Provence

Avignon France

August 25th

WE CAME. . .

. . . On a long, hot and very adventurous bus ride from Barcelona. We should have figured with all the public transportation we have been on we were bound to have one of those unfortunate but memorable bus rides. All was going well until we made a stop and picked up new passengers. We thought we had chosen the right section of the bus but a mother and her five children decided they had to sit right by us and they made the little rascals look tame. Two of the little ones were running up and down the aisles on the bus and the two older ones were jumping up and down in the seats yelling at each other and the mother was screaming and spanking them with very little luck. The joys of public transportation. To top it off the mother smelled something awful and the air conditioning system was not ventilating very well due to the large crowd on the bus. This was not going to be a fun 8 hours. The excitement was just beginning because once we stopped in Girona for a quick break this mother and the bus driver got into it. He had to clear the bus because she was screaming at him over what we did not know because we could not understand her French. The police were called and she continued to rant and rave but the police handled the situation and we were off again albeit 40 minutes late. (it was cutting into our precious little time we had in Avignon). The lady thought she was my friend and had to tell me what happened. With our limited communication skills in Spanish and English she was angry with the bus driver because he was accusing her of not taking care of her children and controlling their behavior. I just smiled and agreed with her that the bus driver was loco. After seeing her reaction I was not going to disagree with her. We thought it could not get any worse. Guess again. We reached the border of France and they had the drug sniffing dogs on the luggage of the bus and they hit on someone’s bag. So another 20 minute delay with the passenger having to get off. Thankfully he was able to rectify the situation. Finally back on the road again. At our next stop we moved up to the front of the bus to get more air and away from the psycho smelly mother. Good thing because the last hour the two small kids continued to cry. We pulled into Avignon at 5:30 pm an hour late. I forgot to mention that during all this fiasco we enjoyed the beautiful scenery through the Provence region. The ride from Nimes to Avignon was speckled with hillside homes and green pastures and cooler temperatures.

WE SAW

With only this evening we hit the town running. After a quick trip to the train station to purchase our tickets for Chamonix the next day we dropped off our luggage and headed to the sites. Avignon was the original home of the Catholic Church Papacy over 700 years ago so we wanted to see the Palais des Papes which is Europe’s largest Gothic Church. When we arrived it immediately gave me a visual idea of what the “church cities” looked like as described in the book Pillars of the Earth. Not only the Church but the surrounding buildings and gardens were vast in size and grandeur and it had to have the best view of the Rhone River and surrounding hillside villages. Just marvelous. No wonder they had to build a wall around the city to protect it from invasion. In fact this huge medieval wall is still in tact and completely surrounds the old village part of town and gives it a unique character. We were definitely falling in love with Avignon and the Provence region and wished we had more time to venture out to other villages in the area. With the sun going down and our stomachs telling us they needed food we went to find a nice quiet restaurant. We chose to eat off the main square because the restaurants resembled the “hodge podge, we will serve any and all types of food” as in Barcelona, Madrid, Paris, etc. We found a cute little Cantonese/Hong Kong restaurant tucked back in a corner of one of the medieval cobblestone streets and enjoyed an excellent meal. Not being one of those “cities that never sleeps” the restaurants do not stay open all night so we took a stroll through town back to our air conditioned room (bliss) for a good night sleep.

WE CONQUERED

18 Hours later we were on the train heading to Chamonix. We will be back.