The 2010 Adventure - France

France is one of my favorites places in the world. It is probably second only to my home. And that really isn't a fair fight because home has my bed in it and I really love my bed.

In France we stayed in Grenoble, Carpentras and Carcassone. They were all great bases for travel in the surrounding areas. My favorite is Provence.

The markets in Provence are renowned for their fresh local produce and beautiful hand crafts. The weekday morning market at Bedion was the highlight of my overseas holiday. I really can not describe how much I enjoyed it or exactly what it was like. Suffice to stay that I spent all the cash I had on me, all the cash Tom had on him, then all the cash my brother (who was traveling with us) had on him, including the euros he had hidden in his shoes and I only agreed to leave after I realised I could literally buy not more as there was no atm available. Below is a photo of the town of Bedoin.

Provence was alive with flowers. The sunflowers were spectacular but as I didn't get a photo that I was happy with of them, below is the photo Tom took of lavender while we were wandering around Gigondas in the heat of the middle of the day.

Another highlight in Provence was Orange. I persuaded Tom and my bro to drive to Orange one night for dinner, it was only a 30 minute drive and a 1.10 Euro toll away from where we were staying. I had read in my guidebook that there was a Roman Amphitheater and an Arc de Triumph, as well a quite a few nice restaurants.

Now going at night meant that the Amphitheater would be closed but my guidebook gave directions for how to reach the hill above it which allowed you to see down into the Amphitheater. Taking advantage of the looonnnnng daylight hours we went to see it after a lovely dinner at a local restaurant. When we arrived it became obvious that there was a concert on in the theatre and when we tried to follow the guidebook instructions to reach the hill it was all blocked off. Disappointed we started walking back down but on the way one of the roadies from the concert tried to show us the way around to the entrance, when Tom explained that this was not where we were going because we did not have tickets for the concert the roadie asked if we would like some. Three tickets and much cudos for the success of such a complex conversation in french later we were inside the theater climbing the stairs to our seats. The concert was the Opera Tosca. And below was the view...


After Provence we went further South to Carcassonne. As my guidebook says "Medieval Carcassonne is a 13th-century world of towers, turrets, and cobblestone alleys". It was amazing, especially around twilight when all the other tourists had gone home.

Another great thing that happened while we were in France was that while we were visiting some castle ruins in the Pyrenees we stumbled apon a birds of prey show. I am terrified of birds and these one were HUGE, but they were graceful and amazingly tame. Below is the trainer with a bald eagle.

Would I go to France again? Hell yeah!
Why? I love it. It is beautiful.