A weekend in Provence

Last year, a bunch of Mathilde's colleagues rented a villa near Montpellier for a week - I joined up for the fun for a couple of days. We decided to redo the same thing this year - only due to various "scheduling issues" we ended up doing a long weekend instead (I joined for a "normal weekend" only). Mathilde had booked a nice-seeming villa in the midst of Provence, near Saint-Remy. And it was indeed quite the ideal Provencal villa. A traditional house, nice garden, a swimming pool - pretty much just what we needed.

So I joined the crowd (made up of Julie, Aurelien, Antoine, Claire, their kids as well as Sarah - the usual CIV crowd, then!) on Friday evening, just in time for aperitif. After a few drinks, and dinner, it was party games time! I'd borrowed a game called Declick from work - just the perfect game for an occasion like this (deceptively simple, yet devilishly difficult after a few drinks - one quite simply has to indicate whether as quickly as possible whether an affirmation written on a card is true or false by hitting down one hand - one with "true" written on it and one with "false" written" on it).

The next day, we got up not too early after a good night's sleep (well, for me anyway, apparently my snoring kept a few individuals awake unfortunately...). After a refreshing swim in the pool, it was time to drop off Sarah in nearby Avignon. We decided to take the opportunity to lunch there and have a walk around. We found a nice pizzeria for lunch - just perfect for a big group like us.

Our appetites sated, we headed off to check out Avignon. Avignon is your typical Provencal old town - picturesque, if a bit touristy. The main sight is, of course, Le Palais des Papes - the papal residence during 6 popes' reign during the 14th century. It's certainly an imposing building seen from the outside - but the interior (which we visited last time we came) is rather bare - all the furniture has been removed. After checking out the other main attraction of Avignon - le Pont d'Avignon (yep, a bridge), we said our good-byes to Sarah and headed on.

Our next stop on our mini-tourist itinerary was Les Baux-de-Provence - one of the oldest populated sites of Provence - today a ridiculously picturesque village, in what must be one of the most beautiful sites in France (sitting on top of its craggy hilltop, surrounded by an almost lunar landscape.

We decided to visit one of the most peculiar tourist sights in Provence -  Carrières de Lumières. It's basically a disused quarry, long abandoned, that was converted into a kind of cultural site by, amongst others, Jean Cocteau (who shot his film Orphee here). It's basically an audio-visual show where some images/video clips are projected on the rocky interior of the quarry. Quite unique - we were treated to some art from Klimt, as well as "invisible cities" - some images depicting some sort of urban utopia ? Very fascinating stuff!

The evening turned out more or less as the Friday night - dinner followed by partying!

The next day, 'twas sadly time to leave the villa, and head back towards the Cote d'Azur. Our departure was not without drama - Aurelien's car had a puncture (which we were eventually able to mend using some "magic puncture-fixing spray" after realizing the spare wheel didn't fit!), Claire & Antoine were stopped by the cops, and we had lunch at McDonald's (the last one was admittedly the least dramatic even of the three!).

Anyway, no big harm was done, and everybody got back home safe, after a great weekend!