Goodbye USA - for a while!

After a very long flight from San Francisco, Joerg had made a great reservation at the Relais de Saint Ser, a small inn in a really beautiful spot, with a Restaurant on a terrasse overlooking Provence. We slept like logs for 12 hours, with the window open and a cuckoo calling in the morning :)

We drove to the village of Les Baux, which is a very picturesque little place with the typical Provence houses nestled on a mountainside underneath a castle from the middle ages. Apparently Provence was overrun by the Saracens from time to time (like southern vikings), so the farmers fled to the castles. Beautiful views over all of Provence with hills, mountains, and vineyards below.

We spent the night in Avignon in a funny little old hotel (very strange artsy posters on the walls everywhere), which was near a lovely square filled with restaurants in the shadow of a big church. We visited the Pope's palace (from the 1200s) and, of course, the "pont d'Avignon", which is only half a bridge left over. Nearby was a pretty park with a duck pond and a restaurant which served salads! I have figured it out now: you can get really nice big salads in the simplest places. The fancy restaurants see vegetables at best as a bit of garnish for meat, fish, and creamy stuff...

Then we drove into the Luberon, the Eastern and more mountainous part of Provence. So beautiful! Wildflowers and red poppies everywhere. I remembered an old monastery, the Abbaye de Senanque, from a visit in my teens with Tante Jutta. We arrived there just as a thunderstorm broke loose and spent the next hour listening to a young guide in rapid French. This is a beautiful, and very beautiful old holy place, first built in 1100 something. You cannot go in without a guided tour, as there are still Cistercian monks living a life of work and prayer (and silence) there. They offer weeklong retreats for the world weary, but that means getting up at two in the morning for the first prayer session... We drove through the Luberon via winding mountain roads and arrived in Hyeres in the harbor.

Hello Kincsem! I have laundry hanging to dry all over the boat, Joerg is busily zooming around, wrangling the helpful men who need to still put finishing touches on all the things to fix. We'll leave soon, direction Nice. Stay tuned!