Day 14 Last day in France! Found out what the Mistral Winds are!

Today is our last day in Avignon and our last day in France. We would be sad, but tomorrow we go to Rome!!!  Very exciting!!  Except for the 11 hour train ride to get there. It's gonna be a long uneventful day tomorrow!  It's been 2 weeks in Europe so far!  Our adventure is only half done!  We realize how VERY lucky we are to have a trip like this!  We work very hard and this is quite an amazing reward!  😀 Today was CRAZY! They have this thing called the Mistral Winds in Provence. It's when the winds funnel through the mountains in the north and THUNDER down towards the Mediterranean. They are cold and strong!  Probably well over 50mph gusts and it got down to around 40* today. It felt a lot colder and the wind literally almost swept us off our feet at times!  But, as with all days in Provence, we had a great day!  We visited the main tourist attraction in Avignon, the Palace of the Popes today. It was amazing!  We loved it last year also, but this year, instead of audio guides, they had tablets. It was so cool!  As soon as you entered a room it started playing the description of the room and also recreated what the room looked like in the 1300s when the Popes used this as their Vatican. It's a huge, fortress looking building that is very bare, especially compared to what it used to look like. The new tablet system gave us a better visual of what an awesome place it really was. While not perfect, I think it makes it more accessible to the masses. We had a lot of fun there!  After that we hopped in our car, our last day with it 😪 and went to a town called Tavel to go to their wine cooperative. That's a place where all the local vineyards bring their wines and you get to taste them!  Travel is famous for having the best Rose' wine in Provence, the land of the best Rose' wine!  It's brighter red than most of the rose' around these parts but it is really good!!  We enjoyed it, and definitely learned a lot!  We came home and rested off all the wine we drank. LOL  After that we wanted to go for a quick bite to eat, not a long french meal so we went to the restaurant rated the best in Avignon on TripAdvisor. It was a small burger place!  That's one thing we have noticed since last year in Paris and Provence, there seems to be burger places everywhere!!!  They really put their french twist on an American classic. This was a good burger, nowhere near the best restaurant we have been to in Avignon, but better than our last burger in Orange!  Good fries too!!  We got home nice and early and packed our bags!  Tomorrow morning we have to leave very early and drop off our rental car and hop on the train for a long day. Our butts are gonna be sore by the time it's over!  But, we will be in Italy!  I love Italy!  I've been a few times, but Emily has never been and I can't wait to show her why it's such a special place to me!  We have a cute Airbnb in an amazing location!!  We will keep you informed and take a video so you can see it. 😃. Thanks for caring and we will have more tomorrow!