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My Love for France

I was 17 for my first trip to France, the summer before my senior year of high school, when a beloved French teacher arranged for her french language students her annual two-week trip to France. We covered an impressive amount of territory: starting in Paris, heading north to Normandy and the American Cemetery, west to Tours, south to Avignon, Arles, Nimes and southeast to Nice, Monaco, Eze and Grasse. I was beyond excited for the adventure and remarkably, documented it all in both pictures and a journal…

Everything was, naturally, brand new to me…

And I was smitten at every turn, every new city, every new bit of knowledge and history, every morning breakfast:

A few short years later, I returned to spend my junior year of college in France, studying in Grenoble and then Paris. I have traveled back a handful of times since then, mainly to Paris, but this year’s family trip to Provence carried special meaning: I returned to a few of those cities from that 1994 trip, over twenty years later, with a husband and two children.

Then 1994 (in three photographs):
Palais des Papes (Palace of the Popes, Avignon)
Pont d’Avignon (Avignon bridge)
Paying tab in francs

Now:
Palais des Papes

Pont d’Avignon

Date night glass of Armagnac, paying in Euros, we helped close down the restaurant…

Here’s to travel, and getting older and wiser! A few shots from our wonderful trip to Provence.

VIVE LA FRANCE!

Looking inside-out onto the street: one of our favorite restaurants in St Remy: L’Aile Ou la Cuisse (The Wing or the Thigh)

Hot, beautiful weather means taking a break, outside a church door in Roussillon; not pictured: lots of glace (ice cream).

Thumbs up from the kids, Glanum Architectural Site, overlooking St Remy in background

A cafe table with sign that reads: “Please respect this vine which is over 160 years old. Do not pick the grapes. This vine is sacred.”

Vegetable and Fruits in shop in St Remy

Lavender in bloom