Dancin in France - Part 2 - Avignon

* Note - after I posted this I noticed the font is teeny. No idea what happened. I tried to fix it a couple of times but apparently that is beyond my capabilities. Sorry!

** Another note. I couldn't leave it so I tried to fix it and ended up making the background funny. Now I think I got it. Either way, I'm walking away from edits.

Welcome back! If you didn't catch part 1 of our France trip, check it out here!

Travel writing isn't exactly my forte but I'm going to keep trying! My hope is that you get a couple of laughs or ideas if you are heading to France. Let's get rolling with Part 2!

Dancin in the vineyards

The Drive

Following our success of using the car's GPS, we decided to take the scenic route to Avignon. We knew we would drive through more vineyards and little towns and we were so ready!

We weren't disappointed. The rolling hills around us were ripe with even more vineyards, even more wineries, and even more cute villages. We learned that the "A" roads are the highways in France and the "D" roads are more like our country roads. As we drove along the D974, the GPS smartly took us off the path every so often to drive us through tiny little towns. At first we didn't realize how cool GPS is but after the 3rd town of getting off D974, driving through a little town, and getting back on D974, we realized what was happening.

Basically for 3 hours it went like this:

Me: OH MY GOD! This is so beautiful!

BF: We are going through another town!

Me: OH MY GOD! This is so beautiful!

BF: Look, more cyclists!

Me: OH MY GOD! This is so beautiful!

Driving through one of the little towns.

Yeah. It was pretty beautiful. We also happened to be traveling through France while the real Tour de France was happening. We didn't look up the route ahead of time and at one point we saw a large pack of cyclists riding on a bridge that went over D974.

"Tour de France!" we yelled. It wasn't the Tour de France. We ended up driving much of the route...two days before the cyclists came through. However, every time we saw someone riding a bicycle we just yelled "Tour de France!" It was sort of like the license plate game most families play on a road trip.

Three hours of driving got us about 1/4 of the way to our destination. We realized we should probably hop on one of those big A highways so we didn't completely miss our check in to our next Air BnB.

We zipped through Mâcon, Lyon (looked sooo cool), Orange, and arrived in Avignon. It took us the same amount of time to drive that 3/4 of the trip as it did the first 1/4.

I wasn't allowed to carry a map of Avignon - too touristy- so I took a picture! That way it just looked like I was looking at my phone all the time. Y'know, like a normal person.

Avignon - Day 2

Let me tell you, Avignon was another random pick for us. We were thinking of doing Aix-en-Provence because that's what everybody else does. I can't remember exactly why we landed on Avignon. I certainly had never heard of it. But it was AMAZING!

Clever, Avignon

HUGE wall of plants on a building

Where we got our first drink

Avignon is another medieval own plopped right on the Rhone river. The ancient part of town is still blocked off by the old ramparts that circle around the city. We stayed in the ancient part of town, just a couple of blocks away from the ramparts. Another thing that makes Avignon cool is that between 1309 and 1377, the good ol' popes of Rome decided to move here instead! So they built a big old palace, church, gardens, etc. Our baller Air BnB had a terrace with a view of the palace. Add to that, our Air BnB host left us a bottle of chilled rose in the fridge, Avignon was looking pretty good!

The streets of Avignon were narrow and cobblestoned. There is a major market, Le Halle, that operates every day except the days we were there. No worries though. France was playing Iceland in the EuroCup so the big empty square was filled with football fans. We spent our first day and night in Avignon wandering around the streets. For dinner, our Air BnB host suggested a number of places and we checked one out.

Despite my attempts to learn French while driving to Avignon, and this might be a shock to you, I didn't quite get it down. I carried around a Lonely Planet dictionary and phrase book with me. It was super helpful and also terribly embarrassing. BF definitely did not want to be seen with such an obvious tourist. So...for dinner, I ordered an appetizer - a beautiful charcuterie plate - without knowing that's all I had ordered. BF somehow managed to not order dinner - something was lost in translation. As we embarrassingly picked at my plate, not knowing where we had gone wrong, we finally managed to communicate with the waitress that he wanted the filet mignon. Which, by the way, translated into French is not steak, but it is delicious pork tenderloin. All was well though because France won the game and there was lots of merry-making in the streets. Also we had street bread at home.

Mmmm. Vin for 3 euro - yep

Day 3 - Avignon, Lavender, Aix-en-Provence

Ancient Avignon is a smallish city so we got up early and basically walked the entire thing. By 10 am we were ready for a mini-road trip. I was dying to see the lavender fields that were between 1 and 2 hours away. We discovered that there is an abby up in the hills, about 45 minutes north east of Avignon, that grows lavender so we figured that was our best bet.

Gordes. Gorg-eous

This road trip through the scenic route led us to Gordes, a gorgeous city built on a hill with the windy-est streets you have ever been on. In order to make one turn, we actually had to drive past the road, back up, and 15-point turn our way to the right. A little scary.

I wore my grandma's hat. I wanted my hands to smell like lavender forever.

Sénanque Abbey is a Cistercian is a 12th century monastery that grows a bunch of lavender. It was serene.

After taking about a bajillion photos of lavender, we decided to swing by Aix-en-Provence to see what all the fuss was about. I think we were there for 45 minutes. Our first two days of our trip had been mostly sans tourists. We hadn't heard much English and we were loving it - even with all the mishaps. Aix-en-Provence felt like a tourist trap.

The drive to A-e-P was more lavender fields!

Somebody lives here!

Lovers for rent

Really expensive beer in A-e-P

Our meal was more expensive, large groups of English speakers, meh. It just wasn't our thing. So we high-tailed it out of there.

Au revoir Avignon! You rocked! Sunset from our terrace.

Lessons Learned

1. Entree means appetizer. Which makes way more sense than "main meal" here in America.

2. Charcuterie plates are delicious and perfect for a hot night. They are way cheaper and way better in France.

3. Filet mignon = pork tenderloin in France.

4. In Avignon, at dusk, about a million swallows fill the sky. It is beautiful and phone cameras just can't capture it.

font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 19.5px;">5. You will miss the festivals if you don't plan. We missed every intersection with the Tour de France by about 2 days. Also, Avignon is famous for it's Festival d'Avignon. Basically, the whole city is filled with theater. There are small theater houses everywhere. It happened two days after we left.

Advertisements for all the shows we would miss at the Festival d'Avignon