Big Structures, Small Villages

I hope I remember everything that I want to tell you about the past few days. We leave tomorrow and so far we have logged 2000 kilometers of journey. Wow. To top it off, half of that was yesterday. Yesterday, we focused on really big structures. We saw the sights, if you will. Today we wandered around villages (by far my favorite thing to do here). I finally got my perfect souvenir--a large black with brown handles "teacher" bag for 8 Euro. I'm so excited. Every teacher needs a giant tote bag and now I have mine.

Anyway, on to the pictures! Yesterday our drive found us lost, so we stopped in Nimes to see about getting a map at the Office of Tourism. Much to our surprise, we had stumbled upon a hotbed of Roman structures. This was right down the street from the tourism office--the Temple of Mercury. How cool is that! Up until a few decades ago it was privately owned and was sub-divided into apartments. Crazy.We then traveled down Victor Hugo Boulevard and went to this coliseum built by the Romans and still used for festivals and performances!
We then went to Pont du Gard and had an excellent picnic (again). In the background is part of a Roman aqueduct built around 50 AD. Doesn't this look like one of those pictures you take in front of a green screen?
Three stories of arches and still standing. This river floods in the winter and every few decades takes out a modern bridge also along the river. However, this aqueduct was engineered with a specific curve to withstand the floods and is still going strong. 12 additional arches were destroyed during the Middle Ages by people who wanted the rocks to build their houses.
So another really cool thing about the aqueduct is that is was a pilgramage site for French journeymen masons in the 1700 and 1800s and they carved their names into the stone. Oh, and it was deathly windy at the bridge. On Wednesday, during our lazy day, I read A Year in Provence. It was excellent, by the way, if you want to read about the flavor of rural France. The author wrote extensively about the Provencal winter winds and, boy, was he right. The wind was fierce.
After Pont du Gard, I had to run my fingers through my hair for 10 minutes to untangle it all. Of course, many of my gray hairs came out in this process. Nathan took one and knotted it to make a caterpillar. So now I have a permanent photo reminder of how I was already going gray at 22. Wow.
After a few more hours, we finally made it Millau where there is a bridge Gene has been waiting to see for three years because it is such an engineering marvel. It was cool to drive across it, but it was way, way too cold to walk around and look at it. I walked about 50 feet, looked at the bridge quickly and then Mohini and I went to sit in the car and let the guys have a "taking pictures of the bridge in the deathly cold" bonding experience.
We then drove through the gorges in Provence up to Point Sublime. I have no pictures of that because we got there with barely any daylight left, but it was amazing. Next time you are in Provence go to see it. It is breath-taking and felt very much like the first time I saw the Grand Canyon. Here is a picture of the sunset illuminating the gorge.
After Point Sublime we drove through many very, very remote monasteries and passed lots of "Caution--Sheep" signs because we were in the absolute middle of nowhere. I was asleep for the rest of the drive back, but I hear it was long.

Today, we were going to the Picasso Museum in Antibes and we decided to start by visiting Mougins, the village where he spent his later life and, eventually, died. This picture is so great because this tree is inside of the restaurant! That was definitely the norm in Mougins. It seemed every restaurant had a tree growing out of its ceiling. It is also really demonstrative of how the French trim their trees like there is no tomorrow. Do you see how the tree has no new growth? It doesn't grow like that--they trim it like that.
And here is a super charming street in Mougins. I love how in France the villages, for the most part, are really only accessible on foot so you park your car at the bottom of the hill and walk up. It is so charming and I really love the feeling that I get walking down alleys with vine-covered walls and lights strung across.
After Mougins, we travelled to Antibes to go to the Picasso Museum. On the way, we passed "Allard Fleurs," thus proving my theory that he and I really are cousins way, way back and I represent the British line and he the French. (I don't want to connect first and last names here on the internet, but he knows who he is). Anyway, the Picasso Museum wasn't open, but we went to the Archaeology Museum and walked around the famous fort a bit. Here's a shot of the fort.
And we encountered this little guy on our walk. I love sailboats and sea birds and they have them coming out of their ears in the south of France. How am I going to leave tomorrow?