Moments in Time Travel

TUESDAY APRIL 9, 2024 Well, today is the day of our departure. It’s raining. France is crying that we are leaving. The forecast was rain for the morning, so we brought most of our luggage to the car last night to avoid walking all our bags down the block in the rain.  We’re sorry to leave Avignon, but ready to go home.  Construction at the Marseille Airport made finding our gate a bit of a challenge. This is a good reason to leave early. Jeff and Steve returned the car there at the airport. Even though it was mud streaked and pouring, the woman picked up on the damage to the left front bumper from our tight squeeze through that archway!  The flight to Paris was a blur, as I fell asleep almost the minute I buckled my seat belt. I’m giving credit to my new neck pillow I bought, Wander +. It had been flooding my Instagram feed. Not the fact that I didn’t sleep a wink the night before.  We were separated from Susie and Jeff when we landed in Paris. Susie had to wait on b...

 MONDAY, APRIL 8, 2024 Steve and Jeff went down the block to their favorite barista, Roman, at Goeland. They said their goodbyes since we are leaving early tomorrow morning. Well today was supposed to be a do nothing but pack day…but, there was an area of Provence that we didn’t visit. Steve and I always get a calendar from where we have visited. When we got the calendar they had 12 places of interest. We had gone to all but 2. One was Verdon Gorge, The Grand Canon of Provence, it’s way north of where we were in St. Paul de Vence. The other was Abbey de Senanque with beautiful lavender fields. The Abbey is outside Gordes where we had a great lunch. It’s hard to find things open on Mondays so we said let’s go there for lunch and do a drive by of the lavender fields. We had a nice leisurely lunch at The Outsider in Gordes. Here the time is on pause…Welcome Then we drove on a scenic drive to the Abbey. It was beautiful. The fields are planted perfectly straight. They don’t start bloom...

 SUNDAY APRIL 7, 2024 Quiet day in Avignon. We walked to town to pick up a few things. Back to our house reading, writing. Organizing our things to get ready to leave. 😢 We read, napped and worked on doing nothing for our last few days in Avignon. We have dinner plans tonight at Coin Cache. Translated it mean Hidden Corner. We have been trying to get a reservation there for a few weeks. Our timing didn’t work with theirs. Mike, Lisa, and Julie said it was a favorite of theirs. Finally the stars aligned and tonight is the night. It’s a balmy night, warm with a hint of dampness. The walk was an easy one. Jeff who usually has a map in his hands said ok you find the way to the restaurant. I knew it was behind L’Epicerie, which I easily knew my way. Steve who for all his wonderful and many talents has no sense of direction. When we got to L’Epicerie I said we go left. He said no it’s right. It reminded me of when my Long Island boy was transplanted to NJ after we got married. I had to ...

 SATURDAY APRIL 6, 2024 Today Jeff’s cousin Tim Case and his friend Lisa came to Avignon from Béziers. He has found his dream apartment and hopes to close in 3 months. We got tickets to the Pope’s Palace. They came in on a 9:00 train. Steve and Jeff met them at the train station. We walked up to the Pope’s Palace Museum. Upon entrance they hand you an iPad type device to be used to scan  when entering each room. The room is then transformed into what they think the room looked like in 1344. Tim’s apartment has beautiful ceilings. It’s painted between the rafters. They believe it was from the 1300s. They think they were covered for centuries. A recent renovation uncovered the painted ceiling. Well, when we lifted our device in the Pope’s Palace, the ceiling was similar to Tim’s.                                         Tim’s ceiling…   Pope’s Palace ceiling  We walk...

 FRIDAY APRIL 5, 2024 Today we are going to our friend Johan’s country house for a rustic barbecue. It is in Vison, about an hour north of Avignon. We picked him up at his house and started on our way to Visan. It’s a beautiful ride where we passed vineyards, tulip farms, canola fields, and truffle forests.  Our first stop was Tulette We went into Chez George Boucherie (butcher.) for the meat for our bbq. It was so different from our butcher in the US. Ours is in the supermarket! We bought quail, sausage and patè. There was a Ford Mustang parked on the street. Both Steve and Johan had to have a picture. Next we went to the bakery for dessert. We picked up bread and tarts, eclairs. Next stop was the wine store.  Finally we got to Johan’s home. It has been in his family for 3 generations. His great grandfather remembers a day in May of 1944 when American soldiers camped out in the field across the way and they gave him gum. The house is made of stone. It’s very charming ins...