France Partie Un — Ranger Holly

I see London, I see France… just kidding. So cliché!

Anyway, in MARCH I went to France and among the other things that I have been doing, I have been struggling to put the experience into words. Rest assured, I am not short of words. No, I have too many words and I do not want to bore my vast audience to tears here.

For starters, I am extremely lucky and grateful that I have two friends who are living abroad for a year and invited me to visit them in France where they were house sitting an adorable bed and breakfast.

I found a ticket, packed my little bags and kissed Buttercup goodbye on March 24. I took the train from San Diego to LAX (Los Angeles International Airport), which was rather smooth, I only had to dodge one creepy weirdo. Which for a 5 a.m. train ride, I would say is pretty good!

After I landed in Paris, I took the train to Avignon in Provence. It was a tad confusing at first and after a 14-hour flight, I was a bit discombobulated but I found my train and easily arrived in Avignon where I met up with my lovely hosts Dan and Jane!

I'm not going to cover everything we did but I am going to cover a lot of it. We did A TON!

Some Highlights

1. Pont Du Gard - an ancient Roman aqueduct that is in pretty fine shape for its age.

Pont Du Gard an ancient Roman aqueduct in Vers-Pont-du-Gard in southern France. Photo by Ranger Holly.

2. Palais de Papes - translation: the Pope's house. When the Pope had to flee the fall of Rome, he came to this little place in Provence.

Inside the Palais de Papes. He liked high ceilings, clearly. Photo by Ranger Holly.

3. Carousels are everywhere - I love that we saw a carousel almost every day. France is a whimsical land.

Carousel near the Palais de Papes in Avignon. Photo by Ranger Holly.

4. Beautiful churches - we stopped into a lot of beautiful churches. I love seeing houses of worship in other countries. I imagine how many centuries of people have walked in the doors. At all of the churches we went to the threshold was worn down from the many people who passed through.

The entrance to this church was insanely beautiful and ornate. Love. Photo by Ranger Holly.

5. Village des Bories - this village was basically a rock town. Not a town that was very into rock music, but a town where everything was made of rocks and it made me so grateful that I was not born into that time and place.

The pillows were probably also made of rocks. This had to be a very uncomfortable way of life. Photo by Ranger Holly.

Stay tuned for at least two more parts of this series. I told you we did a lot of things in France...