France Partie Deux — Ranger Holly

When we last spoke, I left you in Bories, where the townspeople used rocks for pillows, rocks for windows and rocks for fashion. Basically, the place where Fred Flintstone took his family on vacation.

Several castles, catapults and churches later we stopped in Auvers where Vincent Van Gogh painted that cafe with the yellow awning and where they still bullfight. They had some superb street art dedicated to Vincent and the bulls. I ordered what must have been my 15th cafe au lait at this point and I tried to pet a young cat… but to no avail this time.

We also went to Renouard which was an extremely cute and quaint village. It looked like a Hollywood movie set of France. I enjoyed it immensely.

Then it was on to Château de Grignan. You know, your run-of-the-mill housing. Now, the history of this château is sort of scandalous, like all châteaus, I might imagine. There was the last count of Grignan who had three wives and the first two died mysteriously one after the other. It sound shady, but their house was beautiful. (Please note, I am not known for my historical accuracy.)

I found a secret passageway in the ballroom that was used to pass food from the kitchen. Me being me, I grabbed the knob and almost broke this 400 year old door, but ah c'est la vie! I put it back after laughing hysterically and no one was the wiser. As far as I know.

This is where I almost caused an international incident. Photo by Ranger Holly.

The next day we took the train to PARIS! Before we left Avignon we went to the farmers market which was way better than any silly American farmers market. They had everything you could imagine in one place: giant wheels of cheese, bolts of fabric, kitchenware, fresh meat, local wine. All of it, everything you could ever need.

When we meet I again...I will tell you about Paris.