France 2009

France: May 4 – May 18, 2009

My parents and I traveled to France to visit/ bring home my sister, Kathleen, at the end of her term as an English assistant in Vienne. We spent the first few days near Vienne and enjoyed exploring the city and surrounding areas as well as meeting some of her colleagues and students.


On our first full day in France, we went for a hike in Sainte Croix en Jarez, not too far from Vienne. I couldn’t help but take a picture of this stereotypical house in the French countryside!

A view from the hike…  I found that the landscape, farmland for centuries, was very appealing. We did find that the French approach to hiking is slightly different from the American idea: the trails weren’t as established, and often you had a to walk a bit along the road before turning onto another unmarked trail. I highly recommend keeping the guidebook out and open while walking!

Another landscape view!

Anytime I get a photo of Dad, it’s a pretty good cause for celebration. He’s almost smiling, too!

The starting/ending point for the hike is this old monastery-turned village. During the French Revolution, the building was partitioned as housing and stores, rather than being destroyed. People still live and work there, although part of it remains as a museum.

After hiking, we had a bit of time to visit the city of Vienne. This is a view of the Roman theater, taken from above. The theater is in pretty good condition and is still used for outdoor events, including a huge jazz festival that will be taking place at the end of June/beginning of July.

We also had a good view of the city from way up high…

Mom in the theater.

Our travels took us to La Fontaine de Vaucluse, which is where the river sort of bubbles up from the mountains. It was super-touristy, but kind of a neat phenomenon.

This is the actual start of the river – very pretty!

Another stop we made that day was in Gordes, a very old and beautiful village built into the hill. The construction is largely made of stones without mortar.

 

Another view of Gordes.

This was a highlight of the trip – the Pont du Gard. It’s a Roman ruin, including footbridge and aqueduct, from sometime between 19 BC and 50 AD. It’s quite impressive and a side bridge is available so you can walk across. We also had a good time just walking around the site and along the river (and watching kayakers goofing around in the water!).

From the Pont du Gard, we traveled to Villeneuve Lez Avignon, which is across the river from Avignon. One place we visited there was the monastery, a calm spot where Dad took this photo.

After a few days in Monteux, where we did lots of visiting with Olivia and Amer and a bit of hiking/traveling, we made our way toward Buissard, in the Hautes Alpes region. Along the way, we did a hike along the Mur de la Peste. In the 1720s, they built a wall in an effort to stop the spread of a plague. I’m not sure how effective the wall was, but it’s pretty impressive that the hastily erected wall still stands in some places.

The doctors wore these costumes in order to avoid getting the plague. We think that the long nose full of perfume was probably a good idea, since the sick people probably smelled pretty awful. We’re not so sure about the effectiveness of the costume, but we do suggest resurrecting it.

In the mountains! We only had one good day for hiking, but we had a good time and enjoyed our visit.

A bouquetin! These animals are “hyper-docile” (super-calm), but we did see a little head butting demonstration. This particular animal was just sitting near the trail. A kid from a school group out for a hike explained to us that the bouquetin was sick.

When the weather didn’t work out for hiking, we got out and did shorter walks and explored the town of Embrun a bit. This picture of my parents looks down on the dammed river.

After our stay in the mountains, we went North, to Jouy, where our former French School teachers (Catherine and Jean-Philippe) live. We stayed with them and visited the cathedral at Chartres.

Catherine!

Jean-Philippe!