First week in France

Wow.  It's a low cost airline... but if our flight is any indication, you get what you pay for.  No in flight entertainment, no food or drink unless you pay, even for water ($3.50).  However, you do get to go through the Reykjavik airport.

Navigating the train system in Paris was fairly straightforward.   We finally arrived at our one night stand Hotel near Gare du Lyon around 2 o'clock Wednesday afternoon.   Morning in Paris require is an excellent croissant... which we managed to find with a combination of Google Search and dumb luck, Blé Sucré, about a 10-minute walk from our hotel.  

The 4 hour drive from Paris to Avignon is done in less than two and a half hours on the TGV train.  Unlike Bart,  Caltrain and Amtrak, TGV is both quiet and fast.

Philippe, our landlord in Avignon, met us at the Avignon TGV and drove us to the apartment that were staying in for a total of two weeks.  It's located inside the walled city and everything of interest is in walking distance.  

The Avignon street where our apartment is.  No big cars here! 

The main attraction here is the Popes Palace, perched high on a cliff overlooking the Rhone river.  

After walking and climbing so much, our knees and feet needed some rest, so we spent the next day in Aix-de-Provence.  Aix is pronounced like the letter "x" in English.  It's a lovely, expensive town.  Nice town for lunch.  La Table des Saisons .  

The next day was a double-whammy... train strike and national holiday (Victory in Europe day).  We rented a car and drove up to Pont-du-Gard.  An amazing feat of Roman engineering and construction.  Read facts here:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pont_du_Gard.

By the time we got to Nimes for lunch, all the good places were closed.  Most restaurants open for lunch from noon to 14:00, so we ended up at a not-so-great lebanese place.  But we did get to see the the Nimes ampitheater, which is still used for soccer matches and bull fights.

Strawberries from roadside stand near Nimes

To try to make up our pathetic lunch, I booked dinner at a Le Pre Gourmand in the small town of Eyragues.   A little too fuffy for us.  The only other diners was a trio of teenagers (1 well dressed teenage girl and her two less well dressed teenage companions).  The dishes had foams and flowers.  I think I'm swearing off Michelin-starred restaurants.   The red wine was very nice (Persia Fondreche 2013) , but Alexandra, not wanting me to drink too much before driving back, finished her glass and mine...so spent some time driving the porcelain bus back at the apartment.

Our next excursion was to Caverne du Pont d'Arc, which is a cave, discovered in 1994, which contains the earliest known expression of human art.  The cave's paintings and engraving date back 36,000 years.   The cave itself is closed to tourists to preserve it, but it has been painstakingly replicated from a digitization of the original.  It took 8 years to build it.  You can marvel at the sophistication of our 36000 year prior ancestors, or marvel at the skill with which the cave was replicated in this century... or you can marvel at the fresh strawberry tart we had for dessert at lunch.

On the way back from the Caverne du Pont d'Arc, we took back roads, and stopped in the lovely little town of Pont-Saint-Espirit for ice cream (quite nice)

 and bathrooms (necessary, but unremarkable):   https://goo.gl/maps/kNLSXW5f3j32