Mount Ventoux, lavender, and enjoying country life

Bonjour, hope you are well.

Summer is pleasantly rolling on here in Provence. After so much traveling over the last four months it has been really nice to stay in the one place for a while, and what a place to stay, Martin and Roxanne's grand old house in the countryside. They left for a holiday in Greece and invited us to stay on here, we feel so fortunate. This has enabled us to see the Tour de France for a second time, enjoy the summer sights and festivities of Provence, enjoy relaxed country living, see some gorgeous lavender fields and take some more trips like our drive to the summit of Mount Ventoux (as shown below), which was impossible in winter because of the snow.

The drive to Mount Ventoux takes you through the Sault Plateau where there are many lavender fields like the ones shown below.....

Here is Connor earlier that day, the morning sun was shining bright...

The lavender fields hum with the sound of bees... 

After passing many cyclists we were close to the summit. This was about as far as we got last winter. That's a rice cake in Connor's hand, he refused to give it up for the photo...

So Mount Ventoux is usually included in the Tour de France route and is a mecca really for the cycling world. Compared to the French Alps it's not huge (Soph and I reached a height more than double Mount Ventoux when we caught a cable car to Aiguille du Midi at 3,844m near Mount Blanc), it's more that it majestically stands well above the surrounding area. Here is a cyclist flying down the northern side, Connor on the right, playing with rocks ofcourse.

Here are the kids jumping at the summit, the Luberon valleys and mountains below them...

 

Heading back from Mont Ventoux I took this photo of Sault (pronounced "soul"), with the late afternoon sun shining on the town, a lavender field below, storm clouds above.....

Here is another lavender field we saw on the way home, a lone tree capturing the early evening sun....

So after scouting the route a couple of times previous to the big day we found an ideal spot to watch the Tour de France. A year ago, we dreamt about watching it a second time, wow, we did it! Below shows the "caravan" which is a large procession of marketing vehicles that roll by about an hour or so before the peloton arrives. They throw out freebies like hats, shirts, lollies, crackers,..... needless to say this was the kids' favourite part of the day.

The first cyclists to arrive were the two breakaways, a Kiwi and a Swiss guy, they were determined to win a stage....

And it felt like about five minutes later, the peloton arrived. They fly past. I mean a took a couple of photos and they were practically gone! How they keep up that speed for so long is way beyond me. This particular stage, Stage 15, was 222km! I read that evening the peloton caught up with the two break away riders just 50 metres from the stage finish! Our poor Kiwi mate was relegated to 10th.

 

Just before Martin and Roxane left for Greece a big truck rolled up and dumped 10 stairs (10 cubic metres) of wood which the guys had purchased. I said I would be happy to stack it while they were away. So I've been using the tractor to move it up to the other side of the house, and thoroughly enjoying it.

 

Here I am moving some wood with the 1968 Renault tractor that Martin trained me up on before he left, move over farmer Joe .....

This is the view out our bedroom window of the pool below. I was singing out to Jane and the kids who were enjoying a dip....

Here is Martin giving Connor (on his lap) and Soph and Nepheli (both on the back as shown below) a joy ride down their gorgeous long tree lined driveway, the two dogs tagging along...

How's this for pressure. I cooked a dinner including a large serving of duck for Martin and Roxanne and their relatives who were down from Lyon, and it was Bastille Day! Despite the duck, I think, being slightly over done, the dinner went well and they were very appreciative. The timing with duck is crucial, better underdone then over.

 

 

One day we were having lunch outside and I turned around to see that Connor had, by himself, jumped up onto the tractor, .....I grabbed the camera...  

Here is a close up...., he wants to be farmer Joe one day too by the looks of it.

Nepheli and Sophie are good mates, they spent hours and hours playing together, talking French ofcourse, and getting up to all kinds of mischief.....

Martin knows how to do things in style. For the soccer world cup he rigged up this outdoor screen, using a bed sheet and two large rods. Out comes the movie projector which he connected to the TV set box,  and here we are having our first beer, the big game just starting....

My early morning walks have been fantastic, the scenery glorious. I took the camera one day and here's one of the photos.... vineyards in the foreground, the mountains near Rustrel in the background, colours intensified by the early morning sun....

And another photo from that morning's walk......

From the outside dining table I snapped this one of Connor, in the hammock, deep in thought, contemplating the world.......

Connor and the white dog, "Agape" shown above and below, have become good mates. Below shows them both playing in the fountain which is fed by a natural, drinkable spring and it sits just below the house....

 

And below shows Alkioni hanging out with Agape and the other dog (I forget her name). As you can see the two dogs (two girls) are good mates too.

One morning, a few days after Martin and Roxane and their kids left for Greece, Agape simply disappeared. Days went past, the other dog looked sad, we were sad, why had she left, where did she go? We didn't want to tell the guys about it as we didn't want them worrying on their holiday, it was a real mystery........

One day Martin asked me to come along for a drive with him to visit a potential project which would involve the stabilization of a very old stone building in the middle of the spectacular Gorges de Vernon. I'm glad I said yes. We met with a council official, and below shows them looking down at the small building way below. We proceeded to walk down a track towards the site.

 

 

.....And came across an avalanche which had destroyed part of the track. Martin and the lady made it across, I wasn't so sure. I mean one tumble and it's bye, bye. Martin kept saying it's dangerous, it is "really dangerous", that was enough for me. I gave it a miss, determined to get back to Australia in one piece, I enjoyed a leisurely walk back up to the car park, taking in the stunning views.

Here is a photo of one magnificent part of the Gorge taken from the side of the road.. The river below which carved out this great gorge is a brilliant bright blue....

Speaking of bright blue water, we made it down to the Mediterranean one day. We picniced on the beach at one of the calanques (large inlets amongst the rocky cliffs) near Cassis. Here's Roxanne cuddling her two girls, Nepheli (left and Sophie's good mate) and Alkioni (right and Connor's good mate).

Here are all the girls, snoozing in the sun, Martin a little further on playing with Alkioni and Connor....

The guys left before us with the plan being to meet up in Aix for dinner. So the four of us went to a really nice café there, "Calanque de Figuerolles", which had lovely views out over the glistening calanque, and boasted Ernest Hemingway as one of their famous past guests.  I took this photo with the mobile as we were leaving....

 

We then drove along the Route des Cretes towards Cassis and stopped along the way to admire some breath taking views like this one .....

A little further along we were able to look down on Cassis. I now wanted to go for another swim in that gorgeous blue water, but we had to head back towards Aix, ...we have to get back to the Mediterranean before we go, we must!

We have enjoyed strolling through the nearby towns here in Provence, towns that are bustling with much more colour and people compared to when we last visited them. We saw Happy Feet on Martin's movie projector a few days ago; here are Soph and Connor dancing, Happy Feet style, in nearby Apt one evening ...

A few days ago I went to the Courses Carmague in Arles again, this time with my mate Mike from Rustrel. It's spectacular to watch and has been a real highlight. Importantly, the bulls are not killed. The runners, the "razeurs", are really the ones that risk their lives here.

I took this photo of Kookla, the cute little kitten that lives here. She's always trying to bite our ankles, creep over us in our beds at night, jump up onto us using her tiny sharp claws, and suckle at our necks making us laugh. We love her heaps!

 

So Mondello Beach, Palermo, Sicily will go down as where Sophie first swam assisted, ie with floaties, and the little farm here in Provence will go down as where she swam for the first time unassisted! She did it! She is so excited about it, and we are too. So it's swims everyday now. This photo shows Sophie on the day I saw her swim for the very first time.

On Saturday morning just passed guess who turned up..... After a big storm the night before Sophie ran upstairs excitedly to tell me there was a surprise outside, I was hoping it was Agape. I ran downstairs and there she was! We were all so happy. This final photo shows Connor and Agape, together again.

A bientot, bye for now,

best wishes,

Jane, Sophie, Connor, et moi

 

Summer in Provence, a week in the Alps, and some bull running

Bonjour, hope you are well,

We're back in Provence and loving it, so nice to see this area in summer. The lavender is in full bloom, along with the sunflowers, and the fruit trees are laden. There's rich greenery everywhere. Our good friends Martin and Roxane invited us to stay with them in their beautiful, grand old house. It's just a few  minutes down the road from Rustrel, which is where we lived for five months right through winter. The photo shows us having lunch on the first day we arrived after catching the overnight ferry from Corsica.

This is the grand old maison they are slowly renovating. The plan is to turn it into a "chamber d'hote", which is like a B&B, and they also use it as a home office for their architectural business. You can see the pool below which they set up for the summer. There we are having a dip on the first exciting day of our return. Sophie and Connor were so happy to see their buddies, Martin and Roxane's kids, Nepheli and Alkyoni.

After spending the first weekend at the house in Provence we headed north up to Annecy in the French Alps where we shared a house for a week with our good Aussie friends Nat and Johnno and their two kids Amira and Gabriel. We're now back in Provence at Martin and Roxane's place.

The week up there in the Alps was great, with a major highlight being the day we caught a cable car from Chamonix up to Aiguille du Midi ("the needle of the Midi"), which is a rocky outcrop at a whopping 3,842m above sea level. To put that into perspective the Blue Mountains near Sydney reaches a height of 1,215m above sea level.

Here is Soph and I on top of the "Needle of the Midi" with Mount Blanc, the highest mountain in Europe at 4,810m, behind us. Mount Blanc also marks the geographic corner stone between France, Switzerland, and Italy.

So you take two cable cars, the first from 1,035m to 2,317m , where this photo was taken. You can just see the Aiguille du Midi, our destination and where the next cable car takes you to, at the top of the mountain in the middle of the photo below...

And here is Soph, just after we arrived, staring down at Chamonix over 2,700m below us, it was breathtaking.....

And just to our right from where the photo above was taken was a gate to a path across a mountain ridge covered in snow as shown below...... There were mountain climbers everywhere, you can see some of them much further along the snow ridge in this photo, I don't know how they do it, and they do it was such apparent ease...

Here I am in an ice tunnel up there, Johhno snapped this one...

I took this photo from the very top looking down at the main platform where the cable car arrives, you can see Chamonix way, way down in the valley below....

This shows one of the gorgeous canals in Annecy near where we stayed in the Alps...

 

Nat went to school with Jane so they're good mates from way back. And now Nat's kids, Amira and Gabriel, are mates with Sophie and Connor, as shown below. That's another canal in Annecy behind the girls and the stone building you can see is an old palace, the "Palais de I'Isle", built in 1132 and was used as a prison for a few hundred year up until 1865.

 

What a stunning part of the world it is, here we are having a dip in Lake Annecy. The water is so blue and surprisingly not that cold considering you can see patches of snow on the mountains.  

 

Here is Connor and Gabriel hanging out in front of our house which was in a little village called Charvonnex, near Annecy. The view of the mountains from the house was impressive. We were able to hike up to the top of the mountain you can see in the middle of this photo below..

 

Here is Jane and Nat, a lot closer to the summit of that same mountain shown above, we had just started our hike. It was a memorable walk with the sun shining and visibility near perfect.  Nat's parents stayed with us for a couple of days, and they were able to babysit the kids whilst the four of us went for this hike, we were very appreciative needless to say...

 

And here's a "selfie" using the mobile. We were so happy to be heading out for our first hike in the Alps...

After we reached the top we had a picnic and finished lunch off with some cake and coffee at this little café, they call them "refuges" when they're up in the mountains like this. We could see glimpses of Mount Blanc in the distance..

This shows us having an early dinner with Danny and Judy, Nat's parents. We had a lovely time with Nat and Johnno and their family up in the French Alps, great memories....

Coincidentally, on the evening of the first day we arrived in Provence, Sophie's old school was having its end of school year party, great timing. When we rolled up Sophie's friends we so happy to see her again. The photo below shows Soph in the middle as some of them huddled around her.

They had a school play that evening, and Sophie appeared in it. We're not sure whether she was invited to or she just thought well it's my class so I should be in it, she felt so much at home, I'd say she was invited. Below shows her in the play which was set in an outdoor classroom...

Last night at close to midnight we watched Argentina beat The Netherlands in a penalty shootout. It's been enjoyable watching the World Cup over here, with the friendly time difference and the passion that Europeans have for the game. Here we are in Provence watching one of the games, a projector throwing the picture on a wall above the fireplace....

 

Yesterday we all went to Arles to watch some "course camarguaise" or bull running. It's where these guys, the "razeteurs" or bull runners try to take a small red ribbon off the front of the bull's head, without being injured basically. The bulls are treasured by their owners and in some cases are treated as heroes by the locals, there's even a statue of one of the bulls in a village. It was spectacular to watch, with it set in the old Roman Amphitheatre, it had a very Spanish feel to the whole thing, rich in tradition. Here we are watching, Sophie taking photos with Jane's mobile...

Here is one of the razeteurs running for dear life after trying to snatch the ribbon from in between the bull's horns...

That little red ribbon you can see below is what the razeteurs are after....

Here was probably the best razeteur of the day, a guy called Robert or "Rober" as the French say, .... re below, close call right.....

Here's "Rober" flying through the air, with the bull way too close....

And another razeteur, flying over the big gap between the red wall and the beginning of the arena's seating.....

 

And another razeteur escaping sharp horns, just in front of us.....

Here we are leaving the 2,000 year old Roman Amphitheatre, it was an exciting evening......

Below shows us having dinner outside that first weekend back in Provence. We were also celebrating a few of our birthdays, including Jane's which was the very next day. After dinner Martin brought out the stereo and the strobe lights and before long we were all up and dancing under the stars.....

 

The next morning Martin and Roxanne brought out a surprise birthday cake for Jane, it was really special......

Here is Nepheli and Connor savouring a croissant and chocolate du pain, just so happy to be hanging out together and eating such yummy things.....

Here is some of that lavender that's in full bloom at the moment.....

Below shows Jane waving from our balcony in Corsica on a our last day there when we were packing up. We're already talking and dreaming about future holidays there...

And here is Jane and the kids as we left Corsica on the boat. Behind them is an island which is actually part of Tuscany, Italy! It's one of the of the islands that belong to the Tuscan Archipelago......... The next morning we arrived at 5.30am on the mainland at Toulon....

Oh, and I forgot to tell you about these two mountaineers we came across up on the Aiguille du Midi as shown below. They were obviously refueling before their next big climb. They looked so cool, real pros, and kind of familiar....

Here's to family and friends and living life to the fullest, cheers or "sante" as they say over here....

A bientot,

Jane, Soph, Connor, et moi