Provence

I actually learned about this in the geology class I took at Ohlone College back in 1983 – a river meanders and then the meander cuts itself off. In this case there is a medieval village down below. It’s so far off the beaten track in south France that I think it would take anyone 3 hours to get here. And it is a damn scary drive: I spent over an hour driving on narrow switchback roads high in the French mountains – so narrow, if you’d run into another car, someone would have to back up nearly a kilometer!

Continuing the series,

Continuing the series,

Continuing the series,

Continuing the series,

And here is the map of the historic village,

Continuing the series,

Continuing the series, here is a snap of La Couvertoirade, a village in Southern France that dates back to the 1200’s.  The templars were a group of fighters first started in 1119 in Jerusalem, during the Crusades. After around 1300 the templars fell (well, they did not really fall, like falling on the ground – they “fell” in the sense of all getting slaughtered by King Philipp IV of France, for corruption and having too much power) – and a somewhat older group (a religious order called the Knights Hospitaller) took over the city. Believe it or not, it was not until the 1980’s that people got smart – and in this case “smart” means “let’s make the village pretty so we can sell souvenirs to hoards of tourists!”

Believe it or not, Charlie Watts — drummer for the Rolling Stones — lived here:

Somewhere around Solignac, overlooking the Étang de l’Or

Another snap of the “Maison Carrée” – or square house – a name I really think seems a bit sad. It would be more wonderful to use the original Roman name — unless, of course, they also called in the Square House!

Continuing the series, here is a nice French police cruiser parked in the Vieux-Port area of Marseille:

C0ntinuing the series, as artistic a snap as I thought I could take of a magnificent fire truck in Nimes, France:

As artistic a snap as I thought I could take of some grape vines in the Luberon region of southern France:

This is a snap of the famous Old Port, or Vieux-Port, in Marseille:

It boggles the mind that the Romans built this thing in the year 2 BC. Well, to be more accurate, I am assuming the Romans did NOT in fact build it but rather they had several teams of slaves working on it.

I am not really sure what this is – but I took this snap in Nice

If you’ve got sharp eyes you’ll notice that the side of the white building is flat. What looks like balcony and bolsters is just painted on!

Continuing the series, I really wonder how long this place is going to last. There is a small village built on an outcropping of red ochre, which as far as I can tell just seems to melt away in the rain.

At the very far end of the Promenade des Anglais you’ll find this hotel, and just to the left is a staircase that leads to a wonderful platform where you can get a great look at the old city of Nice (Ville Vieux):

Here’s a plaque that describes the history a bit:

Continuing the series, I took these snaps in the sleepy French Provence town of L’Isle-sur-la-Sorge. I have no idea what they are! I assume they are remnants of a long-gone mill, but it is on my bucket list to one day return and find out!

Here is the first snap:

And here is the same strange thing, but from a different perspective:

Not exactly overflowing with people, which actually is a good thing because at the time of this writing, the Omicron variant of “Covid dixneuf” was exploding in France:

Continuing the series, this garbage receptacle located on the Promenade des Anglais is really a mixture of low-tech (opened by a foot pedal) and high-tech (a light shows whether or not the container is full):