Little Corner of Ania

Moustiers-Sainte-Marie. Such a lovely little village. Stayed at La Bastide du Paradou, a charming little hotel right below the village.

While some preferred to spend the waiting time playing the DS..

others practised reading..

We stayed a five minute walk from the city centre..

And loved the nature surrounding the village..

Pretty mountaintop! Decided to figure out where this path would take us.. Note – see the golden star on the upper right side of the photo? There’s a legend about it, about a knight wowing to hang a star over the village upon his return from the Crusades.

It lead above the village, past gorgeous nature..

And posh little ladies along the path..

Loved the little chapel, had to light a candle. Quite a bit of tourists around there, I can’t help wonder how much they make on the candles…

The village is to the left on the photo. 

The next morning we took a little tour around the Gorge du Verdon. See the river? You can rent waterboats/bikes and canoes on Lac de Sainte-Croix, a beautiful lake & travel as far as you can get…great fun, tried both canoeing and the waterboats…loved it..didn’t dare bring my camera for that though :)

Majestic views…even got to see some eagles (or vultures)…we’re not quite sure..did take some photos, but w/the 24-70mm they were like, tiny, tiny little spots on the huge canvas that’s the photo =)

There’s the lake by the way..really gorg..

What we did indoors (this hotel did not have pool :/): Playing with the bow, knitting and taking photos of others. Hi myself in the mirror btw!

Right! Moving on – across the lavender fields towards Avignon…well,..with a little detour first..

Mont Ventoux! Felt like that place was the holy grail of cyclists. Had fun guessing how many cyclists we’d pass before getting to the top :p (around 150 I think).

Ice cream. Fairly sure we ate at least one every day.

The view from the top sure was breath-taking.

Although I guess everyone who watches Tour de France already know this.

Avignon in July is wonderful.

There’s a three week long theatre festival going on.

The city was alive with dressed out actors trying to make people come to their show.

So very fun to watch.

This place we chose to eat at however, sucked big time. BIG. TIME. Tasteless, yucky food. Ugh. I didn’t know you could overcook & kill your spaghetti carbonara (which the kiddo had – and which I use to measure a restaurants worth :p), but yeah…it’s possible..It was right in front of the Hotel de Ville in the centre..lots of people all the time.. at least the kids were entertained by their surroundings.

Watching outdoor-ballet in the sunset.

And daydreaming…

Trying to imitate all the showfolks they’ve seen during the day & evening..

Avignon is a lovely little town..

with one of the coolest citywalls around it.

There were quite a few limestone caves around the area, so we decided to go watch one of them. Can’t recall its name though – but we looked through fliers for at least four or five different caves before deciding to go to this one.

Street art! So inspiring.

These ladies – from Japan I believe – put on an awesome show w/their drums one evening. Wish we could have stayed long enough to actually go to their show.

Outside Avignon..

And finally…had to add this one…one..they’re actually gigantic (monstermaster!)….two..they look like owls!! :D Right. Last part coming up – Montpellier!