Highlights from France

Well our personal whirlwind 16-day Tour De France has reached its end. Well, it really wasn't a tour of all of France, just Provence and Paris. Sherry and I love France and try to get there on a regular basis. However, due to work and other boring issues it has been two and half years since our last trip.

On Thursday, September 10th, we are up and ready for the fun to begin. So with the excitement of children we get the trip started. We then realized there was nothing to get excited about just yet. You see, we were flying to Paris and then taking the train to Avignon. Plus we live north of San Francisco. What does all of this mean. It means our lovely French get-away started with a car trip to the airporter bus, a 1.5-hour bus ride, 2 hours of hanging out at the airport, a 12 hour flight, a 3 hour train ride, and finally a 15-minute cab ride to the hotel in Avignon.

Now that we are in France what's the plan. We are spending the night in Avignon as a transition to Provence where we rented a house for a week in the village of Lourmarin. After Provence, it's back on the train to Paris where we rented an apartment in the 6th Arrondisement. Since this was quite a trip, we will simply provide a few highlights from starting with Avignon.

Avignon at one point in history was a palace for the Pope and much of its history and attractions center on the palace. Since we only spent the one night, and have been to Avignon before, we focused on relaxing, finding a great place for dinner, and adjusting to the time change. The plan was to turn in early but we discovered there was light and slide show shown on the palace walls that only happens once a year so of course we had to see that.

The next day we picked up the rental car and headed for Lourmarin. On the way we pick up a rental bike as well. This is our first visit to this Provencal village and it was gorgeous. We spent the next week exploring town markets, cycling Mont Ventoux, and consuming some of the best food and wine you can imagine. There will be future stories that focus on our adventures such as the market at Isle-sur-le-Sorgue, lunch at Le Bistro du Paradou and the life in Lourmarin.

After a lovely week in Provence we are off to Paris. We have been there numerous times before but it never ceases to amaze us. Quite simply, we love Paris. We have never expereinced any of the stories of rude French and this trip was no different. So for the next 7 days we spent our time relaxing, sight-seeing, eating, drinking, shopping and enjoying all that Paris has to offer. Sadly, the last day arrived so we followed our tradition. The last night of every trip we go to the Trocadero and savor the view of the Eiffel Tower. It is then down to a cafe, with an Eiffel Tower view, for a final glass of champagne.

So there you have it. Just a quick little tease of the stories and adventures to come about this fantastic trip.

Until then . . .

Au revoir!