Lorgues to Home

Day two based in Lorgues started with a stop in Nice. It is a very big city of over 300,000 people and I cant understand why people come here on holiday.  It is very busy and the beach has massive stones on it - not my idea of a holiday!  We did not spend too long in Nice (partly because we were dressed for summer and the weather was quite cool) and left at midday for our next destination of Eze. 

Eze is the complete opposite of Nice - quiet and tranquil and very few tourists.  Eze had beautiful little narrow streets that wound their way through the town.  It didn't take to long to circumnavigate the town as it was rather small. 

Our next stop was Saint-Paul-de-Vence  - very much a tourist trap. We did not like this town as it was over run with tourists and expensive shops! We stayed for about an hour, eating a crepe for lunch as we walked around the town.

The last stop of the day was Tourtour (& a chateau stop to buy wine) which our B&B owner had recommended.  It is on the list of the most beautiful villages in France. One stipulation for making the list is that the villages population must be less than 2000 people - so as you can imagine the village was very cute and tiny.  We had a lovely dinner here to end our day.

The next day we made our way across to Avignon.  Along the way we stopped at Verdon Gorge which had such beautiful blue water.  If we had more time we would have liked to have hired a pedal boat and explore deep into the gorge.

 We then stopped at Moustiers-Sainte-Marie, perhaps my equal top favourite village with Eze.  We spent quite a lot of time at Moustiers - we walked up to the church on top of a hill that looks down on the village.  We had lunch here before moving on. I must mention Moustiers is on the list of most beautiful villages.

Roussillon was the next stop. Again this village made the list for the most beautiful villages of France.  The buildings here are made from the red clay that is found in the surrounding cliffs.  The buildings are painted in very bright colours.  We had an ice cream stop before moving on.

As we had visited so many villages we could not be bothered to get out of the car and visit Gordes.  We went to a scenic stop and took photos of the village.  It looked amazing carved into the rock face.

The last stop before reaching Avignon was Abbaye de Senanque.  In the summer when the lavender is in bloom it makes for a famous photo - but we were there at the wrong time of the year unfortunately. 

I was rather man down for our only day in Avignon.  I should have learnt by now not to eat pizza that had been sitting in a hot car all day.  I was up vomiting during the night so wasn't up to doing much in Avignon.  Our only plan was to visit the Papal Palace which I just managed to make my way through before having to head back to our apartment for rest and recuperation.  I must say chocolate éclairs are magic at making you feel better though. 

On Saturday we spent the day in the car travelling from Avignon all the way up to Epernay, the heart of the Champagne region of France.  We left Avignon 10:00am and arrived in Epernay at 4:30pm.  We went straight to the information centre and they recommended booking cellar tours with the champagne houses. 



















So Easter Sunday was spent tasting champagne and learning how champagne is made.  I am happy as Nathan has decided he likes champagne more than still wine so I hope that means we will be drinking a lot more champagne in our house from now on.

Sadly, the last day of our holiday is upon us.  We had a 3.5hr drive up to Calais to catch our ferry at 6pm.  To draw out the day we made stops along the Somme at WW1 battle sites and at memorials and cemeteries to NZ and Australian soldiers.  Quite fitting that we started our holiday with WW2 sites and finished with WW1 sites.