Provence and French Riviera: Part 3

Thursday morning was spent walking the streets of Aix-en-Provence and exploring the markets and shops there.  I think this place was my favourite for market day!   They have a produce market, a floral one, and a flea market with books and artwork.  The shopping there is great too.  Well, window shopping that is.  Most of the stores are for fashion crazies with bottomless budgets for clothing, but it was really fun to look at the stuff!  Some market pics :)  

They had so many different kinds of herbs and spices.  It was fun just walking and smelling them.   I wouldn't have a clue as to what to do with most of them though!

Cute little biscuits..

Sausages, breads, and veggies.  The Provence region is known for its Lavender in the summer months and from the pictures, it's really gorgeous in the area when it's all in bloom.  You can find it packaged for purchase everywhere.

 

 

Another Patisserie.  Love them.  We shared some steamy hot cheese rolls.

I love taking pictures of treats.  Don't always have to eat them... they're fun to look at.

And I love all the narrow little walkways between buildings in France.  So cute.

After our morning in Aix, we drove over to Cassis to spend the rest of the day.  The place is gorgeous.  We walked around the little town, checked out the shops, and went for a boat ride to see the 3 main Calanques.

I think this next picture is my favorite one from Cassis.  The boat we were on was just pulling out of the dock.

On the boat ride.  Those are the tallest cliffs in France.

The water here is so clear.  The bottom looked like it was only about 12 feet down, but our tour guide said it was probably like 40 ft.  Crazy.

If I had a lot more time here, I'd pack a lunch and hike over to this little beach to spend a day.

More of the coastline..

And the port.

Cute little town.  I'd love to go back one day!

We went back to Aix for dinner again this night and ate at L'epicurien.  They serve French dishes.  We usually trust Trip Advisor's restaurant reviews, and this one was rated 1 followed by Pasta Cosy from the night before.  I was really nervous when the guy didn't speak much English, and I knew I wasn't interested in the 3 main course choices on their set menu.  Aaa!   The waiter was really nice though and asked the chef if there was another option beside the 3 on the menu.  I lucked out when he came back and asked if I liked veal.  Sure, that will work.  Jake got fish.  I'm not a fan of lamb, duck, or crazy fish.  Jake is a serious foodie though and will try anything.  His favourite part of vacation is the food.  Anyway, dinner ended up being very good.   None of the restaurants open in the area until 7:30, so we'd just walk around and read the posted menus before opening times for fun.  Here's the cute little courtyard that we ate in that night.  Pretty much all these buildings are restaurants.

Up next:  the Riv!

Provence and French Riviera: Part 2

Wednesday is market day in St. Rémy-de-Provence, so right after breakfast we went to check it out.  I love seeing market days in different towns.     

Every market we went to in France had sooo many different kinds of olives.  Lots of olive oils and olive pates, too.  I would have bought some if we could have taken some back on the plane!

Cutie little olive trees.

People making and selling food everywhere.

One of many fromage stands... French people love their cheese.  They are super big on goat cheeses and an owner of one of the restaurants told us it's because they don't have cattle in the area.  Just goats :)

Vincent Van Gogh was sent to live at the St. Paul Monastery and Hospital just outside St. Rémy after he chopped off his ear.  He completed 143 paintings and more than 100 drawings while here.

His bedroom..

They recreated the garden that was outside his room when living here.  Inspiration for a lot of his paintings.

 There are plaques around the grounds in places that inspired his pieces.  Like this one..

We left St. Rémy and headed to Arles for a few hours.  Arles has another old Roman arena, some ruins, and a fun market.  2000 years ago, gladiators fought animals here for entertainment.  Now, bull fights are held here.  The place is being renovated right now.  

And here's the Théâter Antique.  A first century Roman theater.

We relaxed in a park and ate gelato and then left Arles to go to Pont du Gard... a 'perfectly preserved' (acc to Rick Steves)  Roman aqueduct built in 19 BC.  It always impresses me that people could build huge things like this before all the modern equipment we have today to help them.  You can hike around the sides of the bridge and walk across it.   

View from the bridge.  There were quite a few people swimming down there.  Looked kind of fun!

Jake and our sexy rental car.  A week is all I can take driving a Smart.  Seriously felt like driving a go cart around.  One time Jake hit a speed bump a little fast and everything I was holding went flying up in the air.  No suspension in the thing.  haha.   And obviously no space.  We got away with filling up only twice on our trip though and we were driving all the time... gas mileage is the one thing they are good at. 

 

We headed back to Aix-en-Provence after our little Pont du Gard excursion and walked around the town until dinner hour.  Love that town.  Crazy to me that French people are so small and they eat so late at night.  We ate at a little restaurant called Pasta Cosy that night.. my favourite meal of the trip!  Some of the best food I have had.  The owner is super friendly too.  His wife is the chef.  He sat us down and since he could speak English too, explained the whole menu to us and why he would pick each dish.  After explaining that he drives two hours to pick up his Parmesan cheese in Italy every week, I went for one of the Parmesan dishes.  So tasty!  I think it was the 'pasta cosy' pasta.  Jake got pear and gorgonzola ravioli that were awesome, too.  He brought out like 9 little sample things for our starter.  There were some crazy things, but most were really good.  Like a dill crème brũlée, pears and chorizo, and a green olive sorbet.  And, the dessert was awesome.  It was sort of like hot chocolate molten cake, but it had frozen coconut flavoured  snow type stuff on top.  Sooo good!

Provence and French Riviera: Part 1

Jake and I hopped on a bargain Ryanair flight and flew in to Marseille on the 5th.  Flying Ryanair is definitely a budget flying experience, but you can't beat flights around Europe for £10 each way!  We packed our stuff neatly into one teeny tiny Euro carry on bag each for the week (they make you pay a crazy amount to check a bag) and then hopped in the little Smart car we rented once in France.  We drove all over the region and hit all the places we were wanting to see.  It was great to have the week to ourselves!  We've really been blessed with great friends here.  Luke and Ella got to play with the Willeys while we were gone.  Despite Ella getting pukey sick one day, they had a good time.      

We stayed in a little family-run vacation home in the countryside just outside of Aix-en-Provence.  The couple that runs the place built 4 hotel style rooms just off the side of their home.  They spoke hardly any English, but were very nice.  In the mornings they would make us crepes or some other sort of breakfast tastiness.  She was a great cook.  The only real issue we had with the place was with the shower.  The thing had jets inside that were pointing straight out of the shower and someone before us happened to leave them on the 'on' position.  Anyhow, Jake got up to shower and couldn't figure out how to turn the thing on, and after I gave it a whirl, water came shooting out at me and all over the bathroom and the clothes that were in there.  Gah!  Seriously, craziest shower ever.  Funny memory though!

And the outside of the place...

    

Our first night there we went into Aix-en-Provence for dinner.  The town has some amazing restaurants.  We ended up going into Aix a lot on our trip!  More on Aix later.  Our first full day out was spent in Nimes ("neem") and Avignon.  Nimes has some pretty cool Roman ruins throughout the city, like the best preserved Roman arena in the world.  

We climbed around inside it for a while.  The view of the city was pretty cool from the top.  

Jake checking out our handy dandy Rick Steves travel book.  We look a little like tourists, huh?

And here's another site that puts Nimes on the map:  the Maison Carrée.  Acc to Rick Steves, it rivals Rome's Pantheon as the most complete building that survives from the Roman Empire.

 

We walked around in the park by the Temple of Diana and then hiked up to the Tour Magne.  I made the mistake of bringing just one pair of warmer boots and one pair of flats... lets just say the boots I took were not made for walking all day long in.  Not with pregnant feet anyway!  My feet were definitely  feeling it by the end of the day.  The area was so pretty though.  Cool place to walk around!

The Tour Magne ...

And a windy view of the city from the top!

 

First century Temple of Diana...

 So many boulangeries and patisseries to choose from and only 5 days to try things!  We bought several flavors of macaroons at this patisserie.   So tasty!  My fav was framboise

Provence is the wine and olive region of France.  We drove through lots of vineyards and past fields and fields of olive trees.  No leaves on any of them yet since it's so early in the spring, but still fun to see.

After Nimes we went over to Avignon.  Avignon is a super cute town to walk through!  It's home to the  Palais des Papes.   The Catholic church bought the city in 1309 and popes over the next century lived here.

Pretty much found the coolest old door ever here.  Looks like it's had a long life!  

Inside the courtyard of the palace...

A lot of the rooms inside have big paintings in them and you aren't allowed to take pictures, but here's one that I could.

Outside...one of the towers..

Views of the city from the top...

Walking on the Pont St. Bénezet....

We spent a lot of time just walking around the city.   Fun day!   We ended it with dinner at a restaurant called L 'Epice and Love where I ordered a disgusting sausage.  haha.  The only bad meal on the trip!   I had forgotten that my friend had warned me not to order sausage in France.  Bad move.  And I thought it was the only safe choice on the menu.  Jake thought it was gross too and that is saying something.  And that wraps up our first day of sight seeing.  More on the rest of our France trip later.  Looking at this computer screen is giving me a headache!