Just returned from a whirlwind trip to Provence with my pal Zak. We bought extremely cheap air tickets, booked ourselves into an extremely cheap hotel, and hit the road. Provence in winter is not the picture-postcard destination of brightly painted villas, abundant technicolor flowers and sunshine. It is slightly grey and for the most part shrouded in cloud (although by some miracle there is sun in ALL my pictures). The trees are bare and the vineyards are hunkered down to the earth, as if crouching down to find some warmth. It's still beautiful though, in a way that reeks of its potential. The people were welcoming and patient with my French, although I found I am much more capable of communicating with people in FRANCE than in Quebec. Apparently, though, I speak French with an Italian accent...lots of people asked me if I was Italian...too many for it to be a coincidence.
We used the town of Nimes as our homebase, and did several day trips by train to and through surrounding towns, such as Avignon, Marseilles, Tarascon, and Remoulins. I think maybe we would have made more progress if we'd rented a car, but it didn't occur to us until the last day. At any rate, we ate great food, drank some local wine, didn't get on each other's nerves too badly, and had a nice break from London...although we both had to shake our heads when our plane touched down at London Luton in the dark, and rain, at 3:30 p.m. on Thursday. It made the spotty sunshine of Provence seem positively tropical...
We used the town of Nimes as our homebase, and did several day trips by train to and through surrounding towns, such as Avignon, Marseilles, Tarascon, and Remoulins. I think maybe we would have made more progress if we'd rented a car, but it didn't occur to us until the last day. At any rate, we ate great food, drank some local wine, didn't get on each other's nerves too badly, and had a nice break from London...although we both had to shake our heads when our plane touched down at London Luton in the dark, and rain, at 3:30 p.m. on Thursday. It made the spotty sunshine of Provence seem positively tropical...