Encore Provence

A very enjoyable day today.  A latish start and a lovely long Skype with Bella and Nic in Melbourne.

We headed our little car northwards to Sisteron, about 30 minutes away from our home-exchange. It includes a 13th century citadel sitting astride a spiny ridge behind the medieval town. After a rather delicious Vietnamese meal for lunch (wonderful to have Asian food again) we enjoyed spending a few hours clambering around the fort/citadel/multiple passages and taking in the amazing views. 

We have taken to having a short sit-down meal for lunch over the last few days and just making up a salad here for dinner at night. It is a bit tricky sharing the kitchen but we must admit that Edith is trying hard to make us welcome. She produced a large bottle of local olive oil and package of superb local chocolates for us today (as presents for us to take back to Ceret) and a family BBQ is planned for tomorrow night. It isn't turning out too bad sharing the house. We combined our salads and pizzas to have a family meal again tonight.

Observations:

1. We often get a few strange looks at our footwear when we are climbing up stairs/ramps to random churches, citadels or similar monuments around about. Yesterday, an old French guy pointed out John's jandals to one of his mates. John quickly replied "C'est normale pour Néo-Zélandais" and received hearty chuckles in return.

2. When you greet other adults you plant one kiss on each cheek, but only kiss one cheek for small children.

3. Either there are fewer dogs in Provence than down Ceret way or they are much better controlled judging by the fewer reminders left sitting on the footpaths. However there are more cats.

4. We still can't get our heads around closure times at 12pm - 2pm, especially when it is tourist information offices.

5. Don't ever ask for a 'grande biere' unless you are certain of its size as you may end up paying about E12 for 1 litre handle.

6. You have to get used to driving on narrow badly sealed roads pretty quickly, and be able to pull your sides in and hold your breath when large oncoming vehicles approach, or just your typical French driver who is way over the centreline, but will ease back at the very last second.

7. French glace (ice-cream) is delicious.

8. Rural villas, complete with cyprus trees, swimming pools, large fields and gated entrances are to die for.

Today we wanted to re-visit Moustiers-Ste-Marie. We stayed there for a night after our trip through the Verdon Gorge four years ago. It is only about an hour's drive from here, so on the way we called in at Riez, a seriously old (as in Roman) town. We wandered around, discovering a Roman colonnade, really old residential streets, hotels hundreds of years old and a number of the communal washing basins that are typical in towns around here. The entire place just oozes heritage, as well as many wobbly faced buildings.

Onwards to Moustiers and a great view of it as we approached. It's a little hillside village, with a walk up to a lovely church in a nook higher up. It looked just like we remembered it. 

Climbed up to the church (in kiwi tramping boots i.e. jandals again) and back down in search of a beer at the same bar we had one in four years ago. Alas, the bar wasn't open. We were so looking forward to sitting in the same spot, overlooking the valley, beer or pastis in hand, soaking up the sun. Plan B = have a beer at a nearby cafe, but alas, it was just closing its doors, between 3pm and 5pm. We made do with Plan C = a beer and pastis at an eatery closer to the carpark but it wasn't the same! The temperature had reached 29 degrees as forecast so it was pretty hot to be wandering around for hours. A great village, very touristy but not too crowded at this time of the year.

We arrived home to have a quick dip in the pool though the sun had gone off its small terrace by 5pm. The water temperature is around 30 degrees and it was actually a bit too warm. When I jumped in Jean's pool at her place in Le Thoronet it was closer to 20 degrees, and it was actually much more refreshing once you had lost your goosepimples.

We are deep in lavender country here. This is a young field where the plants haven't yet joined up into rows...

Dinner was a very odd affair. Edith said we were having a BBQ when her son Yann arrived home from university for the weekend. By 9pm Yann, Eric (other son) and mother had started eating before we got to the table. We had put some sausages on the BBQ for us and shared some BBQed courgettes with them but we felt pretty strange sitting at the table with them all yakking away. We had bought fancy ice-cream which everyone shared for dinner. That experience pretty much was the last straw for us, dealing with a very peculiar home-exchange. We googled places to head to the next day and ended up booking a hotel in Orange for the next two nights.