said, they do an excellent job.

On May 11, we took our landlord's (Philippe's) advice and did a tour of the Luberon.  This is the hilly area or Provence northeast of Avignon that has a number of charming hillside villages.  We spent a fair amount of time in Gordes (pronounced gord), had a lovely lunch, walked around, admired views, discovered a wonderful bakery (of course) .

Then, onward to the town of Saignon.  It's most striking feature is a huge rock that rises at the top of the hill the town is on.  Adventurous sorts with good kneew can climb up to the top for a spectacular view.

Rock of Saignon stage left

Or climb partway up... knees permitting

Alexandra on the rock's first landing

The view from the top of the rock

On Monday morning we returned the car we'd had for the past 5 days, and got on the TGV for Marseille.  We had a nice lunch downtown, then took the tourist train up to Basilique Notre-Dame de la Garde.  It was windy and cold that day, so we didn't spend much time there.  Sami, a colleague from my working days at Fairchild, lives near Marseille, and he drove down to show us around.  He insisted on driving us back to Avignon after driving us around Cassis (lovely place, out of my price range, and much of the area is owned by the government as a nature preserve).  

Sami and me on the rocks in Cassis

So, we set off to Avignon, but we were so engrossed in conversation that we missed the freeway exit and we were about 30 miles north of Avignon... almost in Montelimar (a town mentioned in Savoy Truffle, a Beatle's song on the White Album) before we realized it and turned on Google Maps to get us pointed back in the right direction.   No sooner were we heading south on the freeway when BANG!  we hit something.  Sami pulled over.  There was extensive damage to the front of the car.  He called for roadside assistance.  The highway is a toll road run by a private company that has its own crew that responded fairly quickly.   They called a tow truck that drove us, and 2 of the 4 cars that hit the stuff on the road to a garage in Mornas where a taxi picked all 3 of us up and dropped Alexandra and I at our place in Avignon, then proceeded to drive Sami back home.  We were back around midnight.  Sami didn't make it back until around 2:00 AM.  Apparently Sami's insurance paid for the cab (it was e125 just to Avignon, which was only 1/3 of the way to Aix-en-Provence, where Sami lives).  

Quite the adventure.  Fortunately, no one was injured.  4 cars were damaged by the debris left behind by the truck tire that came apart.   The gendarmes found the truck responsible for the debris, so I'm guessing that will help all of the people whose cars were damaged recover their losses.

The next few days we just spent hanging out and enjoying good food and scenery in Avignon including a walk across the bridge to nowhere (Pont Saint-Bénézet, also known as the Pont d'Avignon) which is a reconstruction of a bridge built in 12th century.

On Wed. night, our last night in Avignon, we returned to Fou de Fafa for our last dinner in town.  Then left Avignon on Thursday morning (May 17) for Lyon.   Philippe drove us to the TGV, bless his heart!