Excursion on K's Bill

This past weekend we were all treated with a little gift from K. We left Friday morning for a weekend long excursion on K’s bill, actually it was just us spending our own money that we could never recuperate otherwise but still, no money came out of our pockets so it seemed “free.” Friday morning we showed up at the school at 7:20ish to board the bus and head south for the weekend. We ended up leaving a little late because a couple of people in our group forgot to set alarms… so we ended up leaving at 8:15. Because of the late start we had to skip our first stop on the excursion which was Orange, France where we would have seen a roman coliseum and a theater that has been there for a really, really long time. Instead we headed straight to Avignon, France. The ride there was quite a scenic route, our director decided to skip the freeway and take the route through the mountains (or hills as some called them) all the way to Avignon. This resulted in a really windy and jerky ride but it also gave us some of the most beautiful sights that we could have seen on our way down. I managed to take a couple of photos during the bus ride but they didn’t turn out as nice as I wanted them to. You can find them in the Avignon photos that I will put a little lower in this post. On the way to Avignon we stopped at a Casino Cafeteria to eat lunch. Casino Cafeterias are basically the French version of Old Country Buffet but minus the all you can eat part. You pick your salads, plates, cheese, bread, drinks, etc… and then pay for what you took. It was a little bit on the pricy side although it was fairly good. In any case, when we got off the bus some of us in our group experienced the Mystral for the first time. The Mystral is a seasonal wind that comes in southern France and once it arrives it doesn’t stop being extremely windy until it is gone; it usually lasts a few days to week or so. If you can imagine Grand Haven Kite Festival Winds plus 50 ish degrees weather and overcast you get what we had all weekend.

After our lunch we headed to Avignon. We parked the bus and all got off at our first stop in Avignon which was the Pont d’Avignon. The Pont is a bridge that was built a really long time ago and is very famous in France, half of the bridge has collapsed over the years so you get this dramatic half bridge extending over the river. We all took our audio guides (in French of course!) and took the tour of the bridge which didn’t take too long. After leaving the bridge we headed to what I was really excited for and that was the Papal Palace. Around the years 1300 the Pope moved His residence to Avignon cause to political and other troubles in Italy. The Pope’s residence stayed in Avignon for approximately 70 years and 7 Popes called Avignon home. We got to tour the entire Palace, including the Pope’s Bedroom but in a lot of areas we were not allowed to take photos so unfortunately I don’t have photos of the whole thing although I did purchase post cards to take the photos that I couldn’t take. It was an incredible Palace and took us a few hours just to take a fairly rapid tour throughout. It was extremely well protected in case of any attack on the Palace and all of the arrow holes in the Palace walls were in the shape of a Cross. After finishing our tour of the palace a little early (we had to get to our next location) we all loaded back up on the bus and headed to Nimes, France.



Nimes is in the south of France as well and it was where our hotel was located. We got to the hotel at 7 o’clock at night and had 30 minutes to get to our rooms, freshen up and get down for dinner. No problem for me. But I would like to remind you that I am here with 16 girls. Haha in all honesty I was a little surprised that everyone was down on time for dinner! We all walked to the restaurant which was only a few hundred meters from the restaurant. The restaurant was a grill and everything was actually grilled. Boy have I missed grilled food. Being that it was K who was paying, we ordered off the 17 euro menu which included 3 courses and drank some really good wine with the meal. My first course, the entrée, was thinly sliced raw salmon with a salad. I know I said I would never eat anything raw again but the salmon was extremely tender and tasty. It went very well with the wine that we were drinking. After the entrée, came the main dish which was a steak, potatoes, and vegetables. It was actually a grilled steak that was cooked perfectly and it was phenomenal. The desserts were equally amazing although I can’t remember which one I ordered at the time.

After dinner we were all pretty tired from a long day sight seeing and travelling so most of us just went to bed for the night. Saturday was going to be a long day as well. We woke up Saturday and had breakfast in the hotel; coffee with bread and jam. After a quick breakfast we all loaded up the bus and headed to our first of three stops on the day. Our first stop was Aigues-Mortes, France. Aigues-Mortes is a city that is entirely walled. It became the first main shipping point in the south of France and therefore was extremely well fortified in addition to the fact that there was a lot of man made canals. We had 2 things that we had to do while we were there. The first consisted of climbing up the tower that was used as a focal point of defense because from the top you could see juts about anywhere. The second consisted of walking all the way around on top of the walls that enclosed the city. It only took about 45 minutes to talk around the exterior of the city so you can imagine it wasn’t very big. We were very lucky this day though because there was a running of the bulls in the city that day. In the south of France specifically in the region we were in, bulls are a celebrated animal and bull fighting is a very popular sport in the area. We were lucky enough to be there for the running of the bulls into the arena and eventually into the trailer where they would be taken to be held on to until the fighting was to start. They had horse wranglers who ran the bulls through the city and into the arena where they would run them into the gates and onto the truck. We were lucky enough to be on top of the walls when they started doing this so we stayed there and had a great vantage point for the festival. I have a video below of them running some bulls.



Another point about Aigues-Mortes. The city is the salt capital of France and it produces about 90% of all the table salt in France. The salt in the region is pretty much solely sea salt which is probably the best salt that you can use on your food. When we were up on the wall we could see the mountains of salt on the other side of the river and in addition, the salt for whatever reason is partly pink in color and the delta by the wall was a magnificent red in color. After hanging out on the walls for a while we got down and toured the interior of the city. The inside of the city was pretty cool and was very small but quaint. Because of the running of bulls there was a concert in the square in the center of the city and people were having a lot of fun. Unfortunately for us, we couldn’t stay too much longer as we had to get going to our next stop…

The next stop on our journey was Saint Marie de la Mer. This is a city on the Mediterranean Sea where you can find the church dedicated to the patron Saint of the Gypsies. The church was gorgeous and we actually got to climb to the top and sit on the roof of the church which gave us an incredible view of the city. However this was also a fairly short stop and we didn’t stay very long in Saint Marie de la Mer.



We continued on to our final destination of the day which was Arles, France. In Arles we took a quick walking tour of the city where we saw another Coliseum and Van Gogh’s Apartment. Below are some pictures:



The highlight of the evening was dinner. Monsieur Faure took us out to a really nice restaurant where the dinner was 30 euros per person (about $45 per person) not counting the wine. We had all ordered in advance and I decided on the escargot for an appetizer, a leg of lamb for my meal and a plate of cheese would be my dessert! Monsieur Faure let me try his Veal Liver and his wife insisted that I try the Duck. It was a fantastic combination of food.

Sunday was another long day in the bus and we started the day by seeing the roman coliseum in Nimes



and after that we made a stop at Pont du Gard. The Pont du Gard is a roman Aqueduct which was finished in A.D. 52. It is pretty cool and I took a lot of really good pictures.



Other than that it was a pretty touristy trip and I hope you enjoy all of the pictures that I took!

Comment away!

Love to all.

Jon Smart