Sunday & Monday in Provence

Saturday, March 14th continued
The Train ride to Avignon was a short one… once there.. we caught a bus
From the train station in to the center of town where we found the Europa Car Rental place and picked up our little Fiat that we will have for 9 days.
Leaving Avignon we went up to Pont du Guard to see the old Roman Acqueduct and from there drove on to Hotel Les Nevons in Isle sur la Sorgue, which will be our home base for the next 9 nights.
After settling in to our room we did a walk-a-bout town to get our bearings… finding the church (10:30 Mass tomorrow morning) and also the local Laundromat where we’ll be able to wash our clothes soon. We also discovered to our surprise that we would be able to access the internet for free in the lobby of our hotel. Picked up a long bread & veggy sandwich that we could share for supper and used our Last Hershey Chocolate candy bar from home for desert. Tonight Martha helped me get signed on to the Skype world wide telephone service. It seemed like I was always asking to use her system so decided to just bite the bullet and get it for myself. Wish I had done it sooner. This way I do not have to find someone on their computer to call them, I just use my computer to call their telephone direct.
Of course, this does not have the video with it but is much easier to use.
Tonight it was to bed early for us as its Market Day on Sunday.

Sunday, March 15, 2009 Isle sur la Sorgue, France
Another beautiful sunny day (but cool in the shade). Today is the big Market Day for this town. Find it hard to describe.. .street after street filled with everything imaginable, old antiques of every sort both large and small,
Flowers, fruits & vegetables, herbs of every sort, dishes and pottery, linens,
Bolts of cloth, clothing, nuts, olives, dried fish, cheese (big wheels) meats
You name it …. It could be found …after wandering the streets, and buying ourselves new (alike) purses we went off to the 10:30 Mass in the old church
That is from the 12th century. It is said to be one of the most beautiful examples of baroque art in Provence with all its paintings and statues. It was a high mass with 2 priest, 2 choirs and a church FULL of people. Of course, it was in French but we had our little Mass booklets from home so we could follow as best we could.
Oh yes, earlier as it is Sunday, we decided to dress up in our one good outfits and go to the breakfast buffet here at our hotel….we even wore our earrings and put on lipstick for the occasion. Our everyday wear is always our blue jeans and what ever shirt is handy… so it was really different for us to dress up. After Mass we went back to the market to buy some food for later in the day and purchased a rice & veggy dish to share in the park for lunch. This afternoon we drove to Fontaine de Vaucluse, a town a short distance away, where the source of the river Sorgue comes from. We parked and walked up a mountainside path for about ½ hour to find a quiet pool of water located at the base of very high cliffs. They say that the bottom of this pool of water has never been found………..the water then cascades over rocks and rushes downstream in an neverending stream of water…. Its hard to image where all this water is coming from. The walk to and from this pool of water is beautiful as it follows the rapids of cascading water which travels very fast as it moves downstream from town to town. Of course the town where we are staying is full of water wheels and streams all coming from the water source.
Back to the hotel, picked up our laundry and headed for the Laundromat
As we were beginning to run out of clean clothes. After completing this task we were back to our rooms for computer time. Started working with our pictures and before we knew it was 11:30 PM.

Monday, March 16, 2009 Another beautiful Day
Up early with breakfast in our room then out the door to explore parts of Provence. First we drove to Carpentras, an old Roman town… then on
To Vaison la Romaine to find a Frenchman, Alain Farnoux, that Martha had met 2 years ago while touring the wine country in California. They had exchanged names and picture because, at the time, she was planning to be in France with me during 2008. Well we were a year late but he did remember her and we had a wonderful visit with him and his assistants in his Olive Store, LeVieux Moulin. They even gave us each a beautiful dish (to serve olives in) and took us out to their new place of business that is being built so that they will be able to do business in the US….the old cave in town does not meet US food standards. We had quite a time with conversations because only his female assistant spoke some English…. It was good that Martha had brought the picture taken of them in the US and the brochure from the winery where they met. Oh yes, he is a friend of Lance Armstrong and has a signed jersey (in a frame) that Lance gave him when he was riding for the US Postal team. Alain’s friend rents his place to Lance when he is in town. The whole visit was the highlight of our day.. lots of fun.
Leaving Alain we drove up Mont Ventoux …. This is one of the nearby mountains that the Tour de France uses for their bike race. We got close to the top but could go no further because of the heavy snow so we had to turn around and come back down the same way that we had gone up…. Lots of hairpin curves….. sure glad that I wasn’t driving….
Between Alain and Mont Ventoux we stopped at a medieval roman town called Vaison to walk and visit the ruins and remains of a Roman Town. We
Did find a nice place for sale that we both thought our friend Bonnie might enjoy having… Martha took lots of pictures for her. This little town is one of her favorite places in France.
Well we are back in for the day …. I have typed this so that I can go down and get it posted for all of you to see. I did post pictures for you last night. Hope that you have already enjoyed viewing them. Remember if you click on the set of pictures you should be able to get a larger slide show of them. Tomorrow that plan is to go back to Avignon to see the Palace of the Popes (during the years they were not allow in Rome) and then up to La’Orange. Wishing you all a good day.