Of Popes and wild horses

I'd read in one of those travel books that Avignon could be nice if it wasn't for all the graffiti. There was a direct non-stop bus service from just outside our hotel to the town centre, we couldn't ask for easier transport. As we got off the bus the first thing we noticed was that we were inside a fortified wall. The whole city is surrounded by it. As fortifications go this one wasn't very well thought out. If I'd had any notions of invading Avignon I'd simply have learned to pole vault - that's all it would have taken to get over the wall. I'm guessing when they built it nobody spotted the plans were folded over and they had missed a bit!

Now - let's be honest here, I certainly did see the graffiti. In one doorway somebody had sprayed their 'tag'. But apart from that the city centre was beautiful; I fell in love with the place.

At the northern end of the city, up on a small hill, is a huge fourteenth century building, Le Palais des Papes, the Popes' Palace. The Popes ruled the Catholic church from here for nearly one hundred years during the 14th  century. I never discovered why - perhaps their place in Rome was being redecorated or having central heating installed, who knows? My loathing of religion is well known but I was quite happy to explore this place and just marvel at the size of it.

Juts outside the palace runs the river Rhone and jutting into that is what eveybody thinks of with this city, and causes everyone to quietly hum in their heads, Sur le pont d'Avignon . . . The guide books will tell you the bridge is now incomplete having fallen into disrepair and that there is only a small amount of it left. Not so. It is incomplete, for sure, but there is a significant amount of it still there and it looks quite impressive. We didn't go on it - you could see all you needed from the road underneath it and, anyway, the truth is believed to be that the song originally ran, Sous le pont d'Avignon or under the bridge of Avignon where the thieves and ne'er-do-wells used to hang out. I just enjoyed playing the game of trying to get photos of it without cars in the picture. If you see how busy the road is you'll understand it is an art form all of its own.

I knew that between the palace and the bridge was a small park with a sundial with a difference. You need to stand in the middle and your shadow will tell you the time. As we made our way into the park there was all sorts of activity going on, trestle tables being set up everywhere, a large stage had been erected and was set up with a band's equipment and dotted around were stalls selling different kinds of wine plus a proper mix of foods. We had accidentally stumbled upon an event called Le ban des Vendages. I have no idea what it means but it seems to be some sort of celebration of harvesting the grapes and making wine.

They had manual wine presses there, put the new grapes in and men dressed in traditional costumes pressed the juice from it. As Mary and I walked past the press we had to thread our way through the throng who were all clamouring with their glasses to get a sample of the dirtiest, most foul looking liquid I'd ever seen, and believe me, I've seen some odd looking stuff in my time. If it tasted even vaguely as it looked I'm glad I didn't have a glass with me. Incontinence on tap - that's what it was, I'm sure.

Mary and I did sit and have a couple of beers bought from the man who was cooking the biggest paellas I'd ever seen. When I'm back in the UK I intend adding photos to this blog and when I put the one of these paellas cooking on here look for the circle of white you can vaguely see on the nearest one. Salt. Loads and loads of salt tipped from a huge container. And the mussels came out of a large flat tray. Everything was added on a grand scale. It smelt delicious, I have to say, but I kind of felt if the liquid incontinence didn't get you the paella one would.

Great evening, though. Excellent atmosphere. If I was in Avignon again - and there is a very real chance of that - I would make a point of being there for the whole event and making the effort to understand properly what was going on. But I would buy some incontinence pants for the occasion!

Sunday we decided - or really Mary went along with my decision - to go and visit the Camargue area west of Marseille on the Mediterranean Sea. It is famous for its Camargue horses, supposedly white but as they have black skin they are technically greys, which run wild in the area. There are also the last of genuine cowboys whose job is to round up these horses from time to time for use in French bullfighting which is done with bulls bred in the area too. Both the horses and bulls are smaller than usual but very strong and both are very distinct and unique breeds.

We had figured we would have either one of two outcomes. Either we would drive all through the Camargue and never clap eyes on a single horse. What we were actually hoping for was the second option - to come across a herd of wild horses running freely across a field, a plain or maybe even through a stream and all the while we would hear the theme music from Black Beauty playing  from somewhere.

What we actually got was somewhere between the two. We definitely saw the Camargue horses but most of the ones we saw were stood in riding schools, ready saddled, waiting for customers coming to ride them. They were stood under shelters, tied up either side of a central panel and, to us, looked quite forlorn. They most certainly didn't look the free spirits we associated with the breed. We did eventually see some of the wild horses but they were stood around in little groups. We also got to see the bulls which are clearly smaller than the animals we know.

It really didn't take long for Mary and me to become disenchanted with what we were seeing and we cut short our excursion and started heading back towards Avignon and a fort we had seen across the river from the town. On the way, though, we glimpsed another building which could have been a chateau or a fort type place. I was ready to drive past it but noticed Mary looking across at it so asked the question and, as Mary was curious, we decided to take a look. It was yet another Abbaye, We seem to have spent a lot of time following in religious footsteps on this trip.

This one was the Abbaye de Montmajour and was - err - ok. Like the Pope's Palace in Avignon this was also an empty building so all you are really looking at is architecture, and in some cases, some murals on the walls and ceilings. Like I said it was ok.

But - the story of our trip - whatever we were doing something good always came out of it. Where we had parked the car to visit the abbey was a small auberge with about 25 to 30 tables outside. It was just over one third full so there were enough customers to convince us it was worth trying.

All I can tell you is the food was heavenly. Mary never eats desserts but she made the effort this time, going the full three courses. On any trip in France just one meal like this justifies everything else about the trip. Who cares about silly white horses except when they lead you to places like this - especially when you consider we were off route at this point.

Man - I really love France. And I so love its food.