To get to Provence, we flew into Marseille. I had been to Marseille before and I was not particularly impressed with the city. For the record, still not impressed. It feels very industrial and run down despite it's prime location on the Mediterranean Sea. Fortunately, if you drive 45 minutes north you enter a completely different world. Despite some minor flight delays everything started off well. We got the rental car with no problems and I didn't even have to bust out my terrible french.
We decided our first stop would be Avignon which is well known for it's walled City Center. Unfortunately, Avignon was overshadowed by a small tire accident. Cory was doing a fabulous job as our chauffeur, but we cut it a little close to a curb. We heard a hissing noise and Tina proclaims "I think it was our tire". Sure enough, flat tire confirmed. Matthew and Cory were able to execute their manly tire changing abilities and we decided to deal with the situation when we returned the car.
From Avignon we headed to our B&B which was near Gordes. The B&B had an awesome outdoor courtyard with a full service bar and a pool. I'm not going to give a full play by play of the next two days, but to give you a general idea it went something like this. Wake up eat lots of bread, visit small village, eat lots of bread, cheese and salad, visit small village, lay by pool, have dinner which includes yummy food and more bread. Wine was mixed in to most of those activities, excluding the breakfast.
A couple of interesting things to note about the trip.
1.) Diet Coke was more expensive than wine. I am a Diet Coke addict. I like to have one at lunch. One would assume that Diet Coke would be less expensive than wine, but I was wrong. Wine was cheaper both at restaurants and at convenience stores. Who would have thought?
2.) The region is known for lavender so I envisioned getting pictures of us running around the lavender fields. Wrong again, the lavender fields are full of BEES. No thanks. My other misconception was that the lavender grew wild, but it's actually planted very similar to a field of beans or corn.
Villages:
Oppede le Vieux:
Menerbes:
Back to the tire incident, we dropped off the rental car and the first thing the lady says is "did you have a problem with the tire?" "Yes, we had a flat". We didn't want to be dishonest, but didn't feel that we needed to divulge the full truth. She asked us to step inside so we could figure it out. We get handed the receipt and there is a 250 Euro charge for the flat. I about fell over and told her, "That's a very expensive flat". She said she would call her supervisor. 30 minutes later, the tire price was reduced to 35 Euros. We'll take it. Cory signed on the dotted line and we were off.
Overall it was a great weekend. We of course missed Brady, but it was good to have a little adult time. I highly recommend Provence. Great views, great wine and it was very peaceful.
