Paris, Provence and Cote D'Azur, Oct 2015

Day 4 - Sept 30 Left Paris today to head south. Took the TGV to Avignon - and someone poor soul suicided themselves by train - our train was delayed by 2-2.5 hrs. I guess some trains were delayed 4-5 hrs! We picked up our car at Europcar at the TGV and headed for Carcassonne. The car had an integrated GPS - which was great. A note about toll roads - they may cost, but they make your journey much faster. We had the GPS set to avoid tolls and it felt like it was taking forever (not to mention getting tired very quickly of roundabouts every km). I switched it to allow tolls and it shaved about 1h15m off the journey. Nice. Arrived Carcassonne in the evening, walked up to the walled city for a look see then supper and sleep.

Day 5 - Oct 1 - Spent most of the morning and afternoon exploring the old walled town (whatever you would call it). Loved the little cobbled streets, the buildings, the lovely shops and exploring the castle/keep. We didn't need the car here as our airbnb was only a ten min walk up to the old town and about 10-15 to the downtown area. After exploring we went back to the room to relax and drop off our purchases, then headed for the downtown area for a little wandering. Didn't see a whole lot of interest, went back to the room to get my tripod for some night shots of the walled city...noticing lots of lightning in the distance. Get back to the old part, realize I stupidly left my extra batteries in the room and the battery in my camera is flashing (rookie mistake - ughhhh)...then...after getting about 6 shots and the battery dying, it starts to rain. Enough of that!

Day 6 - Oct 2 - we are heading for Provence, but stop in Millau first to admire the viaduct. It is quite lovely for a modern bridge. Here is the kicker - I realize we are going over it twice and tolls have to be paid, but when you leave the viewing area, you can only go one way - to the tolls - 7.50 euro. Then, we had to turn around and go right back thru the tolls - another 7.50 euro. Sigh. But the views were gorgeous over the valley and I wish we could have spent some time exploring down in the Valley, but we wanted to see Pont du Gard (PdG) before heading for Salon and our airbnb. We had visited PdG in 2012 with a day tour, but only had about 40 min to see it. This time, we spent probably 90 min or so, viewing from front and back, mistakenly taking quite a steep path up the hill (with lots of switchbacks) to get to the top part of it - the views were worth it tho! We got there a little later in the day, so the shops/info center were closed - plus side - not a whole lot of people there!

Day 7 - Oct 3 - this was our 'bad' day. Raining. Went to Aix and walked around the open air market - oh - the food - I wish we could have grabbed some meat and cheese (edit - we did pick up some fresh mozzarella to have with supper and some lovely bread), but didn't want it sitting in the car all day...and the fruit and veggies and bread. And the rain dripping down the back of my neck. We popped into a church and it stopped raining a bit. Checked out some of the fountains then the rain started up again. We thought to head to Les Baux, but as we drove, there was some flooding on the sides of the roads and fields. Raining extremely hard so we decided at 4pm to call it a day and head back to our accoms so I could cook supper. The turn off we needed to take was blocked (flooding) so thank goodness for alternative route on the GPS...except...it took us down this narrow back lane past some farmer's fields - where there was water on the road. We didn't know how deep it was, no way to turn around, so we sat indecisively for a minute - then a car came the other way and went thru the water so we could see it wasn't more than a few inches deep. But Provence had nothing compared to Cote D'Azur/Cannes where there was lots of flooding, damage and some deaths, so we counted our blessings that we had gone to Provence first and not Cote.

Cant wait to hear the rest. One of my future trips is to drive from Colmar to Marseille when the lavender is in bloom and visit as much of the small towns in route.

Thanks brushtim - I still have lavender and sunflower season on my bucket list! Love to spend a week each in Provence and Cote D'Azur.

Day 8 - Oct 4 - dawned clear and sunny. Watched the news with our airbnb hostess about the horrid flooding in Cannes. We decided to head for Arles to check out the arena which I actually found interesting just to wander around and got some great architectural shots. We walked a little in the downtown area and also popped in quick to the thermal baths of Constantin as well - it was only a few euro and about 10 min to poke around. Then it was off to Nimes to have lunch in the shadow of that arena...more backstory - our daytrip we did before with a touring company in 2012 also came here (as well as Pont du Gard and Uzes) - but...the driver didn't know that the arena closed to people 20 min after we got there (it was early Oct and the entrance times changed)...so we totally missed going in. This time, we did go in. We did the audio tour as well - but I found myself skipping over parts as it seemed to really go into more detail than I was interested in. Of the two, I likes the Arles arena better...not sure why (maybe I was all 'arena'd out' by the time we got to Nimes). Then we walked to Maison Carree, where we decided to go watch the 20-25 min movie they show. How was it, you ask? Ummmm...the start and end were neat...the middle is all dark and blurry (haha - I had a bit of a snooze - I tend to do that at movies). Walked thru the town to the large lovely park and huffed up the hill to Tour Magne, but didn't go up to the top of it - we were quite winded and didn't want to do more steps. Called it a day.

Day 9 - Oct 5 - today was our factory tour day. On our trip to France in 2010, I discovered L'Occitane products and though I don't go crazy with the stuff, I do indulge in some of it. Before our trip, I booked a tour of their factory in Manosque. It was a little over an hour drive and the tour ran about 1h15m or so. It was interesting...but we did see the production line when most of the workers were at lunch, so not a lot of activity. But it was cool to learn about the products. After, we went to Roussillion - which I'm sure a fellow RS person told me about. Loved it. So picturesque - the reds and ochres made for some great photos. One of my fav spots in Provence (or close enough - technically Languedoc). I would recommend to anyone. After we decided to head for Les Baux...but...we got there after the ruins closed. So we walked around for about 20-30 min - not much going on so we decided to go back in the morning before heading for our next stop.

Day 10 - Oct 6 - we did make it to Les Baux...did the audio tour which was quite interesting - spent a good 2-3 hrs there. Very neat - it looks like in the summer they have demonstrations - catapults, maybe some archery...but nothing going on in Oct. (maybe on the weekends?). Next stop was the Roman ruins at Glanum, just down the road. Hubby read a book where the ruins figured prominently and he wanted to go. It was another interesting stop for about 45 min or so. Then we drove a few hours to Villeneuve-Loubet and our airbnb there...

Day 11 - Oct 7 - I had thought to include Grasse in our visit, but on the advice of our airbnb hosts, we decided not to (nothing more than a perfume factory they said...). They told us a back way to St Paul de Vence from their place - took all of 10 min - another RS help liner suggestion. Ok - this was my favourite spot of all. (Sorry Roussillon, you are in 2nd place). I love taking photos of old doors and little alleyways - this place is chock full of them. We did somehow go the wrong way walking out of the parking garage and ended up viewing SPdV from a hill full of residential homes across the way...oops. But we got sorted out soon enough. Spent a few hours here, then went to Vence (and the great rental car scratching caper in the parking garage - I posted elsewhere about this so won't go into it)...sadly, this really made us not enjoy Vence - sorry Vence, not your fault. Maybe we will visit next time and really enjoy you - oputdoor parking only! We hightailed it out of there and headed for the hills. Hill town to be exact. Our airbnb hosts recommended Gourdon which we went to and spent maybe 30 min walking around - there were some spectacular views on that drive. Went to Antibes but didn't really know what to see there, so we just had supper and went back to our airbnb to lick our (rental car) wounds.

Day 11 - Oct 8 - today was our last day in France. We drove to Monaco and walked around for a few hours there - it felt like summer - the sun was so hot! We went by the casino and to a little Japanese garden, but we didn't really have a plan and I wanted to drop our stuff at our Nice hotel and drop the car so off we went. Found the hotel (the airport was across the road) then to drop off the car - that was an exercise in frustration - missing the turn off, having to circle around, then having to circle around again to drop it in the rental garage - this killed almost 2 frickin hours. We should have dropped it at the airport - too many one way streets and wayyyy too much traffic. We then just wandered along the Promenade, had some late lunch/early supper, wandered the old town - and found the gelato place we ate at last time we were in Nice - soooo good) then back along the Promenade until it started getting dark and we figured which bus would get us back to the hotel. And the traffic on the Promenade was almost at a standstill - it was insane the traffic - we were def walking faster than the cars were moving!

Rest of trip...

We were flying out of Nice to Gatwick today, and boy, did we almost screw up. We walked over to the airport, arriving nice and early (a few hours ahead) and checked in. The lady at the BA desk told us we had to go to section 'B' of the airport. We were stupid. Very stupid. We went and looked and there was passport control which - not being frequent flyers - we thought didn't apply to us since we didn't recall having to go thru passport to leave a country (I'm sure we have - and prob because we were going to the UK - but we were STUPID as I said!). We stayed in the 'A' section of the airport, having breakfast, waiting for the gate to be shown (25 min before departure)...so...then we realized our mistake when we went to go to the gate area. Oh - we have to go thru passport check - OMG - the lineup was huge - at least a few hundred people wending thru the duty free. Heart falls thru the floor - we are going to miss our flight because we were STUPID. An airport guy tries to help us by talking to the passport guys but they weren't having none of it - wait in line. Another airport worker did the same thing with same response - but then she reassured us they would come along the line when final boarding calls were made and get us thru. And we weren't the only ones in that boat - there was a man on the same flight as us, and two ladies trying to catch a flight to LHR who did the same thing we did - not realizing that we were in the wrong section. They only had two officers at passport control as well. So about 10 min before the flight was to leave, the lady came and wrangled us and told us to jump the line - well, that didn't sit well with a British man who got quite irate because he was in line for an hour - go to the back of the line. My stress levels were thru the roof. He moved ahead a few and our sorry group cut in behind. I will never ever make that mistake again. Pay attention to what part of the airport you need to be in! Hard and stressful lesson. On the plus side, even tho BA put hubby and I in seats across the aisle from each other, the middle seats in both our rows were empty. No...we didn't sit beside each other, but did enjoy the extra room between ourselves and the window person! And the pilots even announced that they recognized there were some delays at passport control and that was why the plane was a little late leaving(and we weren't even the last on the flight - I think another dozen people got on the plane after we did).

Arrived at Gatwick no problem. Caught the train to Portsmouth for a sister visit - and I was really dumb here too - I got tickets to the wrong station and wasn't paying attention. So we had to take a quick train back to the proper station. Sigh.

Next day we spent mostly at the Portsmouth Historic Dockyards, visiting the Mary Rose museum (which was very very cool), the HMS Warrior and the HMS Victory, did a 1 hr harbour tour and could have spent more time there...all told about 4 hrs visiting. Then some Cadbury and Thornton's shopping and sister visiting.

Then the next morning to London to stay with our couchsurfing friends (our 5th time - they are more just cs hosts now - they are old friends!). Into London for some wandering and getting some night photos of the Eye and the Tower Bridge - which we got to see 'go up' after this nice gentleman - who had just gotten off a cruise boat told us the boat would be going back under the bridge and it would be going up.

Next day, we took the Thames public transport boat (sorry - I don't know the term for it right now). Went to Greenwich and checked out the Maritime Museum, the gorgeous Painted Hall at the Old Royal Navy College (must see if you go!) and of course the Observatory - liked the audio tour there. Did a little shopping on Shaftesbury Ave and that was the end of the trip! thanks for reading. If you have any more in depth questions about things we did or places we visited, ask away!

Thanks for the great trip report. Provence and Paris are my favorite places!