Friday, November 8

Fall 2019 Day 19

Today was another wonderful day in Provence!  We started this morning with a walk to the famous broken bridge of Avignon, a bridge that has been there since the 1300s and has been broken since around the 1500s with small times where they attempted to fix it but never with much success. All French kids know the song about the bridge. It’s like Mary had a little lamb in America. Here’s a link so you can get it stuck in your head like we have here!  https://youtu.be/uJKfxtYAt0s  It’s a weird thing to have a broken bridge that you just keep there for hundreds of years. But it amazes me every time, because it’s kept as a tourist attraction and because of that damn song!  There’s something totally charming about that and very French!  It was a gorgeous day!  A little cold, like 55* but sunny and virtually no wind. So we hopped in the car and drove to Orange to see one of the true showstopper sights in Provence. The Roman Theater of Orange!  The Romans built theaters everywhere they went, and they went everywhere!  But the one in Orange is special. It’s one of only 2 in the world with it acoustic wall still intact. I mean, we saw 2 Roman theaters in Lyon and they were great, go back and look at the pictures. But, this one blows them all away!  That acoustic wall was engineered so perfectly that you can here someone talking in a little bit above a normal speaking voice from all the way at the top. It held 10,000 people!  Not to mention the fact that it’s beautiful!  We climbed up to the top and had a beautiful view of the whole theater and the surrounding countryside. It’s such a gorgeous part of France. With the mountains, the olive groves, the vineyards and the best preserved Roman sights in the world, it really is one of my favorite places!  I made sure to take some of my best panoramic shots too!  Enjoy!  We left there and decided to try something new. Emily and I have always thought about sending wine back home but we have heard the shipping is really expensive. But, you save on the VAT tax so for an expensive bottle it can be worth it. Especially if it’s something you won’t find anywhere else. So, we went to where they have the best wine in the area and some of the best in the world. Chataneauf du Papes, which means new house of the Pope. When the pope was in Avignon 800 years ago, this was his vineyards. He chose these because they are really good!  So we went there with the thought that we will taste some good wines and who knows, maybe we will find a deal good enough that we pull the trigger. We really never thought that would happen though. Although we do have a real affinity for the white wine from the area. The red wine is about 95% of the production in the area, and it’s very good stuff!  But, for some reason, to us, the white is really special!  It’s elegant and structured and delicious!  Easy to drink yet complex and interesting!  Thanks to our wine tasting class we took in Beaune we really felt good about tasting the wine and deciding what we wanted. We found a place that really is the place to ship wine to America, they do a lot more of it than anyone else so they are cheaper than everyone else. We tried 6 different wines, 2 white and 4 red. They were all delicious but we all decided to buy a total of 18 bottles and ship them to Michigan. I never dreamed we would actually do it!  Not only that, but the other people in the trip wanted to do it also. It’s special wine so it’s great to take for special occasions. We did it and now we will send anyone who ever goes to Provence to this wine shop because they were wonderful to work with and fair with their prices and cheap to ship, comparatively speaking. So be really nice to us, maybe you’ll get a to taste some really amazing wine that you’d never find in America!  That was fun and we all were wiped out from the wine and all the walking, so we went home and rested before dinner. We went to a place right around the corner from our apartment and had a pretty good meal, not our best but none of us were disappointed either!  Except the desserts, they were just fair. But you can’t win them all!  All in all an amazing day!  Tomorrow is our last day in Provence, the journey for our guests is coming to an end. But we have one big showstopper left tomorrow!  The best Roman ruin around!  Stay tuned for more great pictures!  Thanks for reading!  We love you all!  Goodnight!









































1 comment:

  1. Pictures are stunning! Like walking in a travel dream!
    Safe journey home all!

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