Exploring Avignon

Went looking for Les Halles, pronounced "Lay Ahles", an indoor market with some 40 stalls of fresh produce, cheese, meats, fish fruit, spices, bread, sweets, olives and olive oils, you name it.  

Just as we approached the market, a young man came over to us and I saw a name tag on his shirt referring to the Latter Day Saints.  I started to say we didn't speak French, when he began speaking pefect English.  Turns out he is from Utah and a missionary doing two years in France.  We had a nice conversation and he took our picture in front of the market.  

Actually never spoke about religion other than to say he was a missionary for the Latter Day Saints.  Nice young man.

The outside wall is a huge vegetable garden created by botanist Patrick Blanc.

Fruits and veges

bread

The spice lady sold us a sea salt mix good on everything and a mix that is great on pasta.  She spoke English and was very nice.

Goodies

We spent many Euros here and then had to lug all the stuff home.  We picked up a couple prepared salads for lunch and afterward went back out to see if we could find French SIM cards for European phones.  After being diredted and re-directed by several telecom stores we ran across, we finnally got sent to the "Orange" store where we met with success.  Got the SIM card and service that is good all over Europe as long as we buy all out minutes in France.  So when we leave here in two months for Portugal, we will just stock up and hopefully not have to buy a new service for Portugal and Spain.  We shall see.  The lady who helped us spoke English and was very helpful.  So far we are muddling along with our very limited French.  Ha.

After meeting with success we headed back up the street and into a Patisserie for a cafe latte.  Nice end to the afternoon.

Today the sun was shining, but the mistral (wind) was blowing cold.  A very brisk day, expecially outside the wall along the river Rhone where we were walking

Remains of 12th century bridge Pont d'Avignon (also known as Pont Saint Benezet

which is connected to the Palace of the Popes

Back inside the wall, we headed more or less towards the Palace of Popes along little narrow and cobbled lanes strewn with little shops.

These little figures are called Les Santons

and seem to depict life in Provence.  Just thought they were cute

The colors of Provence in table linens

The walls behind me are full of bars of soap, any smell you want, and a basket full of lavender, of course

wine of course

Pretty little courtyards

Across from the Palace of the Popes, the old mint

"The Palace of the Popes is the symbol of the Church's importance in the Christian Western world in the 14th century. The Palace was built in less than twenty years, starting in 1335, and was primarily built by two popes, Pope Benedict XII and his successor Pope Clement VI".

"Avignon had been sold to Clement VI in 1348 by Queen Joan of Naples and Sicily, and it was to remain the residence of the Italian Papal legates for nearly four hundred years after the Papacy had returned to Rome, until they were expelled at the time of the Revolution, when the people of Avignon, which had benefited markedly from its long association with the Papacy, opted to join France. In 1793 the Convention decided to demolish this "Bastille du Midi," but the massive building defied their efforts. It passed to the ownership of the town in 1810,and eight years later was put at the disposal of the Minister of war, Who used it as a barracks until 1906, when it was returned to the town".

Once again paying for the privilege of climbing many many stairs

The 20 some rooms were mostly empty, however there were some frescoes remaining

A tile floor

a few statues of important people who visited the Popes

The Popes

Finally at the top of the world

Spectacular views over Avignon and the Rhone river, worth the price of admission and

there was a little cafe up here where we had a bite of lunch and met some friendly people from Annapolis, Maryland.

Back on the ground, we wandered back towards home as Terry had an appointment at 3:00 to get her hair cut.

While Terry went for her haircut, I went to look for a new pair of shoes or boots, as I am sick to death of these black sneakers I've been wearing since the start of the trip.

I tried on several pairs in two different stores then went back to the square to meet up with Terry for a coffee.  After coffee we went back to the Mephisto store where I bought boots and walking shoes.  I love the boots, the jury is still out on the shoes.  Terry tried on a few and decided to think about it.  We went off in search of an early dinner, which is hard to find.  Finally ended up at a little place called Les Grille.  

We ordered wine and a beef stew and then I realized I no longer had my Ipad.  I flew out of the restaurant and stopped first at the coffee shop.  Yeah, the waiter had found it and put it behind the counter.  My life is on that Ipad.  Thank goodness there is honesty yet left in our world.  With Ipad in hand, I went back to the restaurant and truly enjoyed my dinner.  The stew and the red wine were excellent.  See how happy I am.  Good food, good wine and I found my Ipad.

The end to a perfect fall day. 

The next day we decided to head down to the post office again to see if we could find the boxes we sent from Amsterdam.  Stuff we had mailed that we didn't want to lug through Normandy with us.  Took a few pictures in this ruin in a park, but don't know what the are.  Possible the remains of a church.

The lady at the post office did not speak much English and we were having difficulty explaining what we wanted.  I showed her my receipt that had the registered number on it, but she did not comprehend.  Finally a girl standing in line turned and said she spoke a little English and she said the French post office could not trace a number originated in the Netherlands, but she did say she had the same problem and showed me on my receipt where I could track it on the internet.  So we still do not have our boxes and we headed back up the street to the grocery store.

After lugging the groceries home, I began to trace our boxes through the Dutch postal system and found that the boxes had arrived in Avignon and could be picked up at the place of delivery, wherever that may be.  I took a picture of the trace and off we went to the post office again.  I showed the same lady the picture and she asked me for an ID with my name on it.  Showed it to her and she took off into the back office, and returned with my box, which had been there all along.  Terry then gave her her name and off she went again.  Back she came with Terry's two boxes.  I sat with the boxes on the street whileTerry went to the train station across the street to find a cab.  Too heavy to carry all the way home.  We lugged them up the two flights of stairs and both decided it might have been better if they had gotten permanently lost.  Ha.  Anyway, now we have all our stuff again.  

We got the boxes unpacked and put away and then began to prepare our dinner.  As Terry was cooking and stirring the hamburger for our taco dinner, the lights went out.  UhOh!  I went and looked out on the street, but everybody else seemed to have lights.  We tried to call David, but couldn't get through and then we texted him, that we were literally in the dark.  He texted back that he would be here in 3 minutes.  After he arrived and did all that he knew to do, he called an electrician and in about 10 minutes he showed up.  After much flipping of switches in the fuse box and much French waving of hands and talking, all with no results, he called somebody else.  He and David went downstairs and then returned for more flipping of switches and Voila we had lights again.  Apparently there is another box below that has to be dealt with when the lights go out.  Still don't know what made them go out, but we were able to finish cooking our dinner and our taco's were great (from a kit by Old El Paso) would you believe. Picked it up at the grocery store.  HA.

Today is a beautiful day again, but it is supposed to rain for the next two or three, so we decided to go stock up on more produce from the Les Halles produce market.   In Amsterdam the market was just around the corner, but here they are futher away.  As we came back we saw these little carts and decided to invest in this little number to haul our groceries in.  

We stopped for coffee and this little old guy who kinda looks like Santa CLaus went by with his cat on top of a hand operated calliope.

Since this is real time now, you are up to date and I have no more to post.