Bonjour from Provence

Yes here I am again...not even sure where to begin...we bought a house!!!! and it is Sunday morning in Le Thor! Outside the bell tower is ringing the hour. The bell begins to chime at 6 a.m. and bids us bonne nuit at 10 p.m. and its such a nice sound...unless you don't want to wake up at 6 a.m.! This is not a problem for me since I am an early riser after so many years of teaching but perhaps tourists who are in town might want to sleep in!

We have been in France now since May 7th...we arrived ahead of the Air France strike just in time for the train strike so we rented a car at the airport, filled it with our seven suitcases and headed south a few miles. We stayed the night in Pommeuse land of Brie cheese.

We found a great place to stay...a bergerie on the grounds of a small chateau. Here is our rental car parked at the entrance of the bergerie. Yes, its a Ford...the only "larger" car available!

Our room was upstairs and looked out into the area of the former farm. The owner's family have had the chateau for over a hundred years and now have several rooms which they rent out with breakfast included.

Early the next morning we drove out of town and south...it seemed like we might not have too much jet lag at least at first!!

Lunch was at this rest stop on the highway...the weather was perfect for driving and we sat outside and had our lunch...no wine and a good strong cup of coffee!

Since you are basically stuck on the highway in France because you pay coming out, the rest areas are well equipped with little shops and restaurants like this and they are becoming more modern and really quite nice compared to how they used to be. As we drove we could tell we were going to doze off so we pulled into a nice rest area in the shade and took a nap! We did this several times before we finally reached Carpentras that evening. Loved seeing this castle en route!

We could not get our house until May 14th, although we signed the day we arrived, so we spend a few nights in Le Thor at the hotel St. Louis...the place had a swimming pool but the weather was just awful so we didn't use it. The parking is to be done between little olive trees...here is a sign to remind French drivers to park correctly!!

 The hotel had a very nice little restaurant attached to it and we have returned several times to have dinner here.

 Our "new" house is located in the historic part of Le Thor within the partial wall of the ancient city...

You can see a branch of the Sorgue river on the right of the photo above which is steps from our front door. In the photo below you can see more of the wall and a couple of our "neighbors"drying off after a swim!

This former Hospice is located across the street and is now a retirement home.

Le Thor has two weekly outdoor markets and two boulangeries as well as a large cafe on the market square. I will tell you more later as we start to get to know the place. We happen upon little events every so often as we stroll the town and just heard the children's choir performing the Pink Martini song "Je ne veux pas travailler" to great applause at the salle des fêtes!!

 Here is some bounty from the market just last week...it happened to be a sunny morning then. We have had so much rain...more than they have seen here in 40 years so a sunny day is such a treat! I just love how artistically the produce is put out on display...makes you want to buy it all!!

 I did come home with this...fresh strawberries from the famed Carpentras strawberry producers! Can you smell their wonderful fragrance??

This reminds me its time for breakfast here so I will say à bientôt...stay tuned for the progress of the move in!