Before you start reading, a warning. This post is a bit epic–and that’s after I split off half the material and put it into some later posts (coming soon). Our last few weeks were packed. So, feel free to take it in chunks. You’ve been warned.
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We left Vienna on September 20th, and for the first time, we didn’t take a train. We flew. We had though about all sorts of options of how to get to where we were going in France, and they were all just too laborious. So, in the end, we settled on a plane flight. We took a bit of a risk, booking on Wizz Air, a Hungarian company with a reputation for canceled flights and the like. Luckily, our flight was incredibly smooth and after an hour or two of swooping over the Alps, we landed in Nice.
Our goal was eventually to get to the Pyrenees, not for hiking, sadly, but because that’s the home territory of Jessica’s first interview subject for her research work. We determined that the best way for us to see some of the landscape and also get to our destination was to rent a car. This would be our first time driving in Europe. Well, my first time. Jess didn’t drive because it was much more costly to pay for two drivers. Instead, she was the navigator, constantly re-jiggering our route avoiding tolls or avoiding driving too far to avoid tolls or simply trying to find lunch. Overall, the freedom of movement let us see a lot in a short time, but it was also exhausting in a way that train travel isn’t.
For better or worse, we didn’t make much of a plan for our driving trip. When we set out from the Nice airport, we had a very vague google map we’d cobbled together by dropping pins on various towns that we’d read were pretty as well as a few spots we knew we wanted to visit Roman-era ruins or medieval castles. But we had about 30 pins and less than 5 days to get from Nice to our destination–about 10 hours of driving away if we went the fast way.
We did not go the fast way.
From Nice we hopped straight in the car and started heading west. We realized we hadn’t really eaten much, so decided to stop at the closest possible place we’d marked on the map, Mougins. There, we found a cute hilltop village with crazy medieval streets, tons of artists, and a great crepe shop.
From Mougins we headed away from the coast and uphill into the countryside of Provence. We’d read a short blurb about the beautiful Gorge du Verdon, so made our way there, thinking that driving through this canyon might be a nice bit of our afternoon. But, there were some driving adventures before getting there…
First of all, to get up into the hills, I had to make a series of switchbacks up a steep hillside in the midst of a small city. This meant a dozen-or-so hairpin turns around blind corners, as well as occasional very tight squeezes between oncoming traffic on the one side and concrete walls and buildings on the other. In fact, that was definitely a theme in France–lots of driving on roads that were definitely not originally designed for cars, that might be OK for smaller cars, but that were definitely challenging for two lanes of traffic. Sometimes there was signage directing people driving one direction to give way to the other, but other times it was just figure-it-out-yourselves kinda jigsaw puzzles with too many cars trying to fit through too narrow spaces. Regardless, we made it up the hill without hitting any walls, other cars, or even pedestrians. Success!
Once we were driving on the open country roads (roads with center lines clearly dividing two lanes!) we managed to get caught in a brief, but intense, hailstorm. After that passed, we wound our way through the hills to reach Castellane at the entrance to the Gorge du Verdon. We took a few minutes to stretch our legs in this cute (yes–I plan to use that adjective for every town. Because it’s accurate. And I have a limited vocabulary. I’m a History Teacher, after all, not an English Teacher, despite what my credential might say. Deal with it.) little town, we headed into the Gorge…
This is probably the point where I should say how sad I am about not being able to record certain aspects of this trip. First of all, since I was driving, I couldn’t even take pictures out the window, so there’s a ton of gorgeous landscape that I’ll have to remember with my brain rather than having my camera to depend on. And, secondly, I really wish that we’d just had a GoPro or something going the whole time to record the insanity of driving and the number of times Jessica and I either prayed something would go smoothly or laughed about how crazy a situation was.
Anyhow, the Gorge du Verdon made me sad on both those counts…but only sad because it was so incredible. We started by driving through a narrow section where the canyon walls overhung the road which was barely squeezed in between the rock and the river, and then, after a bit of a wrong turn, we headed up to drive along the canyon rim which grew deeper and deeper as we went on. We passed the beautiful tiny medieval town of Trigance, and eventually made a few quick stops at overlooks, but as the sun was fading we had to plow on to reach a place where we’d booked a B+B. Of course, we made that booking before entering the gorge, where we realized both how beautiful it was and how harrowing the driving would be. You see, we were often driving along incredible drop offs around blind corners on roads that were definitely not wide enough for two cars. Luckily, as we’d waited until late in the day on a Monday, traffic was low and we survived, but there was a lot of crossing of fingers and also cackling as we were like, “What’s the next ridiculous thing this road will throw at us?” We eventually ended the drive dropping down to where the gorge empties into Lac de Sainte-Croix and made our way to the tiny town of Valensole where we were informed that, since lavender season was over, there was only one restaurant that would be open in town on a Monday night. (Luckily, it was quite good.)
Waking up in Valensole, we smelled a pungent smoke in the air and learned from our B+B hosts that it was the smell of burning lavender fields–one of the main claims to fame of this area of France. They burn them at this time of year to prepare for the next. After stretching our legs wandering the town in the morning, we hopped back in the car and set out for…well, wherever the next pin on the map was.
Driving from town to town through the Provence countryside was gorgeous. Not as gorgeous as I’m sure it would have been when the lavender was blooming, but still a lovely, hilly area, with a wide variety of vegetation and appearance over the course of the day. This was also the day we really came head-to-head with two of the main driving realities in France:
- (1) Roundabouts. In cities, in towns, and especially in the middle of nowhere, roundabouts are France’s main solution to road intersections. In general, they work great. Occasionally, Jessica and Google fought over whether I should take the second exit or the third exit or whatever, but overall roundabouts are a smooth and easy way to allow traffic to keep flowing as needs shift throughout the day. On two consecutive driving days I counted 53 and 31 roundabouts we used. And, to be clear, those are days with about 4 hours of driving–not a ton. So, in general we could often count on several roundabouts per hour. When there was a stretch of more than 10km without a roundabout, we often laughed about the rarity of the situation.
- (2) Speed Limits. Speed limits were, of course, in kilometers per hour, which is fine as (a) that’s what the car’s speedometer reads, and (b) I’m pretty quick with the math in my head. (Just multiply by 0.62. No problem!) But, the speeds on roads often weren’t clearly posted. Many of the country roads had speed limits of 70kph, others 80, and a bunch were 90kph. But, without clear posting, I often didn’t know what the speed limit was and resorted to guessing based on the drivers around me. Of course, those drivers varied from very cautious to incredibly aggressive, so that wasn’t too helpful. It was also a bit worrisome because France enforces speed limits almost solely through traffic cameras, at least one of which I saw flash at me, and whose presence I noticed more and more throughout the trip. At this point I’m just hoping I don’t get a bill in the mail from the rental company.
- (2b) Not Speed Limits. Even more confusing was the fact that as we entered most towns (sometimes large towns, sometimes a handful of farmhouses), there were fairly clear signs dropping the speed limits to either 50 or 30kph. No problem there, but upon leaving those towns (sometimes on the road we came in on, sometimes after turning at a roundabout), we were often greeted with a sign that simply showed that the speed limit was “no longer” 30. This left me guessing: is it now 70? 80? 90? Hard to know. Which, of course, brings us back to the issue of speed cameras. It also made Jess and I crack up more than once as we continually pointed out how unhelpful it is to simply tell people what the speed limit isn’t rather than just simply putting up a sign saying what the speed limit is.
Moving on from Valensole, our second day was filled with visiting a number of, yes, cute little towns. First up was Saignon. Saignon sits on a crag emerging from a long, rolling hillside. It has a few twisty little streets, a fortified area on a rocky point with a great view of the surrounding area, and a very simple medieval church.
Just 20 minutes down the road, we were in our next destination, Roussillon. Roussillon’s ochre mines made it an important source of pigment for artists for several centuries. Now, the remaining cliffs of ochre make for lovely walking and a gorgeously colorful town. Probably one of the prettiest places we visited.
After a quick bite in Roussillon, we drove just another 15 minutes onwards to Gordes. Gordes is a classic medieval town built on a hilltop with a small castle at its center. We arrived just as the market was shutting down (kicking ourselves that we hadn’t known to come earlier!) and wandered the streets, stairways, and alleys down to the foot of the hill and back up again. The church, reconstructed in the 18th century was simple, but lovely.
From Gordes, another quick drive brought us to the Fontaine-de-Vaucluse, a tiny town built around the source of the Sorgue River which flows out of a cave set in a dramatic cliff wall above the valley. Because the water is emerging directly from the earth here, it is absolutely crystal clear. (It’s also the fifth largest natural spring in the world.) Unfortunately, there was construction happening around the cave entrance, so we couldn’t get too close, but we did have a relaxing walk along the river, some refreshing sorbet, and a visit to the tiny medieval church which contained a Merovingian-era (5th to 8th century) sarcophagus and Carolingian (8th to 9th century) decorations remaining on parts of the walls.
One more quick hop in the car brought us to our final stop for the day, L’isle-sur-la-Sorgue, where the Sorgue River (see above), divides into a number of narrow channels, creating an “island” in the middle where the heart of this old city lies. The canals are lovely, and along one side are largely lined with restaurants. Inside the old town, the twisty streets criss-cross at odd angles and an occasional miniature canal brings a different feel to it than some of the other towns we had visited. Overall, a lovely stop (despite a few very loud ducks).
Also, probably the coolest thing in L’isle-sur-la-Sorgue were the bathroom tiles in our hotel room. OK, they weren’t all that amazing, but I loved that they weren’t just basic, they weren’t repeating, and one of them was clearly inspired by Space Invaders. (Does anyone else remember that old Atari game?)
After wandering L’isle-sur-la-Sorgue again in the morning, we moved on to a few more towns, but with some bigger destinations in mind. As with the rest of our trip, while we made an enormous number of absolutely gorgeous and fascinating stops, we also passed through or near just as many places where we said, “I wish we had time to stop here!” Everything we did was wonderful, but driving past all the rest made us realize just how much more wonderfulness there is to see…
Anyhow, our first destination the next day was Eygalières, a small town where we wandered up an old medieval road to hilltop with a ruined chapel and a lovely view.
From Eygalières, we zipped down to Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, home to a thriving Wednesday market and the former stomping grounds of one of my work and union buddies from Santa Cruz. We wandered the market for about an hour, passing stalls selling everything from lavendar and soap to a wide variety of produce…and, oddly, lots of nougat (which seems to be a big thing here for some reason). The area around the market were filled with performers and cafes, and where it wasn’t packed with people, we could see that the alleys were paved with lovely smooth white tiles, creating a light and airy quality to the town that some of the heavier stone-based medieval towns lacked.
Our last “little” stop of the day was Les Baux-de-Provence, another hilltop medieval town with narrow stone streets and a ruined castle at the top of the hill. Les Baux means “the rocks,” which makes some sense. The views from there were stunning, but we didn’t have quite enough time to or energy to visit the castle because we knew we had one more “big” stop for the day…
…Avignon. Avignon is a small city with a bunch of fascinating history. It sits on the east side of the Rhône River, and for a long time that meant it was just over the border from France in some territory that was “not France,” but varied as to who controlled it at different points in history. Most importantly, in the 1300s, a series of popes established Avignon as the seat from which they ruled rather than Rome. Eventually, this led to a schism where there were briefly two, then three people who proclaimed they were the proper pope. More significantly, for us, they left behind a giant “Palais des Papes” (Palace of the Popes). Parts of it were highly decorated (though, sadly, in some of the most beautifully-preserved and painted rooms cameras were banned), but other parts were completely empty…
…to fill the void of the empty spaces, the Palais employed a special form of audioguide, the “HistoPad.” This was basically an iPad that was supposed to be tracking our location, but often got confused. Sometimes it didn’t know what floor of the building we were on. In some rooms it just wouldn’t start playing, etc. Mostly, we fought with them enough to get them to work. And the reason behind the histopad was to “fill” the empty space with a virtual-reality-like image of what the space would have looked like 700 years earlier. Nice idea. Mediocre implementation.
After visiting the Palais des Papes, we walked around the city a bit. We saw the city walls, numerous lovely plazas, and enjoyed the views across the river from the Jardin des Doms. From there we could see the castle that had been built to defend the once-upon-a-time French border here, as well as Le Pont Saint Benezet, a medieval bridge that was partially washed away in a flood.
Finally, we were a bit confused in Avignon because there were numerous windows decorated like this. No idea why.
For our next day, we went even further back in history, visiting just a few of the most famous Roman sites in southern France. (There’s more! I wanna go back!) We left Avignon early enough that we were second in line when the parking lot opened at the Pont du Gard. For those who aren’t familiar with it, it’s one of the most famous and largest aqueducts of the Roman Empire. It’s particularly known for the size of the arches, not to mention that it stood the test of time. There was a great museum there that detailed how and why the aqueduct was constructed, and after visiting we spent a good long time taking the structure in from every possible angle. A few centuries ago, the lower level of the bridge was extended to allow a small road to cross the river, so we took that to visit the opposite bank and go down underneath the base of the aqueduct. Overall, it was fascinating and beautiful, as expected.
Over its 50km length, the aqueduct descends only 17 meters, a very subtle gradient for such ancient architects to achieve. Besides the Pont du Gard section, the aqueduct employs a number of tunnels and generally wends its way across the hillsides of the area to finally descend into Nîmes, which just happened to be our next destination.
Nîmes is renowned for its well preserved Roman arena as well as several other remaining structures which are augmented by the fabulous Musée de la Romanité. We started there where we were blown away by the amazing mosaics. I also read some fascinating descriptions of the various ways that glass was produced using a series of processes spanning the length of the Roman Empire.
One of the silliest parts of the museum was an exhibit with a giant mirror that showed whoever was standing in front of it trying on various types of clothing and hairstyles from the Roman era. You can tell it made Jess laugh, at least…
From there we took an audio tour of the arena which included quite detailed descriptions of the different types of gladiators and how they matched up against others based on weaponry and armor as well as narrating the other types of events that would be held there and how the crowds would react at various times. (Evidently people were not as bloodthirsty as the movies make them out to be.) The best view of the arena was actually from the Museum, which had a cool, eye-shaped opening through which you could see across the street.
We also tried to go to the Maison Carrée (“square house”), a Roman temple, but were only able to see the outside, since they were limiting visitors inside and we were on a bit of a tight schedule. But, the outside was pretty stunning, so we weren’t too disappointed.
To round off our whirlwind westward wandering, we whizzed onwards to Carcassonne, the famous walled medieval village whose preservation and restoration has inspred one of the most famous “euro”-style board games on the planet (on sale at the castle there, as well as a game store near you). It’s not my favorite game, but it’s quite fun and definitely was an early hit in helping popularize the types of games I like to play, so going to see this fabled town was about as close as I’ll ever get to a pilgirmage.
We spent the night in a hotel across the street from the outer walls of the city and spent that evening and the next morning wandering pretty much every inch of available ground there. We walked between the outer and inner walls. We saw almost every street inside the city walls. We took an audio-guided tour of the castle within the city that also took us across the upper ramparts. We learned about the various defensive structures, the constuction of hoardings to protect archers, the difference between the older U-shaped Roman-era towers and the “newer” rounder medieval ones, and much more. Here’s just a few of my favorite photos of the walls and the castle (where I took way too many because it’s all so lovely…)
We also were quite stunned by the lovely church inside the city walls, the Basilique Saint Nazaire, which also features some incredibly goofy faces along the outside walls.
Overall, Carcassonne is a beautifully preserved specimen of medieval defensive architecture. It’s very toursity, and willing to lean into that quite a bit, as evidenced by the stylized manner of spelling out “C A R C A S S O N E” along one street leading up to the walled city, but it’s well worth the visit if you don’t mind dealing with some of the kitsch and a wide array of visitors.
So, that’s it for part one of Southern France. Lots of cute medieval towns, some Roman ruins. A castle or two. Some wandery driving with vague signage. Lots of good times.
From there it was on to the Pyrenees where Jess would begin her research work in earnest. More on that soon…
Gabe, I truly love reading your posts. The pictures are phenomenal, and the descriptions are riveting. You make me feel as though I am there. ( And your humor is very much appreciated). I sincerely hope to hear more in person someday, and I’m one who would enjoy seeing ALL the pictures) Admittedly, my hands are a bit moist while seeing the cliffs and reading about the driving. Be safe, keep posting, and enjoy the adventures.
Trying to be safe, but while still being open to adventure. Glad you’re enjoying these!
Your photo are gorgeous, Gabe. What a wonderful whirlwind tour of that part of France! Love seeing them and enjoying both your writing about your travels, and a vicarious pleasure for me. Looking forward to more.❤️
Wow!!!!!! I HAVE to get to Nimes now, and wander like you did around the south of France. Holy cow it’s so beautiful. Thanks so much for doing all this work to share all these amazing photos and your journey.
Nimes was great. There was a lot more there we didn’t have time for. I really wanted to go to Orange and Arles too (as far as Roman sites are concerned), but we just didn’t have time. Not to mention a million other things there wasn’t time for. Glad you like those!
So much to digest – had to do it in several readings. Great stuff !!!