ROADTRIP!!!!!!!
After departing only 3 hours late on Thursday Bjorn, Chris, Felix and myself departed on an epic tour of Provence with the grand aims of... well actually we didn't really have any aims, I spose being able to use some French was pretty high on the list and seeing a whole lot of stuff from the guide book I have. With the help of the guide book and the GPS we found our way to one of the grandest Cistercian abbeys in Provence which is closed on only 5 days of the year. That's like a 1 in 73 chance. And by chance for our visit - it was closed. We then made our way up into the mountain pass and decided to take a detour because the road looked like it went to the top of the peak. It turned out there were a lot of roads, they were all incredibly narrow. We eventually made it incredibly close to the top while the GPS attempted to drive us up/down dirt roads and off cliff sides. Unfortunately booking any form of accommodation was not very high on our list and as we got closer to Marseilles I opened up the section on accommodation to find the phrase "Surprisingly for France's second biggest city, there is no central hostel", and a little later in the section "book ahead". After phoning THE ONLY TWO hostels in Marseilles to find no beds available, we considered sleeping in the car in the Carrefour carpark, but then someone mentioned the fact that Marseilles is also one of Europe's most dangerous cities. Not wanting to wake up dead, we then moved on to Aix-En-Provence about 30 mins up the motorway in the hope that by pleading on the doorsteps of the hostel there we would be able to convince them to house us, even though they told us on the phone they only had two spaces available. Luckily, being 4 incredibly handsome young men, we were successful and didn't have to spend the night freezing on the car worrying about a bunch of drug addicts, harbour workers and general bad guys murdering us at the port.
Yesterday, while our luck with accommodation improved, our luck with opening hours did not.
The burial site of Picasso. Closed to public. The house of Nostradamus. Closed. The church where his remains are deposited. Closed. So assuming you also can see the pattern here, we discussed the fact that as we drove to the next item on the itinerary, Pont du Gard, it wouldn't be at all surprising to find a sign saying it had fallen down over night. Luckily it hadn't and we were able to enjoy some nice French gateaux with a view of the aqueduct. We followed this up with wine tasting at Chateau Neuf du Pape and then = arrived in Avignon in time to get some accommodation. We went into town, had some dinner etc before returning home for beer and sleep.
As I write this blog this morning, I am in the bar at the hostel while the others sleep in anticipation of driving today to the top of the highest peak in Provence.
