From Paris to Avignon…a smooth fast ride in a coach with plenty of legroom, a built in footrest for short people, the perfect angle of recline in the seat, and big windows to see beautiful bright green hills punctuated by small villages with highly pitched stone roofed houses and always a church in the center; small forests of indistinct trees still leafless even in late March; John Deere green tractors, recently tilled plots and silver silos; giant modern windmills generating clean power; all under Robin’s egg blue skies with soft fluffy clouds.
Closer to Avignon the hills are bigger; there are mountains in the close distance, some covered with snow; there is less room between houses and more roads; the same vibrant green fields, woven with pink blossomed orchards and white blossomed orchards Ten minutes out there are small factories, sawmills, a nuclear power plant, more windmills, a big river, small vineyards, bigger highways and plane trees lining the roads.
Allan and I went to purchase our return ticket from Avignon to Paris and were told there is a train workers strike on April 4 (our departure date) so, instead, we rented a car for the 7 hour drive from Avignon to Paris. I think I’m for whatever the train workers need; it will be a long tiring drive.
Our villa in Maussane des Alpilles is luxurious and gorgeous. These three photographs are of the living room (feels like a garden because of the 15’x15′ windows on either side); the pool area and one of the outdoor rooms (there are at least 4 of these). The weather here is much milder than Paris and the sun is (sort of) shining. Before dinner we walked through the small village looking for a Nespresso machine (no success). We stopped about halfway back to watch two groups of people playing pétanque and one group invited us to play with them. We did and it was such fun! We are by no means good enough to play with them but we weren’t embarrassed and can safely say we’ve played Petanque! We continued our walk and returned here for wine and cheese. Dinner was at Le Bistro du Paradou about 4 minutes by car from this villa. There is one menu and one serving each night with an endless bottle of wine on each table. Tonight’s menu was a choice of escargot in butter or giant asparagus in a scrumptious olive oil mixture, roasted chicken with mashed potatoes and vegetables, a grand cheese tray and optional dessert (Connie and I had creme brûlée, Allan had café ice cream and Clay has pistachio ice cream). It was an interesting way to run a restaurant, but quite successful and we enjoyed it.
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