A backroads tour of northern Provence

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Day 13 – September 11, 2008.
Within the walls at Citie des Papes (where our hotel is located) in Avignon quite a bit of activity takes place. We headed out this morning to visit the little shops on the other side of the vast courtyard. This was a scouting trip. Then we drove out of Avignon and found some country roads (and they weren't like West Virginia!). What we're finding in southern France is a lot of little sycamore-lined villages and small roads leading through olive groves, vineyards, and sunflower farms. Today we got close-up views. In fact, on one road we saw about six “oliviers”--farmers who raise and harvest olives and make virgin olive oil. I've never seen an olive tree before, and we were wondering how they grew.

And the fields of sunflowers that we found today had not yet gone to seed. They were a wonderful sight!

We got back to our place here along the Rhone River before the shops closed, but not before it began to rain. We went from shop to shop dodging rain and got trapped about 1/3 mile from our hotel (but within the fortress) in a downpour with lots of thunder. Because of the rain, we chose the restaurant next to the hotel for dinner—the food was nothing to write home about, but the atmosphere was nice.

Tomorrow we head for Nice. We need to be there before 4 to turn in our car at Hertz, at la gare, of course. I hope our hotel is near the gare. Nice is it—the last day before the journey back.