Holiday France II: the Provence, Cannes and the Camargue

Bonjour mesdames et messieurs, comment ça va?

 

I’ve got a bit more France to share with you. Only because it is so beautiful and romantic and inspiring and I know you love going on a vacation on your computer screen.

So here goes. I left you in rainy middle France and we were heading south in our quest for sun.

We found it….

 

 

In beautiful sunny, laid back Provence. The land of lavender and sunflower fields, yellow houses with terracotta roofs, olive trees and vineyards, sleepy countryside villages and lively cities, history and nature and lots of good food.

 

For a couple of days our base was the small historic town of Vaison-du-Romaine, well you can see where the Romaine in the name came from. They had a giant roman excavation site, as well as a very picturesque medieval center (complete with ruins of a castle on the hill) with the best pizzeria in the region.

This was the view of the castle we saw each time we walked out of our hotel on our way to the pizzeria:

 

 

The little town was buried in the countryside which gave us the perfect excuse to drive around a lot and take frequent stops because of Kodak moments like this:

 

 

Drive around in the Provence and you will undoubtedly see a lot of this:

 

 

Sleepy, cobble stoned villages ….

And we weren’t too far away from this either….

 

 

The most famous (for cyclists) mountain in this region. Mount Ventoux, which means windy mountain. And that it is. But the view on top is beautiful.

After a couple of days in the countryside of the Provence we decided yet another change of scenery was in order.

So we followed in Napoleon’s footsteps and headed even more south, to the coast.

The Côte D’Azur.

 

 

The beach in Cannes. Wowie!

 

 

These little blue chairs you see everywhere in Cannes. They have become so iconic that they are now made into (very expensive, diamond riddled) jewelry. We just used the chairs for what they are intended for: to sit around and watch the beautiful people walk by.

 

 

And beautiful people there were. People with boats and yachts and vessels that can only be described as floating villa’s.

 

 

Blue she was this Côte D’Azur. Blue indeed.

 

 

And even the lemonade stands were in style.

As where the umbrella’s:

 

 

~~~~~~

 

 

Grand old hotels, where a simple cup of tea would set you back about $ 20:

 

 

And grand old men, playing there game of ‘boules’ in the park. Reminding me that as long as you keep playing you never grow old.

 

 

 

From the coast, beaches and Cannes we drove to yet another part of France (still soaking up every bit of sunshine we could find).

On route….

 

 

 

~~~~~~~~~~

 

 

To another special part in the south of France: the Camargue. A wetlands delta famous for its wild horses, pink flamingo’s, beautiful nature, historic towns and the gypsies.

 

 

~~~~~~~

 

~~~~~~~

 

 

It was the last day of our holiday, and it was a beautiful day.

When we drove back the rain and cold greeted us again, so writing these posts was a bit therapeutic for me.

But as it seems the sun has followed us back here, because summer has finally arrived in the low lands.

 

 

I hope you are having a great summer. I am going to squeeze every last bit out of mine.