Gorges

On Sunday, we left Grasse and traveled up a winding mountain road to Castellane, a very pretty little town where we stopped for lunch. It had a church high, high above it on a cliff, which we could see long before we got there; Eddie said "Bing! Bing!" when he saw the bell tower. The restaurants were all packed, even in this small town in rather remote mountains: it's amazing how many people are in Provence now! Every little village is having a festival, and is jammed, and on the roads between we saw hundreds of swimmers, climbers, and hikers. Where do they all come from?

We ate outside, as usual, in front of a church with a depiction of Jesus over the door that looked a little like Eddie's grandpa Steve when he was younger. Eddie tried a bunch of weird French foods and seemed to like them.

From Castellane we descended into the gorges of Verdon, a series of canyons whose "Grand Canyon" (that's French for "grand canyon") is second only to THE Grand Canyon in size and depth. It was pretty spectacular, but Eddie slept through it. We got to the "Point Sublime" (that's French for "sublime point") which was just breathtaking; then we passed high over a sparkling blue lake. Eddie woke up then, as we were about to leave the spectacular gorges. We passed through Moustiers-Sainte-Marie, which is apparently very cute, but we didn't stop because all this mountain driving is more exciting than the freeway, but also much slower, and we were worried about Eddie's bedtime. We did stop in a little town called Riez, which was ALSO having a festival, dedicated to wheat! Eddie was fascinated by a marching band which was led by a little girl. We heard it at first from afar making a buzzing kind of sound-like kazoos-and close up we saw that the instruments were all decorated like bees or other insects; it was a buzzing band of bees! There was a big line of kiosks selling all kinds of clothes and jewelry. As we walked through, Eddie tried to slyly slip a shiny silver watch strap (or something) off a table, but the vendor saw him. What a rascal! There were also old people dressed up like peasants (or maybe they just dress like that) showing off wool carders, smoking renderers, and other farm implements. Eddie was fascinated by some chickens-a rooster and two hens-in a cage. Then he got to watch a big group of farmers dancing while his parents got some ice cream. As we left town, we saw that there was a kind of fairground outside town with even more stuff going on, in a big field empty except for three tall columns remaining from a Roman temple. The thing is, this was a tiny little place, which in the States would just be a depressing place to get gas.

Driving along from there, we saw a few fields of lavender, and finally left the mountainous region, crossing the Durance river. We finally got to our hotel in Avignon, out of gas (American credit cards are too primitive to work in the gas stations; European cards have all had smart chips for years. And of course the stations are unmanned on Sunday, so they can't take cash) and a little late for Eddie's bedtime. So we had dinner at the hotel cafe, which was awful, and turned in.