Saturday 14th October 2017
Recently I had been in contact with my head teacher from the school I had left in July. She and her husband had been in France for the last 5 weeks and it just so happened that they would be in Avignon over the weekend. We made arrangements to meet at noon to catch up over lunch.
Ray and I took advantage of the park & ride again, and surprisingly, it was very quiet, albeit a Saturday morning.
We arrived an hour early in order that we could re-visit Les Halles, the covered market which had been closed on our previous visit.
The market did not disappoint. There were numerous stalls selling a huge variety of local produce and specialities of Provence; fish, meat, cheese, bread, vegetables, as well as local wines, handmade pastries and flans, salts, herbs, olives and olive oils.
The choice was endless, and typically laid out in the most inviting fashion.
Just a small example of the wonderful array of shellfish.
We wandered back towards the Place de L’Horlage. We have taken to purchasing a memento, in the form of a painting or photograph of the places we have visited and Ray spotted a stall with lovely watercolours of Provence.
He got chatting to the artist, who’s English was much better than his French and before long had purchased a delightful ‘petit’ watercolour of Cháteauneuf du Pape, which we had passed through the other day.
Just at this moment, who should we bump into but my headteacher Karen and her husband Martin. It was fantastic to see them both and we spent the next few hours catching up and sharing notes about our travels so far.
Lunch over, we said our goodbyes and left Karen and Martin to enjoy the sights of Avignon and we headed back to the car park.
As we left the city ramparts, we noticed a few of the huge river cruise ships moored up.
We headed over to take a closer look. They certainly are magnificent looking boats. The Swiss Corona, the Viking Buri and the Amacello.
Whilst strolling on the promenade we spotted that the 1 hour Rhône River cruise (Les Croisìeres MireioAvignon) was about to depart, so decided to give it a go.
It was a very pleasant way to spend an hour. In fact it was a very soporific way to spend an hour, after lunch, in the heat of the afternoon!
It certainly isn’t the way I would recommend you choose to explore Avignon, as a walk around the city would be more preferable.
Nevertheless it was a smooth cruise taking in views of the Pont d’Avignon and Villeneuve d’Avignon, which we hadn’t visited.
If time had allowed we would definitely have taken the option of one of the other cruises offered, such as the lunch cruise to Arles, with time off the boat to explore the city too.