2018 – Page 4 – RV Travels in Europe and North America

August 12, 2018 San Francisco CA

Today we played tourists in San Francisco. We headed into the city early to beat the traffic and headed to the Embarcadero area. We lived in the “Bay Area” in the late 90’s so had done the San Francisco tours in the past with visitors. We were trying to convince our friends that they did not need to do this. Luckily they insisted as we really enjoyed ourselves.

We covered the Embarcadero area in detail, and hit a couple of the big tourist sites along the water front. It was a beautiful day so we had nice views of the bay. As we kept walking we visited the Ghiradelli chocolate factory for an ice cream sundae.

Ton liked this painting from a small museum on the Embarcadero.

We ended the day at the palace of fine arts which Ton and I had never visited. It was built for the world exposition in 1913 it is quite impressive and fortunate to be still around. Originally it was built to only last for the exhibition, but people loved it so much they decided to keep it. Over time some of the love faded and the maintenance deteriorated, during World War II the army took over as it was located on military property, and used it as a motor vehicle maintenance area. After the war it had deteriorated to the point where they considered tearing it down, but fortunately did not.

Tourists. Alcatraz on the horizon in the background.

All of our touristing around resulted in a new step record for our friend of 30,000 steps in one day, so we decided to reward ourselves with some Chinese food for dinner. It was a really nice day.

August 11, 2018 San Jose CA

Today was much more relaxing than yesterday. We started with a nice breakfast near our friends apartment. On Saturdays they close the street in front of our friends apartment and have a giant Yoga session. So while we were eating our high calorie breakfast we watched about 300 people doing a group yoga session.

Feeling guilty, we decided to go and do some walking ourselves. We started at the Santa Clara Mission. It is one of a string of missions the Spanish used to control California when they colonized it. The missions reach from San Diego to just north of San Francisco. Everyone in California knows the stories of the missions as it is a main part of the curriculum for all students in 5th Grade. Even if you move here from another state or country like we did, if you have children you get to know all you could want to know about missions.

Santa Clara mission. The first mission in California named after a woman saint.

Santa Clara mission is probably the most well maintained of the missions as it is on the campus of Santa Clara University which is a Jesuit college. This school is well endowed and the church building is obviously well loved. We were going to go inside to take some pictures, but there was a mass going on. We stood in the back for a few minutes and were wondering about how well attended the mass was on a Saturday, when we realized that they were consecrating about 10 new priests as Jesuits.

Later we did some walking around the neighborhood, and had a nice Vietnamese lunch in a giant Vietnamese shopping area in San Jose.

August 10, 2018 San Jose CA

We had the alarm set for 6am, so we could meet our friends Pae and Supachai for happy hour. The early drive was easy but like last year in British Columbia the smoke from the massive wild fires in California and Oregon reduced visibility to around a mile for the first 200 miles. The fires in California this year are really bad, and the worst of the traditional fire season has not even begun.

We covered the first 340 miles in about 6 hours and we were looking forward to meeting our friends for a happy hour drink, but when we merged on to I-80 near Sacramento the freeway came to a complete halt and traffic was stopped as far as we could see. Searching the radio we found out that there had been a serious accident about 3 hours prior and a California Highway Patrol Officer had been severely injured. Only one lane of the freeway was open and the backup was 15 miles. Not knowing how bad it would be we ended up gutting it out and it took 3 hours to cover the next 12 miles. As we were driving it turns our the CHP officer and the person he had pulled over for a traffic violation were struck by another car at full speed and killed. The snowball effect was now we were still about 70 miles from San Jose, but instead of being thru before rush hour we were in the middle of rush hour and those 70 miles took another 3 hours. So the bottom line was today we covered 340 miles in 6 hours and 84 miles in 6 hours, for a total of an exhausting 12 hours.

We had a nice Japanese dinner that we just made with our friends and another couple, and Ron crashed into bed about 9pm.

August 9, 2018 Canyonville OR

It has been awhile since our last trip. We spent most of June and July working on getting the house ready for our travels and getting the paperwork done on purchasing François for our future trips to Europe. Needing a break we decided on a short trip to see some friends in San Jose and to visit our two sons.

Today we left late as we waited for the mail to arrive with Ron’s birth certificate. It turns out we need to provide a copy of his birth certificate as US passports do not show what town you were born in and that is very important in France. We will see if the birth certificate will do the trick, the problem is that it is hand written and whoever wrote it did not have very good handwriting. We will see if it is acceptable to the administrator in France.

By the time we got on the road it was nearing evening rush hour so we did not cover as much ground as we hoped. Around 7pm we decided to camp up in a nice campground next to a casino. The lady informed us we would get a 10% discount if we purchased a player’s club card so we were off to the casino to get a card. With the card we got a free spin of the wheel and Ron won a $10 discount on food, so we ate some bad casino food.

May 4, 2018 Paris FR

The flight home was uneventful but long. The only hitch was that American Airlines couldn’t be bothered to transfer our bags to Alaska Airline in Chicago, and just threw them on their next flight to Portland. Apparently this is a pretty common occurrence, because as soon as we said we were coming in from Chicago the Alaska agent new what had happened. Fortunately the American flight was only about 30 minutes behind our Alaska flight.

We really enjoyed the trip to France, and are looking forward to the next trip to Europe. For the trip we covered about 2000 miles in 27 days, primarily in Burgundy and Provence. Even though we did not venture that far, we still could have probably spent another two weeks just in those areas. There is still a lot of France to see, and a whole lot of other countries.

François gave us no problems, and after this trip we are sold on using a European RV instead of shipping Scout. We are now in the process of lining up a slightly used RV over there.

Ron and François enjoying the countryside.

From a cost point of view, operating costs per day (excluding rental costs) were actually lower in France than our last two trips in North America. Fuel and camping costs per day were lower than we spent in Alaska and our western swing. While fuel is nearly 21/2 times higher in France than here, things are much closer together. We were also traveling during shoulder season so when we did stay in campgrounds they were generally cheaper than their counterparts here. As we got used to things we started gravitating towards Aires, and they are much cheaper than campgrounds. Food was higher in Europe, but not as much as we expected.

May 3, 2018 Paris FR

Today we planned to spend at the Louvre. Of all of the places in Paris Ron wanted to spend some extra time there as he had never been.

It is an overwhelming place in many ways. The building is huge, but the vast majority of people are there to see the two or three must see things, the Mona Lisa, David, and the Italian art. Those things are clustered in one area of the museum, and that area is packed. We did see all of those things, but the crowds were a little too much for Ron. The other wings of the building are nearly empty and there is a lot of good art.

This is not the crowded part of the Louvre.

After about 4 hours we had enough and decided to get some lunch. Ton was interested in getting some Moroccan food, and we found a good restaurant. We had our most expensive meal in France, and the meal was good. After lunch we decided to head back to Montmartre, and grab a couple of last minute things we wanted to take back to Oregon with us.

I think we enjoyed walking around Montmartre nearly as much as we did the Louvre for the day. We made a couple of trips to grocery stores in the area, as well as taking one last stroll (Ton would say climb) to the cathedral. We had our final dinner at an African restaurant across from the hotel that Ton had her eye on since we checked in The meal was excellent and the spices were really interesting. Ton’s fish was delicious.

May 2, 2018 Paris FR

Today was our day to be tourists. You cannot go to Paris without seeing the Eiffel Tower, Champs Elysee, the Louvre, Notre Dame, etc. We decided the best way to accomplish this was by buying a hop on hop off bus ticket.

We accomplished the mission seeing all of the important places, but unlike all of the other cities we visited where we walked from point to point, this time we rode a bus with loads of other tourists. Ton appreciated the lack of steps, and it would have been a bit much to try to do everything on foot, but for Ron it felt a lot more sterile from the bus.

Paris is lovely, and though yesterday it looked like all hell had broke loose downtown, today you could not tell there had been a riot going on around here. We got wrapped up looking at stuff, and forgot to eat lunch. We did stop into a chocolate shop and had a nice chocolate sundae, and found a place for dinner later in the day.

May 1, 2018 Paris FR

Today is labor day in France. We decided to stay in Montmartre for the day as we were not sure what was going to be open in the center of the city. Also, there were some marches planned, and there was a rumor that some people were going to use the marches as a pretense to cause some problems.

Our hotel is very centrally located in Montmartre. We started the day by heading to the cathedral at the top of the hill. Montmartre is located on a pretty good sized hill, and it is a decent climb up to the cathedral. The views of the center of Paris from the cathedral are expansive.

The Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Montmartre.

Montmartre is famous for it’s cafe culture, so after spending about an hour deciding which cafe to eat in, we settled in for a lunch and to do what everyone else is doing, people watch. It is an interesting combination of tourists from all over the world, and locals. We enjoyed the lunch, though we had high expectations, and were a little disappointed with our food.

The streets of Montmartre full of tourists and locals.

After lunch we took another turn around the area, looking at the sites, and mostly the people. We did a little shopping and went back to the room to drop off our purchases, and take a siesta. Instead of a siesta, we were entertained by watching the riot that had broken out in the center of the city live on TV. A McDonalds was sacked and a it was not a good day to park your Mercedes downtown as it looks like the rioters specifically targeted them for burning.

After we got our fill of watching the TV, we decided to go back up to the cathedral for sunset, and dinner. At the cathedral we saw that we were not the only ones ignoring the riot going on a few miles away as there were several hundred people up enjoying the sunset.

Another thing Paris is famous for are pickpockets, and we noticed a gentleman suddenly confronting a younger man quite loudly. It turns out he noticed that the young guy was trying to get into a woman’s purse, and intervened to stop it. The young guy took off, and the lady rewarded the good samaritan with a couple of kisses on the cheek, and then sat down on top of her purse to finish watching sunset.

The Eiffel Tower from the Basilica of the Sacred Heart.

April 30, 2018 Paris FR

After an early start where we returned François to France Motor Home Hire. We had a quick meeting with the owners there and have a preliminary plan to buy a European based vehicle from them, instead of shipping Scout to Europe. We will post more as things develop along this line.

We arrived in the station at Sens, purchased our tickets and boarded an express for Paris within 10 minutes. Our timing could not have been better. After arriving at Gare deBercey station in Paris we took a taxi to our hotel in the Montmartre district of Paris. When we arrived it was really miserable. About 40 degrees, raining and really windy. Our motivation to go out and explore Paris was pretty low, so instead we hit a grocery store and settled in to our room for a rest. The weather is supposed to be better tomorrow, so Paris can wait.

The neighborhood near our hotel in Paris.

April 29, 2018 St. Julien de Sault FR

All things must end. Last night there was a heck of a storm that woke us both up. For the second time we had a thunderstorm in France with a pretty healthy dumping of rain, even possibly some hail. We spent the morning packing up and cleaning François so that we can have a quick and easy turn around tomorrow before heading to Paris.

We left Merry around 11 am with about 80km’s to cover to the Aire we spent our first night in. The GPS finally decided to cooperate and kept us on good 2 lane D roads, and even decided to by-pass a couple of towns rather than send us thru the middle of them. As a result we made really good time getting to St. Julien.

The wine has been fantastic in France so I thought we would include a picture of the plant that has added a lot of fun to the trip for us.

We needed to fill up the fuel, and after that we had some time to kill. As it is Sunday nearly everything but restaurants are closed. Across from the gas station was a McDonalds, and we thought why not? This was the most high tech McDonalds I have ever seen. You ordered your food at a 4 foot touch screen. One interesting thing is that we had heard that we might run into trouble with our American credit cards here, and for the entire trip we had never had a problem paying with our credit cards until today at McDonalds. The giant screen rejected all three of our chip cards, so we had to take our little slip up to the one cashier on duty and pay for our 2 coffees and fries with cash!

April 28, 2018 Merry-sur-Yonne FR

Our night in the car park at Flavigny was uneventful, except after the warm nights in Provence it was quite chilly back in Burgundy. When we woke up and got going Ton decided that the candy tins at the factory here in Flavigny would be great gifts so we needed to kill time until it opened at 930.

Ton remembered there were some spectacular canola fields as we came into town. We decided to take a short walk up to get a closer look. It was a nice walk and we enjoyed being out in the quiet French countryside.

Ton in front of a huge field of Canola. This is the last canola photo, we promise.

After completing our purchase at the candy factory we headed over to the town of Vezelay. It is another one of the most beautiful villages in France. We were back on D roads of Burgundy. The countryside in Burgundy is definitely much quieter than the countryside in Provence, so the drives are a lot more enjoyable and the scenery is terrific.

A town in Burgundy. The roads in Burgundy are much quieter than in Provence.

Several people we had met on the trip said that Vezalay was a town not to miss. It is another of the most beautiful villages in France, and as you drive towards the town it is quite striking. The weather has taken a turn for the worst with temperatures in the 50’s and on again, off again rain. But we caught a gap while we walked up the hill to Vezelay’s Cathedral. The town was interesting and pretty but once again felt touristy, especially compared to Flavigny. While we were in the cathedral a mass started with about 15 nuns coming out to join the mass.

The Cathedral in Vezelay. It is a very striking white color, and interesting because it has less art in place than other Cathedral’s we have visited.

The last stop of the day was at Merry-Sur-Yonne which has a nice ring to it. The campground here is first class, and the bridge into the small village over the river Yonne is quite pretty. Ton has declared it the nicest campground she has been in, though we both did grumble a little about paying €19 after several nights of free or nearly free camping. However, the warm reception from the British owner, warm unlimited showers and the electricity have reduced the grumbling. At the end of the day we walked down to the Yonne River and had a quiet end to our day.

The bridge over the Yonne River near our campground.

April 27, 2018 Flavigny-sur-Ozerin FR

Today we had to bite the bullet and do some freeway travel. We needed to get north so we can be in position to turn François in on Monday. So we put 300km’s under our belt in one long leap. We choose the town of Flavigny-Sur-Ozerain as it was the site where one of Ton’s favorite movies was filmed, Chocolat with Johnny Depp and Juliette Binoche. It is also on the list of one of the most beautiful villages in France.

A street scene from Flavigny, one of the most beautiful villages in France.

The trip north on the Autoroute was uneventful even though the GPS insisted on routing us right thru the heart of Lyon (France’s second biggest city) instead of taking the bypass that all of the trucks did. However, traffic was not too bad so Ron forgave her and we did get to see Lyon at 70kph.

Since we last left Burgundy the canola has really grown.

We arrived in Flavigny around 2pm and found it quite peaceful. Our first stop was a candy factory in an old Abby that has been producing Anis based candies since 1591. After some sampling of the wares again we purchased some tins of the candy.

A cool Renault RV with the logo of the candy factory we visited today.

All of the other most beautiful villages felt a little commercial, Flavigny most definitely did not. We spent about 20 minutes looking for the tourist information office when we realized we had walked past it twice before noticing the sign in the window saying it was closed until July. We wanted the tourist information office to see if it would be all right to spend the night in their parking lot. After walking around the town for a couple of hours and enjoying an afternoon coffee and beer, we finally decided on our own that it was ok to park as there was no police in the town to ask. Right now we have finished our dinner and are enjoying some wine in a very peaceful and serene parking lot, with birds chirping in the background.

Ron at one of the medieval gates to the city of Flavigny.

April 26, 2018 Tournon-sur-Rhone FR

We are finally having to focus more on direction than interesting places. We picked the destination of Tournon-sur-Rhone based on it being a good distance north towards Sens.

When we arrived in Tournon we were not initially impressed. It was a nice enough town with a nice view of the Rhone River. There were two river cruise boats docked near town. We learned that Tournon had a sister city on the other side of the river called Hermitage. They were connected by a wooden pedestrian bridge.

The wooden bridge across the Rhone between Tournon and Hermitage.

We found another aire for the night and headed into town. We did a pass thru Tournon and it was pleasant, and then headed over to Hermitage as Ton wanted to get some pictures of the Rhone and the river cruise boats. Once we reached Hermitage we saw they had a chocolate museum. The chocolate museum was really awesome. It is called Valrhona, and is attached to a factory by the same name. We decided not to take the tour, but just went thru the attached store. The store had all you could eat samples of all of their chocolates. Ron probably ate about 5€ worth of samples, and Ton about 4€ worth. The chocolate was excellent, and we were almost tempted to buy some but we were full from our free samples!

One of the river cruise ships pulling away from the dock in Hermitage.

On the way back we saw some vineyards on the Tournon side of the river that were really interesting looking. They were on this incredible slope of about 15 degrees with old stone walls between parcels. We decided to walk over to get a better view. They were even more impressive up close. It turns out that this is a Grand Cru ( the highest quality wine in France) for Syrah, and is considered the spiritual birth place for Syrah. So we are going to look for a bottle of the local stuff tomorrow to check it out.

The hills above Tournon which are supposed to be the spiritual home of the Syrah grape.

April 25, 2018 Chateauneuf du Pape FR

The plan for today was to visit Roussillon which is another one of the most beautiful villages in France, but we also had to find a place to dump our tanks, add water, and we needed to get some propane. Depending on when we had accomplished all of those things we would decide on the next step for the day.

We were up bright and early, so we headed over to Roussillon and were amongst the first arrivals of the day. Roussillon is famous in France for it’s red earth. It is another pretty village and very upscale, in fact Bradjelina (Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie) had their French house here. It was once again nice and worth a visit, but frankly the most interesting thing was watching a truck driver maneuver a large delivery truck down a street with literally inches to spare on each side while shop keepers were pulling in awnings, and moving flower pots out of the way. French truck drivers really earn their living here on these narrow streets and roads.

The buildings in Roussillon all have this red tint to them from the surrounding earth.

We have been trying to visit an olive oil factory for about a week and thought we had found one on the way out of Rousillon. After Ron and the GPS had several arguements about the best way we finally arrived at an olive oil factory quite near to where we spent the night. It was one of our disappointments of the trip. The staff was not very helpful, and the promised tour did not exist, so after a short walk thru we were out to François and deciding on our next step.

During the drive we passed thru a nice canyon between Gordes and Orange.

Ron found a winery in the Chateauneuf du Pape area that was a French Passion site, and we decided to see if we could stay there. French Passion sites are provided with our rental, and are wineries and farms throughout France that let you stay on their property for “free” if you are a member. The catch is that you are highly encouraged to sample their product. In the case of our stay tonight for roughly the cost of a normal campground we purchased two very nice bottles of wine, and got to enjoy a beautiful warm evening on a very peaceful winery in Provence. It is worth every penny.

Some of the vineyard at Chateau Cabrieres. If you look carefully you will see the incredible amount of stones in the vineyards. This apparently is what makes Chateauneuf du Pape wines famous.

April 24, 2018 Gordes FR

Today we headed towards another one of the most beautiful villages in France. Gordes is considered a must see stop in Provence by most of the travel writers.

After an uneventful drive including a stop at a grocery store to replenish some critical items, and wine. We headed up to Gordes. As advertised it is quite striking, but has definitely been discovered by the rich and famous. A lot of the old farm houses have undergone renovation to make them appropriately comfortable for the well off. Ron was looking at a listing of homes for sale, and they were running 1.2 to 2.5 million Euro. As we walked into town we passed a beautiful 5 star hotel that we later checked and found out rooms could be had for around $500 per night.

The view of Gordes as you approach on the main road. The white umbrellas are the $500 per night hotel.

Having said that I can see why people are willing to spend that kind of money for Gordes. It really is striking and the town has an old world feel that is pretty magical. We arrived just as the weekly market was packing up for the day. We really enjoyed poking around town, and the views were worth the walk. At the end we ducked into a coffee shop for a beer and a coffee and sat on a balcony about 100 feet above a gorge. We were really enjoying it until a couple of groups sat down next to us and about 5 people simultaneously lit up cigarettes. There is a lot I like about the culture here and one of them is the abundance of outside dining, unfortunately smoking is still allowed in the outside dining, so Ton and I normally find ourselves inside to avoid the smoke.

We walked back to François for the night and enjoyed our free aire. Tonight our neighbors are mostly British, and we had a nice conversation with a couple from Birmingham.

Ton really liked these stone fences with the tops of stones set on end. This one was near our aire for the night.

April 23, 2018 Saintes Marie de la Mer FR

Today was about Flamingos. After some muddling about in the morning and doing some laundry we were off to the Camargue which is a large delta where the Rhone River empties into the Mediterranean. It is a famous bird sanctuary.

There is an ornithological park as you drive into the delta, and we decided to stop and take a look not knowing what to expect. It turned out to be a great walk where we were surrounded by many different kinds of birds but the star attraction for the average Joe (or Pierre) were the flamingo’s. There were hundreds of them on display. Ton wore her battery out shooting pictures of them.

The bodies are slightly pink, but the wings are quite striking as this bird is showing. These are Rose Flamingo’s native to Africa, and Europe.

It was a really nice walk and in addition to the flamingos there were a lot of Heron’s. In fact the serious photographers with the long lenses were ignoring the flamingos and shooting the Herons. There must of been something significant over there, but we did not figure it out.

All of the serious photographers were concentrated around this area, we are not sure what the attraction was.

After a couple of hours of exploring and pictures we headed down the road to the sea to visit the town of Saintes Maries de la Mer. Driving in it did not make much of an impression on us. But when we pulled into the aire we figured there must be something to the town as there were easily 70 or 80 RV’s in the aire. We took a walk and it was a seaside resort, not a particularly fancy one, but pleasant. We decided that we would have dinner tonight to compare French seafood with Spanish. Spanish won.

The Mediterranean is apparently warm even in April, as the water was full of kids playing.

April 22, 2018 St. Remy de Provence FR

We decided to shift a little south to another part of Provence. The town of St. Remy de Provence was highly recommended to us, so here we are.

St. Remy turned out to be a very nice but touristy town. But it did have an interesting walk themed around Van Gogh. He spent a year here in a sanitarium trying to clear his head, and did some really nice painting. The walk had you follow a road out of town to the sanitarium where he stayed and periodically showed you sites where Van Gogh had painted pictures. It was quite fascinating and at several of the stops you could really see quite clearly the setting he used.

We think this is the setting for this picture.

At the end of the road was the sanitarium where he stayed, and it is still functioning as a sanitarium today having been founded around 1200 AD. The room where Van Gogh stayed is on display, as are the gardens that inspired some of his paintings. We really enjoyed ourselves and found the place fascinating.

On the way back we stopped at the ruins of the Roman settlement of Glanum. We poked around a bit and saw the Arch of Triumph, but decided to pass on visiting the Roman ruins.

Part of the Roman Arc, the Arc itself is a slightly more worn version of the one in Orange yesterday.

As we passed thru town we decided that this one of the more upscale towns we had been in, and it reflected in the price of the restaurants. So we decided to postpone our Provence meal, and headed back to François for a very late lunch, and a siesta.

April 21, 2018 Orange FR

We had an adventure today that we did not at all anticipate. Our plan was to shift about 40km’s from Pont du Gard to Orange to visit the Roman Theater in Orange. Enroute we were going to stop at a Carrefour to get some gas. Actually sounds like one of our easier days from a travel point of view.

We were rolling along on nice wide roads when we came into a little village. The roads were kind of narrow but we were used to the roads narrowing going into little villages. Then Ron missed a turn, the GPS reprogrammed and the roads were narrow but one way so Ron decided to follow the reprogram, and then we came to a point where the GPS wanted us to turn down a walkway…big problem. Ron parked and since we had come down a series of one way roads we could just not turn around and go back the way we had come. Ron on foot followed the one way road thru the village for 2 or 3 hundred yards and it looked doable, so back to François. Ton backed Ron down the road for the 20 or so yards to the turn, and just as we were getting ready to head down the road a fellow jumped in front of us and in rapid fire French told us that the GPS was wrong and we could not go that way. There was only one way out and he would show us, or words to that effect. Just as he was turning us around in very tight quarters another car came up behind us, and we managed to let him squeeze past, but rather than carry on he got out and began to help us turn around and get pointed in the right direction also. Ron was responding to commands of droit (right) and gauche(left), and a lot of vezzies (afterwards Ton and I decided it was the French version of come on, or keep going), we got turned around passing within inches of several parked cars, and liberally using the sidewalk (all two feet of it) when necessary. We got pointed at an opening that was maybe four inches wider than Françoise with both mirrors folded in. The two guys gave me a resounding Voila!, and a thumbs up. We squeezed down the alley, and popped back out on our nice wide main road. We shouted some Merci beaucoups (thanks much) at them as they were walking away, but without them our day may have been really a mess, so to the two anonymous French gentlemen, merci beaucoup.

This is about the width of the road we were squeezing François down.

We arrived at Orange 20 minutes later, and visited Carrefour which is turning into Ton’s favorite grocery in France. Stocked up with food for a few days we were going to get fuel, but it looked like a tight fit and Ron was a little skittish so fuel is tomorrow.

We finally made it to the Roman theater in Orange and it was really interesting and beautiful. It was built in the 1st century AD, and is incredibly huge for that era. The grounds will hold 10,000 people, and the theater wall behind behind the stage is over 100 feet tall. The scale is hard to describe and Ton had a tough time capturing it on film. We followed the audio guide throughout and it was fascinating. The theater is still used today for concerts and performances. The facade of the theater is also grandiose but it is undergoing renovation and we did not get a look at it.

The wall at the back of the stage of the Theater in Orange, it was one of the few walls that have survived from ancient Roman theaters.

The seating area of the theater. It holds over 10,000.

After the theater we passed by the ancient Arc de Triumph of Orange. This Arch was built by veterans of Cesar Augustus legions who settled in Orange after they completed their service. It is to honor veterans of the Gallic Wars around 24 AD. We had actually passed it as it is in a roundabout on the main road in town on the way to the campground. But this time we were on foot and had time to take some pictures.

The Arc de Triomphe of Orange, built by the legionaries of Cesar Augustus.

April 20, 2018 Pont du Gard FR

Today we needed to get serious about going east. Our plan for the past few days has been to head to Provence, but we never quite got ourselves going that way. So today we abandoned our backcountry roads and jumped on the motorway for almost 200km’s to get to Pont du Gard.

This site is one of the most famous Roman sites in France, and features on a lot of travel sites advertising France. We decided that this would be a good place to begin our visit of Provence and southeast France.

We arrived in the early afternoon and it was unseasonably warm with temperatures in the high 70’s low 80’s. After a nice lunch Ton declared it was siesta time and Pont du Gard could wait.

Around 4 pm we wandered down to see the site. Pont du Gard is a three tier aqueduct that was built around 19BC. It stands over 160ft high above the river Gardon and was used to supply the city of Nimes. The aqueduct that the Pont du Gard supported was over 30 miles long.

It is quite an impressive structure and very beautiful. The French are certainly much more laid back about managing historical things like this, and the atmosphere was more relaxed and informal than we are used to. People were swimming under the bridge picnicking on the grounds around it, there was not a policeman or ranger in site to keep order.

We walked back in the evening to get some more shots as Ton thought the sunset would be pretty there. She was right!

April 19, 2018 Rose SP

We are parked in an aire next to a hotel in Fitou France. Do not try to find it on a map unless you have a very detailed map of France, it is somewhere near Narbonne.

After a slow start to the day, we enjoyed a leisurely breakfast and had a nice conversation with our German neighbors, who were a little confused at first when we did not respond to their initial conversation starters in French. After they sorted out we were not French they effortlessly switched to English. We had a nice time talking to them and getting to meet their dog. They are German versions of snowbirds, spending about 6 months a year in Spain and Portugal.

We decided to head into the town of Rose to have the meal we missed yesterday. We had a fantastic 4 course lunch for €13.50. This was a huge meal including a glass of Sangria for an aperitif, a bowl of mussels for an appetizer, paella for her main dish, and a creme brulet for desert. She had a choice of wine or water and chose wine. Ron had Sangria, calamari for his appetizer, a dish similar to paella but with noodles instead of Rice, and flan, because he was driving he had water. We were wowed with the quantity and quality of the food, and enjoyed people watching while we ate.

The town of Rose, on the Costa Brava, the Costa Brava may require a longer visit in the future.

One correction, all of the fields we were identifying as mustard are actually canola fields, or as they call them here Rapeseed. The yellow fields are still really beautiful.