Provence

Take 2! Nothing more frustrating than doing something twice! iPad seemed to feel it a good idea to delete my first attempt?!?
1st stop in Provence was the Pont Du Gard aqueduct; an amazing piece of architecture considering it's age - built by the Romans during their reign it spanned a sizable gorge and has 3 tiers!
We were amongst the first visitors for the day as the campsite the night before was dodgy. Manda didn't hardly sleep a wink and was basically ready to go at sparrows fart in the morning. Dogs barking and roaming the campsite, cats fighting, roosters crowing, dirty old men roaming the campsite... And the list could well go on! That made two bad campsites in as many attempts after the rain and car sleeping fiasco in Spain 4 days earlier! I was going to pay one way or another!
Back to the aqueduct! Much restoration work I'd think has happened but impressive none the less.

Avignon next, one hit wonder of a town capitalising on it's Pont D'Avignon which features in most of the postcards available within the pretty old town souvenir shops. Funnily enough it's not even call the Pont D'Avignon by locals, rather by some pretty French name. The Pont, as you can see from the photo doesn't span the whole distance, rather only goes 1/2 way across after many problems in the last 700 years or so. Defeated the purpose of a bridge I thought!?! The old town, which is surrounded by a fairly spectacular and complete fortress wall complete with turrets, was quite pretty but anything other than quiet! Many tourists! Some buying postcards sporting a verse or two of an apparently well known song about the Pont D'Avignon! There you go!

First beggar that has got my money here too... She was sitting at the parking payment box trying to be helpful to 'earn' your money. She ended up basically taking my change but given she looked like the description Roald Dahl gives of a witch in Witches I decided to let her keep the 60 euro cents! Caught!

Again, in attempt to escape the tourists we headed for the hills, and where better to do it than Provence right? Home of the rolling lavender hills dispersed amongst green fields. So we thought, but we were early by 3-4 weeks. Opening of the lavender season is early July and lasts about 4 weeks. I know now, as the extremely unhelpful lady at the info centre explained to me in depth, how lavender is indeed a flower and only flowers seasonally not year round... Thanks for nothing! This was in Sault, centre of the lavender experience; a pleasant old town on the hillside. It would most certainly be a must in July when the sight, sound and smell of lavender is at it's best. A very popular biking area and for obvious reason. In search of lavender and from a lack of other activities in Sault, we headed via the back winding roads through the hills to Bonnieux, which Tom had suggested might be nice. It was brilliant! The drive there gave us lavender as good as it got, basically purple! Mission accomplished. The flower was indeed in bloom! Take that info centre lady!

Bonnieux is a smidgen of a village terraced precariously on 3 or 4 levels on the western side of some of Provence's gorge(ous) country overlooking fields etc. An amazing meal at L'Aromê capped off a top 1st day in Provence. Oh, until I clumsily smashed a very elegant wine glass while trying Manda's dessert. Oops! Best course of the meal? My cheese plate was interesting and right up my alley. A honey infused goat cheese in little balls served on crispy deep fried fillo pastry with fig marmalade and a little green salad. Yum! Raw scallops were tried again with great success. This time with avocado and tomato. Last time I got these was in Paris when Manda accidentally ordered them much to my delight!

Lourmarin was next stop in Provence and only 15 minutes or so from Bonnieux. Apparently it's considered amongst Frances prettiest little villages and it would be hard to disagree. Man at bed and breakfast had a nice Porsche garaged which leads me to think that the room at 70€ PLUS breakfast (yes, it was a b&b) is possibly to much! Nonetheless it was a typically French retreat and a good place to even the score with Manda after our 2 camping catastrophes! Not such bad value for money! Just for future reference we posted home 8kg for 43€ which was good considering some of the prices we'd been told. Also managed to post some non postage stamped postcards, accidentally. Fingers crossed they make it home too!
Also, for the record, Manda smashed a glass here at dinner while kissing a pommy lady goodnight. Her daughter at 4, and up to mischief, reminded us of Grace (Geoff and Therese's little one); very cute with red curls to match!

Overall a great experience in Provence.