Provence

We traveled to Provence in September of 2011 for our honeymoon. We were looking forward to Roman ruins, medieval history, picturesque romantic hill towns, good food and wine, and we found plenty of it.

We arrived in Nice in what felt like tropical weather – hot and humid. After an overlong wait to get our rental car (a cute little Renault) we were off and driving down the coast to visit our friends staying in Agay, between Cannes and St. Tropez. The coast is beautiful, and it was great to have a relaxing visit with our friends, including a swim in the Mediterranean.

We then headed north to Avignon, a beautiful medieval town with the Pope's Palace, a grand series of structures spread out over a hill. En route, we noticed a couple interesting aspects of roads in Provence that we would see a lot of in our travels: round-abouts and plane trees planted along the roads. The round-abouts seemed to be the dominant form of intersection in all of the non-highway roads. It started to be comical how common they were, and even more so since the Garmin announced each one - "in 200m enter roundabout, and take second exit."  Along many roads were the ubiquitous plane trees, which were planted throughout Provence for the great shade that they provide. The most interesting aspect of these trees, however, was that they were planted in a pre-automobile era with a single row on each side of the road – very close to the road – resulting in extremely narrow lanes. 

After only a short bout of getting lost in the Renault-width medieval side streets of Avignon (thank you, Garmin), we arrived to the cozy B&B run by a couple who were artists.

Avignon's large indoor market, Les Halles, with an amazing exterior covered with live plants, boasts a wide variety of delicious cheeses, pastries, meats, patés, breads, wines, fruits, veggies, and more. Needless to say, we spent a great deal of time there.

A few days in, we took a day-trip to the Pont du Gard, Uzès, and Nîmes. Pont du Gard is part of the Nîmes aqueduct, a 50 km-long structure built by the Romans to carry water from a spring at Uzès to the Roman colony of Nemausus (Nîmes). Built in the 1st century AD, the Pont du Gard is the highest of all Roman aqueduct bridges and is one of the best preserved. Jura joined other visitors and took advantage of the scenery by taking a swim, floating down the river under the aqueduct.

We proceeded on to Uzès, a small city that turned out to be one of our surprise favorite places. Though there weren’t any blockbuster Roman or medieval buildings, the city just had a great atmosphere that we enjoyed as we toured around the narrow lanes. We had a pleasant lunch in one of the quaint squares, and decided to give the classic local drink – pastis – a try. This anise-flavored alcoholic drink is, perhaps, an acquired taste, but one that we weren’t able to acquire in our brief time there. After lunch we happened upon a little shop selling delectable truffle and foie gras macarons, which ended up being probably the single most delicious bite we had in France. 

After Avignon, we headed to Côtes du Rhone region. We stopped to have a picnic (courtesy of Les Halles gastronomic heaven) in the shadow of a random castle ruin set on a rocky hill near Châteauneuf-du-Pape. 

In the Côtes du Rhone, we stayed near Gigondas, a small hill town famous for its wine. We of course took advantage of our time in the Côtes du Rhone by touring about and doing some tastings in a few wineries and olive oil mills in towns such as Sablet, Rasteau, and Baum de Venise (amazing muscat!). We also made a quick visit to Orange and the very well-preserved Roman theater, which was also built in the 1st century AD.

After Orange, we headed out into the countryside for an unintended adventure in search of a restaurant Jura wanted to find. Unbeknownst to Columbia, Jura (with the always-helpful assistance of the Garmin) was directing us to “Auberge such and such,” not realizing that “Auberge” is a common part of many restaurant names. Long story short, we ended up finding “Auberge such and such” (not the restaurant we were looking for), which – big surprise – was not open. Fortunately, we did happen upon the striking image of a church perched high upon a rocky column rising out of the village. This was one of the most amazing sites we seen on our trip, discovered completely by surprise.

Practically right out the backdoor of our hotel near Gigondas were fantastic views of the Dentelles to Montmirail, a series of jagged, rocky mountains that are part of the foothills of Mont Ventoux, the highest mountain in the region. As we left the Côtes du Rhone and headed to the Luberon, we passed over the iconic Mont Ventoux. The mountain has a white, rocky surface and stands out drastically from the surrounding area. The mountain also boasts very strong winds, especially along the aptly-named Col de Tempêtes (Pass of Storms).

In the Luberon, we visited a whole slew of picturesque hill towns, including Peter Mayles' Menèrbes and beautiful Gordes, as well as Île-sur-la-Sorgue with a lovely market. 

The highlight of our visit to the Luberon was Les Baux – a romantic hill town with a medieval living complex and extensive castle structure that had living spaces carved into the rock. During the day, the old village of Les Baux is very touristy; at night, however, after the tourists have left, the village is almost completely abandoned. As we were finishing dinner, a friendly dog stopped by to greet the diners. After the dinner the dog literally walked ahead of us and looked back to check that we were following him. He led us all around the village for quite a while. He even went to the very old part that is closed at night and tried to get us to go in with him. After he tried to open one of the doors but found it locked (he clearly had practice), he snuck under the fence and wanted us to follow him. When we couldn’t, he came back through a revolving door by getting up on his back legs and pushing on the door. Thank you, Les Baux dog, for the memorable tour.

After staying near Les Baux, we wound down our trip with a quick visit to Arles. This town, which Rick Steves refers to as “workaday,” is chock full of Roman ruins, including a great amphitheater. We also randomly happened upon a small run of bulls through the town, which was being staged in preparation for the “bull fights” that were going to be performed later in the day. (Apparently bull fights in France don’t end up with the death of the bulls.)

We had a picnic lunch from the enormous farmers’ market, and departed from Arles to visit the vogue city of Aix-en-Provence on our way to Nice.  We relaxed at a café and did a bit of people-watching and then strolled about, savoring the final moments of our wonderful trip.

And for the end - several Provencal gastronomic snaps that Jura took during our trip.