Walk about Avignon and Arles

October 11, 2023

the last 2 days...

We have walked a bit around Avignon and Arles the last 2 days, so I have a few pics to share. I have enjoyed getting up early, walking the few steps to an early rising boulangerie to gather fresh croissants, and returning home with the treasure. Along with fresh coffee, it is a delightful way to start the day. We also discovered a "halle gourmande", which is an arena-sized hall with food kiosks inside each specializing in cheese, or chicken, or fish, or salad mixtures, etc etc. Really fantastic. I suspect almost all of our food will be coming from there in the next few days!

Avignon has a fantastic bridge and papal palace, while Arles is famous for their Roman amphitheater. Both are famous for their nougat, lavender, and Cote Du Rhone wine. Lots of tourists and outdoor restaurants in both places, although we are far from high season.

Roman remnants in the park near our AirBnB

It might say "fromagerie", but they sure sell a lot of nougat at this shop.

We took a 1/2 hr train to Arles, mainly to see the amphitheater. We originally were going to bike here, then on to the Camargue to see where the Rhone empties into the Med, but decided to use our time differently. So we had to pop south to see Arles.

When you see these constructions by the Romans, and realize that all of our current stadiums look basically like this (but cost more and won't last as long), you wonder if we have invented much since then besides cell phones.

As Marjory is an art history buff, we had to visit some key places where van Gogh painted here. He was only here one year, but painted 200 paintings, some of which became very famous. Below is one of the places, you can see the painting replica here, and darn if it doesn't look like there is a woman hanging from the bridge in that picture, don't you think?

Meanwhile, checking on home turf, I see we had a visitor in our backyard a couple of days ago. That is one big black bear!

meanwhile, my camera back home captured a visitor

Lots of touring yet to go. Tomorrow, we will visit the south with some friends who live near Marseille. They are picking us up and whisking us off. Haven't seen them in about 15 yr in KL, and really looking forward to it. Bye for now.

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