Trips,Travels and Vacations: Living like a local and the small villages

Saturday morning is the big market in Arles and it is big and it is crowded. As we head out with our straw market basket we are reminded we live near little Algeria in Arles. This is the Arab market and it even has hot tea being served and Arabic music playing. It is like being in North Africa and I expect a call to prayer at any moment. The stuff they have here is unbelievable and pictures don't begin to show it. There are the gaudiest belts, gaudiest jewelry, and clothes, dripping with sequins and bright colors for sale. Harem pants and head scarves of all kinds plus full cover up robes. Muslim women in full gear wander and chat in French. We really enjoyed it and then gradually as we walked around the market further south, the style changed and the shabby chic of the French showed up, followed by the food market. Now we are cooking. We fill our basket with poulet roti and pommes de terre, cooked in the drippings, fresh strawberries to die for and one perfect melon. Giant paella pans bubble and scent the air with saffron. It is crowded and sublime. Central Market cannot match this. The crowd is a cross section of society from the chic to the not so chic. A woman in Louis Vuitton pumps might well be buying a pair of 10 eu boots, but they are stylish. This is the most wonderful market I have ever visited. We wander off for a coffee when we cannot push our way through the crowd any more and find a tiny expresso bar in a garden painted by Van Gogh.

The locals usually have wheeled shopping bags and this is where they buy their stuff. From clothes to mussels to fruit and vegetables.

See how easy it is to find Jon. He is the tallest and the yellow jacket does the trick. I never lose him.

Paella

Can you smell this? Then look at the garlic in the next stall.

After the crowds we headed for the country and St Remy and Glanum. Glanum is a ruin of a Roman town and it is very fun to visit because it is so uncrowded and since we have years of visiting the more well preserved but equally crowded sites we use imagination as a paint brush to turn rock and ruin into a vibrant Roman city of 2000 years ago in our minds. The air is sweet with wild rosemary, plus next door is the hospital where Van Gogh was kept for a year and where he produced some of his most memorable works. It may well have been his most prolific period but considering he gave his doctor a portrait and the dr used it to plug a hole in his chicken coop, I don't think they valued him at the time. Not one of his works is in Provence.

Market day is crowded and this guy just pulled up and parked on an island in the middle of a busy street.

Not to be outdone by these cars on a median in a busy highway. Oh well.

Glanum and perfectly preserved mausoleum.

Triumphal arch.

The stones in the foreground are the Main Street. Caesar may well have put his sandals on these stones.

The temple of the twins

Vincent

Jon and Vince

Cloister under VVG's window.

Wannabe's people the gardens......

Home again and the fruits of our market morning are waiting for us.

Incredible dinner of fresh salad and chicken roti with roasted potatoes. Great food! great food! great food!

Sunday is The Luberon, starting in Roussillon and then working back towards Avignon. Narrow country roads with a few hair raising hills thrown in. Oh thank heavens for automatic transmissions. One corner was so blind and the traffic so fast I got out of the car and checked the road and then jumped in as he was cruising the corner. It was cool and scenic and then there are the narrow roads with no shoulders and deep ditches backed up with stone walls. A slight drop of a wheel off the highway and there is a world of trouble waiting. Keeps the driver on alert. All in all it is an adventure and drop dead gorgous. Roussillon started the day with coffee and croissant on a tiny balcony. The views were unbelievable. The driver gets an expresso and chocolate croissant as a reward.

We are early and it is a bit chilly but with this view inside is not an option.

This is heavenly hot coffee and fresh croissants.

This village is famous as the center of ocher production hence the wonderful color of the houses, the cliffs,the soil. All shades of red and orange.

We are finally getting used to the idea we don't have to rush around every day because we have enough time to see everything we wish to see. So we head back home early and as usual go for a long walk in the late afternoon. It is 72 degrees and the weather is perfect. We are feeling very at home as we stop at our favorite grocery for paper towels and grab a fresh baguette that is so hot I can barely hold it plus so good we eat it before it cools. .

HOME (neighbors washed today)

Street in front where we have to find a spot to squeeze our car into everyday. Jon is getting really good at parking but he swears he is not coming back to Europe without bringing his own parking spot.

Street scenes