Montpellier, Bridges & Beyond: Southern France (Provence)

***WARNING: If you don't like lots of pictures of bridges and the like, this post is not for you.***

Departing from Avignon, it was a short distance to Montpellier, but before our arrival there, we wanted to see a few things along the way.

The first stop was Matt's choice, to Pont du Gard, which is the highest Roman aqueduct bridge and one of the best preserved. They made the thing in the 1st century and it's still hanging in there!

Here I am walking up to it after we went through the museum. The whole thing is cool because when you drive in, your parking lot ticket is the ticket to everything. Too bad we didn't have a fuller car, it would have been even cheaper to split.

 (One of many shots that Matt got, part of his "Through the Trees" series. He's artsy like that.)

 You get to walk on it!!

 Matt inspecting things...

 More through the trees...

 We also decided we had to take pictures on the other side, too...

 This is me. Thumbs down for walking up this hike "path" - we opted to walk around and up to get some more pictures instead.

 ... and I asked Matt to take a picture of me in this cave thing.

 Gosh, what awful weather we had, huh?

 I spy a castle in the distance....

 Here's me, holding the thing up. You're welcome.

 Matt doing his part. By the time we left (I think we spent a good 2+ hours there?), it was getting windy and crowded, so on to the next fun!

 But first we crossed over another bridge, so I took a picture.

Our second stop was my idea, the Carrieres de Lumieres. This place was so neat!

It's essentially an art gallery inside of a cave. But the art changes because it's projected onto the walls and set to music. It's a music-art show!

I like museums as much as the next guy, but sometimes I feel like I don't "get" some of the art. This place, though, I got. In fact, I found it very moving being immersed in the show.

A bit difficult to see, but here is what it's like inside. The caves are huge so you are really a part of the art, and the projections run ceiling to floor.

(If you check out the website, you can get an even better idea.) I'm so glad we went!

After our artscapade (hee!), we headed over to an abbey but didn't feel like spending more cash to peek inside. We opted instead to sit outside and have some lunch before making our way to our hotel out the outskirts of Montpellier and checked in just in time for a nice afternoon nap.

At night, we had reservations at L'Oracle, which I think was one of my favorite meals of the trip. I was able to communicate the entire thing in French, which was awesome for me. We split a carafe of wine, and I started with foie gras, followed by a calf fillet with risotto and a super tasty Tea Gourmand (which is tea with a bunch of little desserts on a tray).

For our second day in the Montpellier area, we hopped back into the car to see the Millau viaduct, the tallest bridge in the world. It did not disappoint. Here's a short video we took on the drive up to it.

From a distance...

And then some shots upon arrival underneath, looking up at its awesomeness. Through trees, of course.

 Here we are from the parking lot, next to the tiny visitor's center.

 We had fully prepared for this day with copious amounts of car snacks to keep us going. We hit the grocery store and had yogurt and yummy wraps in the car for lunch, mmm....

Oh - we also drove to Roquefort. It's a town. And a cheese. Hence, it's a cheese town. They only make this kind of cheese there, and so of course we had to check out the cheese caves.

That's right, CAVES filled with cheese. A cheese lover's dream. Or worst nightmare if you don't like caves, I suppose.

We arrived a little early before they re-opened for the afternoon, so we walked around to take in the views. We also checked out the remains of an old church.

 Here's Matt in what once was a church.

 Such a cute town!

 Really was too bad the weather was so, ugh....

But yes, into the caves we went! We didn't take pictures inside, but what we did do was go on a guided tour. In French.

Completely in French. Matt was lost. I was half-lost. But I knew enough to laugh along when someone made a joke, and nobody suspected we didn't speak French since I'm the one who bought the tickets. Take that, France! We fooled you!

As any good food-related tour has, there were free samples at the end. Matt was a little bummed we didn't get some to take with us, but we did find some in our big grocery bonanza on the drive back to Germany on our last day.

And thus endeth a weekend filled with bridges and sunshine. My next post will cover our final city on the journey, Beaune, which is on the way back home to Germany.

Avignon, France

On the way to Avignon, we decided to take the scenic way. Our wine guru Shannon had told us the day before that we should check out M. Chapoutier which is one of the wines we tried. They do tastings in English and since it was on the way to Avignon we thought we should head over.

On the way, we took some of the side roads to avoid the highway tolls and to enjoy the scenery.

For lunch we stopped in Tournon sur Rhone, just across the river from M. Chapoutier.

I had food envy from Matt's delicious pizza:

A very cute town. Matt had me go into a bakery for a post-lunch chocolate croissant snack, too.

Anyway, we made it over to the wine shop and got down to tasting.

We also spotted the Valrhona Chocolate City, which is a museum and huge shop. We opted for the shop and were incredibly happy to find a ton of free chocolate samples, including hot chocolate and assorted treats. We didn't leave empty-handed.

Soon we made it to Avignon and checked into our hotel. I had made dinner reservations at Fou de Fafa, which was rated #1 on Tripadvisor. It was so. so. good. Matt started with a chicken cake (which resembled a light and fluffy savory muffin) and I had the cauliflower and poppy seed soup drizzled with truffle oil. For the main course, Matt had this duck....

And I had the pork in creamy mustard sauce. Both excellent and went well with the carafe of wine we split.

The next day, we grabbed a quick breakfast before walking over to the Pope's Palace. Matt not only had a small set of pancakes for breakfast, but he also eyed this creme-brulee topped cheesecake and sent me back up to the counter to retrieve it. And yes, it was as good as it looks.

Anyway, to the Pope's Palace! Did you know that seven popes lived in Avignon rather than Rome in the 1300s? And they built a crazy large palace?

It's really neat.

 This is the chimney in the extra-huge kitchen!

 Here's me taking a break, also in the kitchen.

 We also got up and outside to get some more pictures.

 Matt wanted to get the perfect shots...

 One last shot from the inside.... so pretty!

Our entry tickets also included access to this bridge which extended out onto the river. It was actually the passage point from France to Rome at one time.

I couldn't help but get a picture of this little guy in his mom's sunglasses. He's totally pulling them off.

...And for some reason, some crazy guy waving the American flag and having people flip him off on the road below as they drove by. Whatever.

For a late lunch, we found a cafe and ate outside. We both got some delicious sandwiches but Matt spotted someone else eating a hot dog and so we ordered one.

The day will go down as the day that Matt ate the most amazing hot dog in his entire life. Why? Because the French just shoved a delicately large hot dog with ketchup and Dijon mustard, onto a big 'ol baguette.

Lyon, France

Lyon is about a 6 hour drive from home, making it the longest stretch of driving we did at the very start of our trip. We left town in the aftermath of Fasching, and Matt drove us out of town. Carefully.

I say carefully because the streets were littered with everything you can think of - candy, streamers, confetti, and tons of shards of glass. I'm glad we got out with no issues (and arrived back to see everything neat and tidy once again!)

Anyway, back to Lyon. The city sits along the Rhône river. The river is one of the biggest and well-known in Europe, and it starts in Switzerland and travels through southeastern France before snaking along and making its way towards the Mediterranean. Lyon is the largest city on the river.

Our hotel was removed from the main area of the city but was right next to the river, making for great views from our room and the executive lounge at the Hilton where we stayed. (I'm going to do a hotel round-up in a later post, so stay tuned for some nifty pictures!)

Our first evening we were there, we had grand plans to find a SIM card for our phone. For those who aren't with "it," a SIM card is a little device you put into your phone to change the number and do all sorts of things, and we wanted a French one so we could get cheaper service in France (rather than pay for out-of-network stuff from Germany).

On our journey, we decided to walk around Parc de la Tête, or Park of the Golden Head, which was situated next to our hotel. 

Wow. This was a park!

According to Wikipedia, it is 290 acres large and some form of it has been around since the 1800s.

There were these gorgeous large trees....

And there's even a zoo in the middle!

We saw about a billion joggers and runners doing their thing and a super pretty lake where they have boats for rent during the summer. Definitely one of the prettiest parks we saw.

Anyway, we got totally lost and couldn't get out of the park for awhile, so we eventually had to abandon our SIM card plans for the day and headed back to the hotel where we found a restaurant close by. I was still in my transition-mode as far as speaking French, so it was a good warmup for me.

The next day, victory! I walked into a tabac (which is a country-licensed store that sells tobacco products, but is basically a small 7-11) and got one. And they were free! Neat.

We spent the morning learning all about French wine in our private tasting with Shannon who runs From Vine to Wine. I'll cover all the dizzying things we learned in another post, but suffice it to say, Matt and I are much snobbier and knowledgeable about French wines now.

The afternoon was spent in the old area of Lyon. This included a visit to the Basilique Notre Dame de Fourviere (which required a funicular ride, yay!), and checking out the Theatres Romains de Fourviere.

They still use the ruins area for shows!

 Here's me rocking my new teal and white polka dot pocket scarf...

Here's the Basilica. There was a huge crypt inside which was really cool, it was essentially the entire basement.

 It was super windy, so we didn't hang out for long. My hair was all over the place.

After a long day we headed back to the hotel for Thai food. I would have loved to spend more time here and try a few more restaurants, but we had to continue our journey.

Next week I'll post about driving to Avignon, Montpellier, and all the fun stuff we saw along the way!