adventures of an american housewife in the south of france

A Day in Provence: Aix

We've often heard that the best parts of Aix are outside the confines of the city, and I think this is probably true.  A year ago we may have visited the region to go wine tasting and have a fancy dinner out on the town, but those kinds of trips have been put on temporary hold.  Instead, we decided to spend the afternoon walking the city center and eating a quick lunch while Ramona napped.  It had been a long...

Pont du Gard: Day and Night

The Pont du Gard, located about 80 km from Montpellier, is a 3 tiered Roman aqueduct built in the 1st century A.D.  Since it was on our way home from Avignon, we decided to stop there and check it out.  It was getting to be late in the day and we arrived at dusk, which turned out to be a pretty cool time to see the Pont du Gard. We had heard about the outdoor concerts under the bridge during the summer,...

A Day in Provence: Avignon

We've been a bit housebound these last few months, me especially, and I was itching to get out and do some exploring.  Michael and I are really trying to continue to take advantage of our surroundings and see as much of France as we can while we're still here.  When my parents were visiting, we talked about taking a day trip to Avignon to see the Palais des Papes, but unfortunately the weather just did not...

Day Trip: St. Guilhem-le-Désert

For our final excursion with Devon, we took her to one of my favorite nearby villages, St. Guilhem-le-Désert. This beautiful, medieval village is situated along the Hérault River and is surrounded by gorges,  mountains, and the Santiago de Compostella pilgrimage trail.  There are so many fun, outdoorsy activities to do in this area like hiking, kayaking, climbing, biking, etc.  Last summer I went on a...

A Day in Provence: Arles & Camargue

Now that I've (mostly) finished complaining about the heat, let's pick up where we left off, shall we?  I was telling you all about Devon's visit and our day in Provence.  We spent the morning in Les Baux, touring the medieval ruins and fighting against the mistral.  After a quick lunch, we headed about 20 minutes south to Arles. Arles, an old Roman town, is well known for being the place in...

A Day in Provence: Les Baux

Let me tell you a little something about my best friend Devon.  She's a nerd.  And I love her for it because I'm a nerd too, just in a different way.  We both love learning, but Devon is a special kind of nerd - she's a history nerd.  For example, during a 12th grade trip we took to D.C. to perform at the Kennedy Center with the competition choir (see? we're nerds.  And this was 10+ years before Glee, people)...

One Night in Toulouse

Our adventures with Shawn and Kate concluded in Toulouse, where they were catching a flight to Greece.  Michael and I were excited to have an excuse to finally visit the 4th largest city in France, so after our afternoon in Carcassonne, we all piled in The Pony and continued onto Toulouse. Toulouse definitely has a very different feel than the rest of the cities and towns we've visited in France.  It seemed...

A Visit to Carcassonne

We were thrilled when our friends Shawn and Kate wanted to make visiting us in France a part of their honeymoon.  They begin in Paris, trained down to Montpellier, and just needed to get to Toulouse by the 25th to catch a flight to the next part of their trip in Greece.  We were happy to take them to Toulouse, since we'd never been, and decided to break up the 2.5 hour drive with a side trip to the medieval town...

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