We are off once more, this time down to the south of France. We decided to do some exploring of the Provence region. We are staying in a cute little town called Arles with the cutest B&B owner, Phillipe.
We drove down on Wednesday morning from Beaune which took about 5 hours. We stopped for lunch in Valence, which is a small town just south of Lyon. We found a great little lunch spot and had huge salads - something we had all been craving! Then we were able to explore the town by driving through seemingly closed little streets in their square (because somehow we got into an area we shouldn't have been able to enter). It was quite nerve racking for me driving, but Jess and Julie seemed highly entertained. But we got back on the road and headed south to Arles. It was a long, rainy day driving. It's been awesome weather except a couple travel days so far, so we have been super lucky. We got to Arles and walked around the town for awhile before dinner. All the streets were so cute and there was a big town square with all the tourist restaurants which made for fun people watching. Our dinner ended up being rather sub-par (not one of the ones in the square for the record), but we did get to try bull and escargot. The highlight for the 3 of us was the delicious chocolate mousse dessert with strawberries and rhubarb crumble.
On Thursday we hit up 3 little towns around the area: Les Baux de Provence, Saint-Remy and Avignon. We all absolutely loved Les Baux. It is a cute little fortified village with an old fort/castle at the very top of the town. We got there at the perfect time before it got super hot and crowded. We had an audio guided tour of the fort and it was neat to hear about the different areas of ruins and what they used to be. Plus the views were amazing. We had a blast walking around and exploring each area and the tourist shops below!
Saint-Remy was our lunch stop and we found a great restaurant named Chez Fanny (our awesome tour of everything fanny paid off). Again we found delicious salads and an assorted platter with just about everything we could have wanted! We did a little walking and shopping, but overall we just used this stop as a lunch break. Saint-Remy was cute and basically what I thought a southern French town would look like. It was surrounded by a large traffic circle, as most small cities are, and inside there were fun small roads to explore with shops to browse.
One last stop of the day was in Avignon. This is another fortified city in the area with a large church and half bridge (I think those are the highlights of the town) over the Rhône River. We were all pretty tired by this time, so we did some speed site seeing and then headed back home to Arles. Avignon is probably the biggest city in the area and it definitely felt that way with the traffic and crowds.
Selfie in front of church
Pont de Avignon (half bridge over the river)
Thursday night we had an amazing dinner. I would highly recommend this restaurant if you're ever in Arles. It was called Cador. The restaurant was super cute and quaint. They played old classic English songs in French. The food was amazing. The service was great and the price was right. We found an app called The Fork that gave us 30% off too which made it a very nice night. It ended with an amazing tiramisu. Mmmmmmm. Dreaming of it still! Dinner was also across town which led us by some of the old sites of the city. We saw the theatre and the coliseum which was very enjoyable.
On Friday we went to explore some cities that were a different direction from the ones we had down the previous day: L'isle-Sur-la-Sorgue, Menerbes and Rousillion. We had planned on a couple others, but they all started to look similar so we picked the most different ones.
L'isle-Sur-la-Sorgue was rather uneventful, except for one awesome activity - fish pedicures! Julie and I decided to try out this Turkish method of toothless fish sucking the dead skin off your feet. It tickled at first but felt refreshing after we got used to it!
Cute little fishy
Next stop was wine tasting at Domaine de la Citadelle and a picnic lunch outside of Menerbes, then on to check out the super cute town of Menerbes. Julie and I are reading A Year in Provence (required pre-trip reading obviously) and this is the town where the book takes place, so it was fun to walk around and try to picture the different events!
And finally we went for a "hike" in Le Sentier des Ocres near the town of Rousillion. The hike said it would take 50 mins and I am pretty sure we were in and out in less than 30, but either way it was beautiful. The town has the most interesting sandy clay in different hues of oranges and yellows and makes for very fun picture time! We joked that we were back in the US and visiting Utah or Arizona.
Le Sentier des Ocres
Jess and I jumping - or just me jumping I should say :)
Pike. Impressed with myself in this pic
Julie jumping
After our long day, we decided to get some take out food and have dinner at our B&B while drinking wine and watching The Bachlorette. Perfect girls night, French style!
Tomorrow we are off to our second to last France stop...Gorges de Verdon in Castellane, France. It's about 2 1/2 hours from Arles and the pics look amazing - a beautiful river running through a gorge. We are hoping to hike and do something on the river for the 2 days we are there! Then Monday we leave for our final stop in France - Nice!
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