Where the lavender grows

Last weekend I had a 3 day weekend because Monday was a holiday here. At the last minute I decided to go to Avignon for the weekend. Avignon is in the south in Provence, where the lavender grows. I had a couple of hours to wait to leave Nantes between picking up my ticket and leaving, so I decided to walk around a bit. I found my new favorite place in Nantes. It is a nice gated park that features gardens and birds from different areas of the world. There are some nice ponds and flowers and benches...very nice! I decided to read a bit in there until it was time for me to leave. When I thought that it was about time I got up to leave...the gates were all locked! I looked at the time and the park had closed half an hour earlier! As I was contemplating how to jump the really tall gate, a golf cart came up and asked "Are you lost?". The guy led me out and I was laughing at myself a lot.

The train took off and it took the whole night to get to Lyon. Most of the time a baby war crying...:-/ Then I took a second train to Avignon. The countryside was gorgeous, with fields filled with red flowers and lavender. I got to the train station and just walked around to explore the city a bit. The whole city is surrounded by a stone wall in order to keep out flood waters because it sits on the Rhone River. This is the city where the popes went when there was a schism in the Catholic church.

I walked around the city as it was waking up. It was about 10 am and the city was still very sleepy. Little by little there started to be more people as I walked toward the city center that held a row of restaurants. Then I came to the square next to the Palace of the Popes. There were beautiful gardens that sat on a hill next to the Palace. I walked around those for awhile and just appreciated the sublime view of the Rhone River. For lunch I went back to the city center and sat at a cafe for some moules frites (mussels and fries) So delicious! The mussels were cooked in a white wine, buttery, herby sauce that was perfect for soaking up with fries and bread!

In the afternoon I toured the inside of the Palace of the Popes. It was really neat to see the history of the building. I took a walking tour and learned a lot about the time of the schism. For dinner I got a croque monsieur and sat in a beautiful garden next to a church to eat. I then took a gander at their grocery store- it was huuuge for French standards so I spent a lot of time looking through it! In Avignon one of the big things is street performers. I spent awhile watching this event called 'Street Sport Championship' or something like that. These boys that were all maybe 17ish would do some crazy tricks with soccer balls and basketballs. It was juggling like I have never seen before! That night I got to actually watch tv for the first time since I left home so I had great fun comparing the BBC to French news.

The next day I woke up to a rainy sky.. very sad for me because my plan was to walk around next to the river. I sat at a cafe for about 2 hours and wrote a lot and then decided that the rain was slow enough that I could brave it. I walked in and out of some shops and then got a veggie filled panini. I went to the Pont d'Avignon and learned a little bit of its history. There is a famous childrens song about dancing on it (although I learned that the people actually danced beside it and not actially on it). This bridge in the medieval times was the only connection from France to the Roman Empire. Pretty mindblowing!

Then the sun came out so I decided that I could walk around more next to the river. I eventually walked so far that I was walking in between French farms of lavender and vegetables. Chouette! It turned out to be a beautiful day from then on and I had some nice conversation with an elderly couple as there were lots of people taking their Sunday walk. For dinner I went to a stand and got a tomato and goat cheese panini. Delicious! I sat in the square next to the Palace of the Popes to eat and met some nice people that lived there and they gave me some tips about the area. I also got some violette flavored ice cream! Very interesting!

The next day I went to a boulangerie for breakfast and got some bread with rosemary and bacon mixed in. Delicious! I looked around some of the local markets and took in the culture, walking around a lot. It seems that Sundays are the days in Avignon to open your windows, blare music and clean. It was nice when I passed one house in particular and heard David Bowie's 'The Man Who Sold the World'. The area is very interesting because it is just a maze of streets with houses that look like they they were made of brick, covered with concrete, and then reexposed and covered in graffiti.

For lunch I got a 'kebab salade' from a stand. I've seen these all over France and wanted to figure out what they were. It turns out it was a pita with tomato, lettuce, a white sauce, and some really salt gristley chicken that was shaved off of a spit. Very delicious and salty and filling! I was supposed to leave from another train station than the one I had arrived at and so I took a bus to get there because everyone said it was far. It turns out I had walked to about 2 blocks away from it the day before! The train rides home were fairly eneventful, I got back late and was ready for a 4 day work week!