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Even More France
Last night, I chose a very tasty place to go for dinner, so full marks to me: Mike even declared that he'd be happy to go back there, unlike the previous two nights.
Today, we went out and about to various small towns, starting with a drive through the Petit Luberon, which the sat nav was extremely unhappy about.
When your guidebook uses the phrase "a fascinating collection of corkscrews, dating from the 17th century", it's pretty much obligatory to stop. It was quite interesting, in fact. We also stopped off at Bonnieux, where we climbed all the steps in the world to get to the top of the town. At least it was down hill on the way back.
In Apt, parking is free from 12 to 2; presumably, this is so the traffic wardens can have their lunch in peace.
After lunch, we thought we'd stop at a crystallised fruit place that we'd seen advertised, but when we got there it was quarter to two, and lunch wasn't over until two. So we drove on. Fifteen minutes later, we saw signs for another crystallised fruit place: hurrah! We pulled off the road and went into the carpark. Apparently, this lot didn't get back from lunch until half past two.... Muttering, we went off to the Lavender Museum instead, getting inside just after a coach of Dutch OAPs, whose arrival had caused the introductory video to be played in Dutch: we went into the museum, instead, and looked at various subtly different kinds of stills, and then into the shop, where I bought some fairly expensive liquid soap that I hope I don't really like, at it'll be tricky to get more. The leaflet was quite interesting and informative, though.
As the lavender museum was only a couple of miles down the road from the second fruit place, and had taken about half an hour to look around, we went back there and actually managed to do some shopping. I've got some macaroons, and Mike has some candied citrus peel; he bought two boxes, so that he could take one into the office, but has since been heard muttering to himself about alternative office presents that wouldn't mean he'd have to sacrifice his peel....
After that, we headed up to Fontaine de Vaucluse, where we pounced on the first water we could find and demanded cold liquid. Refreshed, we went up to the paper mill / museum, which was about what I expected (ie, some old equipment, a few stacks of drying paper, lots of gift shop) but not as good as it could have been (eg, demonstrations or at least explanations of the paper making process). Interestingly, they sell a huge number of differently printed sheets of paper, but I only spotted one printing press that - I *think* - would have been too small to take the largest of their paper sizes, which makes me wonder if the paper that they sell is actually made there but sent away to be printed or if they buy it in entirely.
We had to park in a different car park this evening, on account of tomorrow being market day in the one we have been using. Fortunately, Mike managed to get the last space in the second preference one, so we didn't have too far to walk back to the hotel!
(I was sad to discover that none of the huge rack of diet books on sale in the motorway service station shop was a translation of 'French Women Don't Get Fat'.)
Today, we went out and about to various small towns, starting with a drive through the Petit Luberon, which the sat nav was extremely unhappy about.
When your guidebook uses the phrase "a fascinating collection of corkscrews, dating from the 17th century", it's pretty much obligatory to stop. It was quite interesting, in fact. We also stopped off at Bonnieux, where we climbed all the steps in the world to get to the top of the town. At least it was down hill on the way back.
In Apt, parking is free from 12 to 2; presumably, this is so the traffic wardens can have their lunch in peace.
After lunch, we thought we'd stop at a crystallised fruit place that we'd seen advertised, but when we got there it was quarter to two, and lunch wasn't over until two. So we drove on. Fifteen minutes later, we saw signs for another crystallised fruit place: hurrah! We pulled off the road and went into the carpark. Apparently, this lot didn't get back from lunch until half past two.... Muttering, we went off to the Lavender Museum instead, getting inside just after a coach of Dutch OAPs, whose arrival had caused the introductory video to be played in Dutch: we went into the museum, instead, and looked at various subtly different kinds of stills, and then into the shop, where I bought some fairly expensive liquid soap that I hope I don't really like, at it'll be tricky to get more. The leaflet was quite interesting and informative, though.
As the lavender museum was only a couple of miles down the road from the second fruit place, and had taken about half an hour to look around, we went back there and actually managed to do some shopping. I've got some macaroons, and Mike has some candied citrus peel; he bought two boxes, so that he could take one into the office, but has since been heard muttering to himself about alternative office presents that wouldn't mean he'd have to sacrifice his peel....
After that, we headed up to Fontaine de Vaucluse, where we pounced on the first water we could find and demanded cold liquid. Refreshed, we went up to the paper mill / museum, which was about what I expected (ie, some old equipment, a few stacks of drying paper, lots of gift shop) but not as good as it could have been (eg, demonstrations or at least explanations of the paper making process). Interestingly, they sell a huge number of differently printed sheets of paper, but I only spotted one printing press that - I *think* - would have been too small to take the largest of their paper sizes, which makes me wonder if the paper that they sell is actually made there but sent away to be printed or if they buy it in entirely.
We had to park in a different car park this evening, on account of tomorrow being market day in the one we have been using. Fortunately, Mike managed to get the last space in the second preference one, so we didn't have too far to walk back to the hotel!
(I was sad to discover that none of the huge rack of diet books on sale in the motorway service station shop was a translation of 'French Women Don't Get Fat'.)
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