A little bit of everything

The days go by so quickly here I sometimes do not remember what we did!! One thing I can report on is that the weather is beginning to warm up quite a bit. The other day we took a short drive to Tarascon and Beaucaire and we decided to take the back roads so it took us through some lovely fields of what I think were blooming apricot trees.

So pretty to see. The houses are just a little bit different here...not too much but they seem to have taupe colored shutters and whiter walls.

When you are in Tarascon/Beaucaire you are close to French cowboy country Camargue where most of the houses are white so perhaps this is why. We drove across the Rhone and I tried to get a photo on the bridge of the castle which once belonged to Roi René who is credited with bringing the muscat grape to Provence.

He was actually from Anjou but married a princess of Provence, Jeanne. There is a statue of him holding grapes on the Cours Mirabeau in Aix-en-Provence...I'll take his picture later.

Across the Rhone is the sweet town of Beaucaire with boats moored along the canal. We walked around there a bit and then headed back to our own neighborhood.

At the local Super U market I saw this sign in the window of a car. Kind of a cute sun shade!

Also...stepping into the store this sign greeted us.

Yes, strawberries are the big thing in Carpentras. This poster is proof.

I am looking forward to the festival. The garrigette strawberries are sensational!

Here are a few interesting items for you. At the movies (we have been several times with Maya) you can buy popcorn now (this is sort of new in France) but also this which is cotton candy in a box!!!

This picture I took at the grocery store! Not sure if it has corn syrup in it but it is pretty pure sugar!

Here is a collection of grocery carts I saw the other day at a Leclerc store...more color!!

On the way home from our drive we came upon another Citroen deux chevaux. Don't you love the two colors so artistically done?

Then, the other morning on our way through Pernes we saw this fellow riding his white Camarguais horse through the village. They were both so relaxed and cozy looking.

Pernes has created a garden at the entrance to the village with beehives and a field of lavender. We stopped with Maya to take a picture while some local students were working in the flower beds. The bee hives are the little square buildings on the left.

JC and I have recently started going to an exercise class in a little neighborhood of Carpentras called Serres. Here is the classroom ...

located in a salle of the neighborhood city hall. There is a very nice group of people about our age who put on this class twice a week. Soon we will have an exercise class luncheon in Beaumes de Venise and one of the class members is going to give us a short organ concert in the old church! More on this later.

Last week it was time to visit Corinne for a haircut in Avignon. The minute I stepped out of the hairdresser's it started to drizzle. Of course I did not have an umbrella with me!

It was a long walk to the parking garage...here is a view of the street  from where the car was parked. My haircut survived! Now I just have to see how it will behave in the Mistral wind.

Tonight JC and I went to check out an Italian class in Avignon. It was great and I think we will be joining the group. The class is near the Carmes cloister  here.

Several years ago we stayed in the neighborhood with Maya and brought her to play in the cloister park.

We waited for our little parking shuttle bus across from this ancient church and this restaurant.

Here comes the bus...

...or we could take one of these bikes to ride.

The shuttle bus is free ...great name for it n'est-ce pas??

We passed the Halles building which has plants growing out of the side of the building...see the green in the background? this is a living wall of plants, quite amazing actually! 

The bus dropped us off at the Italiens parking lot and we drove back to Pernes...it was quite a perfect evening and here is a sunset to prove it.

Le conservatoire des ocres

The "conservatoire des ocres" in Roussillon is located on the edge of the village in an ancient factory used in the past for working the ochres found on the hillsides. It has been rehabilitated in recent years and it is now used for all sorts of workshops as well as a source of the pigments for those who already know how to use them. Most of the walls of the buildings in Roussillon have been colored with the ochres and there is a huge variety of shades of this wonderful "soil." The cheerful building is set in a grove of pines and it looks more like it could be a candy store!

The first thing I saw as we walked in the door was this array of beautifully colored books about the pigments as well as about Provence including cookbooks and sketchbooks. I am a book fanatic so I had to linger here a bit.

Right across from the books was this rack of blank notebooks! JC had to drag me away since we were on a timeline but I shall return!! Can't decide which one(s) I want to get!

It was wonderful to stroll through this building on this early spring day...it was almost all to ourselves and we walked through the factory building where many permanent exhibits are set up to tell the story of ochre and its importance to the region.

There was only a class of middle school students and their teachers visiting so JC and I wandered at will and enjoyed the sunshine and the interesting exhibits set up throughout the grounds.

These shirts were all rubbed in various shades of ochre...such an artistic way to display ordinary farm jackets!

This is the projection room with a continuous film about ochre...don't you just love the purple wall?? What about those great chairs!?

Along this hallway are examples of how the pigments are used to make paint or used on fiber. Also some collages made by students at the conservatoire.

I have a list of possible classes to take here and I am going to find one for me. Everything is starting up again in the region and there is an "open doors" visit here this coming weekend.

We drove off on the backroads towards Joucas that village in the distance.

As we drove along we passed this old building...maybe a sheep corral??? and its little "borie."

There seem to be many "bories" around this part of the Luberon valley and you can see many stone fences built along the roads. The building with orange tile roof is an elementary school.

This is a view out to the blooming fields just below Joucas.

And a windmill back there in the distance.

We decided to drive back to Carpentras through Venasque so this meant we would go by Gordes perched high above the valley.

No ochres here but throughout are those interesting stone walls built the same way.
There is an entire village of "bories" just around the corner from Gordes.

A bientôt!

Bon anniversaire Betty!!