Bonjour!
Hope all is well.
We had a birthday party for our Sophie. She doesn't turn five until the 5th of May, but we thought it would be nice to have one with her friends before we left for Italy. I took this photo of her recently in Forcalquier, our little girl is growing up! The title of this blog includes "a bientot Provence" which basically means "see you later Provence". We love this place and we're already looking forward to coming back.
Jane had done a fantastic job of making cakes and a host of other sugar packed nibbles for the wee ones. I took the photo below of some of the goodies just as Connor had decided to do some taste testing.
Here's the party in full swing with a game of musical chairs underway....
Here's Soph, amongst some of her French friends around the time of the candle blowing. There's the birthday cake that Jane had made, front and centre, absolutely delicious it was. Interestingly the fruit platters were in high demand..
Every Saturday morning we have headed off to the popular markets at Apt, a town about 20km from here. I wanted to take some photos of the markets before we left. The shot below shows one section of Apt markets that winds through many of the streets of the "old town". You can see the Church of Saint Anne in the back ground.
We recently visited Arles. What an action packed day. When we first arrived we noticed police every where and saw signs saying there was a "manifestation" on that same day. It looked like Arles was in for protests of some sort. Anyway that was not going to stop us from visiting some of Arles' amazing Roman sights. We started with the ruins of the Roman Theatre as shown below.
We then headed to the Roman Arena, wow what a sight, another huge impressive construction by the Romans undertaken nearly 2,000 years ago. Back then the gladiators and chariot races held centre stage. Now days large crowds gather there for the bullfighting during the Festival of Arles, and during summer the weekly bull running, and concerts and plays.
After the fall of the Roman Empire in the 5th century the Arena become a shelter for people and eventually it became almost a town in itself with 200 houses, a public square in the middle and two chapels. Below shows what the Arena looked like in the 18th century....
Showing the grandeur of the Roman Arena here is a shot of Connor running under the outer main arches....
The things you can find at the bottom of the Rhone River! Below is a life size marble bust archeologists believe to be the oldest (around 46 BC) known representation of Julius Ceasar. It's the star attraction at the Arles Antique Museum. Divers discovered it at the bottom of the Rhone River at Arles in 2007.
Heading back to the centre of Arles I found this cute little shop. With a name like " Le Monde de Sophie" or in English "The world of Sophie" I just had to take a photo...
After dinner and whilst heading back to the car park we found out what was going on, the farmers were protesting! I think it was over a proposed new tax. The photo below shows some tractors which they had driven into the heart of the city to block traffic. You can see Jane, and the kids on the left. We were starting get a little concerned about whether we were able to drive home. Luckily the road out of the car park was not blocked.
On the way out of Arles, I've never seen anything quite like this before, on the other side of the road we estimated there was about twenty-five kilometres of semi-trailors parked across two lanes blocking all traffic. We felt sorry for the many people in their cars stuck in between those trucks.
Now this was another unusual experience. I thought it would be nice to go to mass here in the village. It only occurs once a month. The photo below shows the kids and I rolling up to this small 900 year old church. I looked in the door and there was just the priest and one lady who was the priest's assistant. I asked if mass was about to start and they said yes, yes or "oui, oui". We went to sit in the middle row and she said no, no, come right up the front. She asked if we were on "vacances", "oui" we replied. She had a chat to the priest and mass begun. We looked around and no one else was there! We sat there for a full mass, in French, just us, in the front row,the kids playing up, and that lady looking at me when each hymn started up to encourage us to sing. So I sang along in French as much I could. Talk about feeling special. How nice of them to do that just for us. After the mass the lady said that it was unusual because being the first week of holidays a lot of families were out of town.
Here is Soph and I hanging out in a café in Forcalquier, making the most of some sunshine on a late winter's day.....
One day I headed up the mountain behind us here with my mate, Mike, an English guy who lives here in the village. Interestingly, his wife, Shelagh, commutes by train all the way to London each week for her job. The photo below was taken from inside a cave, with our village below.
Below is a photo I took that Sunday, looking up at the "Croix de Provence" which sits on the peak of Mount Saint Victoire. You can see a bunch of people around the "Croix", the views were amazing.
And this is a photo of us standing just a few metres from the Croix de Provence. It was a memorable day - thanks so much Jean-Pierre for making it happen.
Sophie's school had organized a fancy dress parade through the streets of the village. The spectacular old ochre mines nearby are called the "Colorado" and there is a real interest here in American native Indians. So the younger class, which Sophie is in, dressed up as Indians, as shown below. The kids helped paint their own outfits.
Here is Jane and Soph right up the front of this colourful procession. The guy on Sophie's left looks like a Ninja on some kind of a mission, right? In the background, crisp blue skies, the ancient village church, and blossoming almond trees, just perfect.
We had Gilles and Louise around for dinner on Thursday, it was a lovely night. They own the house here. Thanks so much guys for allowing us to stay in this beautiful house and for all your help and friendship whilst we have been here, a bientot.
So we say good bye to our little village which we called home for five months, there at the bottom of the mountains on the edge of the Luberon Valley in amazing Provence. Thanks for the memories!
Tomorrow we're on the road again, with no fixed abode and Italy waiting for us on the other side of the Alps. Ahh, the freedom!
Hope all is well.
We had a birthday party for our Sophie. She doesn't turn five until the 5th of May, but we thought it would be nice to have one with her friends before we left for Italy. I took this photo of her recently in Forcalquier, our little girl is growing up! The title of this blog includes "a bientot Provence" which basically means "see you later Provence". We love this place and we're already looking forward to coming back.
Jane had done a fantastic job of making cakes and a host of other sugar packed nibbles for the wee ones. I took the photo below of some of the goodies just as Connor had decided to do some taste testing.
Here's the party in full swing with a game of musical chairs underway....
Sophie was a star performer with musical chairs, making it to the last two...
Here's Soph, amongst some of her French friends around the time of the candle blowing. There's the birthday cake that Jane had made, front and centre, absolutely delicious it was. Interestingly the fruit platters were in high demand..
Below was taken at Martin and Roxanne's place one night recently. We were having dinner and the kids were watching a movie that was projected onto the lounge room wall above the fireplace. The kids had a ball.
Here is a photo of the Arab section of the markets where we would frequently buy our fruit and veg. The quality and range of produce was impressive and it was cheap too.
Here I am taste testing some of the cheese a lady was selling that morning. You can see Connor hanging precariously in the line of foot traffic in the backpack. You can also see the medieval clock tower in the back ground along with the beautiful rustic yellow facades of the old town houses. I went with the sheep's cheese, a real favourite these days.
We recently visited Arles. What an action packed day. When we first arrived we noticed police every where and saw signs saying there was a "manifestation" on that same day. It looked like Arles was in for protests of some sort. Anyway that was not going to stop us from visiting some of Arles' amazing Roman sights. We started with the ruins of the Roman Theatre as shown below.
As we walked out I noticed that Connor had in his hand what looked like a little piece of the Roman Theatre! We couldn't keep it, so Jane, very honestly took it back. The people working at the Theatre had a laugh and pretended to shield there eyes and said "take it, take it, souvenir" - Jane couldn't and left it there. Below you can see some of the police hanging around in their riot gear, what was going on we were wondering......
We then headed to the Roman Arena, wow what a sight, another huge impressive construction by the Romans undertaken nearly 2,000 years ago. Back then the gladiators and chariot races held centre stage. Now days large crowds gather there for the bullfighting during the Festival of Arles, and during summer the weekly bull running, and concerts and plays.
After the fall of the Roman Empire in the 5th century the Arena become a shelter for people and eventually it became almost a town in itself with 200 houses, a public square in the middle and two chapels. Below shows what the Arena looked like in the 18th century....
Showing the grandeur of the Roman Arena here is a shot of Connor running under the outer main arches....
The things you can find at the bottom of the Rhone River! Below is a life size marble bust archeologists believe to be the oldest (around 46 BC) known representation of Julius Ceasar. It's the star attraction at the Arles Antique Museum. Divers discovered it at the bottom of the Rhone River at Arles in 2007.
In the same area divers also found this Roman barge which sank about 2,000 years ago...
Heading back to the centre of Arles I found this cute little shop. With a name like " Le Monde de Sophie" or in English "The world of Sophie" I just had to take a photo...
After dinner and whilst heading back to the car park we found out what was going on, the farmers were protesting! I think it was over a proposed new tax. The photo below shows some tractors which they had driven into the heart of the city to block traffic. You can see Jane, and the kids on the left. We were starting get a little concerned about whether we were able to drive home. Luckily the road out of the car park was not blocked.
On the way out of Arles, I've never seen anything quite like this before, on the other side of the road we estimated there was about twenty-five kilometres of semi-trailors parked across two lanes blocking all traffic. We felt sorry for the many people in their cars stuck in between those trucks.
Now this was another unusual experience. I thought it would be nice to go to mass here in the village. It only occurs once a month. The photo below shows the kids and I rolling up to this small 900 year old church. I looked in the door and there was just the priest and one lady who was the priest's assistant. I asked if mass was about to start and they said yes, yes or "oui, oui". We went to sit in the middle row and she said no, no, come right up the front. She asked if we were on "vacances", "oui" we replied. She had a chat to the priest and mass begun. We looked around and no one else was there! We sat there for a full mass, in French, just us, in the front row,the kids playing up, and that lady looking at me when each hymn started up to encourage us to sing. So I sang along in French as much I could. Talk about feeling special. How nice of them to do that just for us. After the mass the lady said that it was unusual because being the first week of holidays a lot of families were out of town.
Here is Soph and I hanging out in a café in Forcalquier, making the most of some sunshine on a late winter's day.....
One day I headed up the mountain behind us here with my mate, Mike, an English guy who lives here in the village. Interestingly, his wife, Shelagh, commutes by train all the way to London each week for her job. The photo below was taken from inside a cave, with our village below.
And here we both are after gladly making it to the summit of " Point Tu"....
And still on the subject of mountain climbing, our neighbor here, Jean-Pierre, who is also a member of the walkers club, stood up half way through a walk one day and said "who would like to join Michael and myself to climb Mount Saint Victoire", in French of course. He knew that it was on my wish list whilst in Provence. A bunch said yes, and so we were off that following Sunday.
As a reminder, it's this majestic looking mountain that sits about 20km outside of Aix-en-Provence and the mountain that Cezanne painted over 60 times. This was a photo I took of it from Aix when we stayed there in November last year.
Below is a photo I took that Sunday, looking up at the "Croix de Provence" which sits on the peak of Mount Saint Victoire. You can see a bunch of people around the "Croix", the views were amazing.
And this is a photo of us standing just a few metres from the Croix de Provence. It was a memorable day - thanks so much Jean-Pierre for making it happen.
Sophie's school had organized a fancy dress parade through the streets of the village. The spectacular old ochre mines nearby are called the "Colorado" and there is a real interest here in American native Indians. So the younger class, which Sophie is in, dressed up as Indians, as shown below. The kids helped paint their own outfits.
Here is Jane and Soph right up the front of this colourful procession. The guy on Sophie's left looks like a Ninja on some kind of a mission, right? In the background, crisp blue skies, the ancient village church, and blossoming almond trees, just perfect.
From there the kids walked down the old main street. The locals were coming out of their houses to say hi and wave to the kids.
And then the proceedings took an interesting turn. All the kids and parents sat or stood in a horse shoe on a nearby paddock. In the middle, upfront, was a dummy sitting on a chair. The kids then had turns walking up to the dummy and saying what the dummy had done wrong. For example, one child said in French " you killed my dog", or like "you stole my horse" or "you ate my lollies", there was a lot of laughing going on. My mate, Martin said it was like watching a group therapy session. Below shows Soph and Nephelie walking back after telling the dummy what he had done wrong to them. Anyway, after the kids had vented their anger and a declaration by one of the teachers dressed up as a clown, poor Mr. dummy was set a light!
Here he is, burning away, ...... as an eerie silence fell on the crowd. As you would say in English and in French, "bizarre". But hey, it was harmless and the kids had a ball.
Below shows Jane and the kids relaxing in a lovely little courtyard in the old part of Forcalquier, a statue of St Michael adorning the fountain..
We had Gilles and Louise around for dinner on Thursday, it was a lovely night. They own the house here. Thanks so much guys for allowing us to stay in this beautiful house and for all your help and friendship whilst we have been here, a bientot.
So we say good bye to our little village which we called home for five months, there at the bottom of the mountains on the edge of the Luberon Valley in amazing Provence. Thanks for the memories!
Tomorrow we're on the road again, with no fixed abode and Italy waiting for us on the other side of the Alps. Ahh, the freedom!
Parler bientôt de l'Italie (talk soon from Italy)
Jane, Sophie, Connor et moi
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