A brief visual summary of our time in the south of France: chasing markets and the ancient Romans!

We drove to Avignon on Monday the 22nd. In the 14th century, Avignon was the seat of the Papacy, the French king having convinced the Vatican upon the election of the first French pope to move the seat to France from the Vatican. This caused a massive rift in the Catholic church at the time,…

Les Courses Camarguaises (bull games) are a traditional sport in this region of France, in which men (les razeteurs or raceteurs) in white outfits (always white) use special tools called les racets, or les crochets to remove “les attributs” from a bull’s horns. A racet in the razeteur’s fist is visible in the 5th picture above. Les…

D and I would not normally take a tour of any kind while on vacation, usually preferring to wander off on our own to see what there is to see. However, a large swath of the southern part of the Languedoc-Roussillon and of Provence stretching to the Mediterranean, called “La Camargue”, contains beautiful countryside and…

I love to eat, so it follows that I should love a good market. France, obviously, has an abundance of markets both indoor and outdoor, that sell everything from seafood, to local produce, to clothing and shoes. Most of the markets we have visited over the last few days seem to be selling melons that look…