Gorges du Verdon and Moustier-Ste. Marie

Entrance to the gorge river

We woke up early yesterday to catch an early breakfast before our long day trip. On the menu was a trip to the Gorges of Verdon (not to be confused with one of the important battlefields in France during WWII), which was about two hours away from the school. The drive out there was actually quite beautiful. The countryside in Provence is really incredible, even compared to other parts of France. There were lavender fields and mountains of every color. The closer we got to the Gorges, the higher up we climbed on these dizzying mountains roads. It amazed me that our bus was even able to maneuver around the hairpin turns that high up. When we got off the bus, we were immediately taken by the very first glimpse of our destination. We were at the base of a huge mountain valley with a lake of extremely clear turquoise water at the base. Apparently, this huge lake was actually man-made, although the reason for it's creation was lost on us. The lake filters down into the gorges, creating a mountain riverbed.

Conquering the frozen waterfall

We made our way down to the lake, where they had surprisingly cheap canoe rentals. We got a two hour rental and started paddling out. We were accompanied by a French guy who worked for the college, since all of our group's other canoes were filled. At first we were kind of peeved, but Tino was actually a really interesting guy who forced us to speak in French the whole time. When we got into the actual gorges on the river part, the view was incredible. These huge mountains on either side, waterfalls, and caves made for a really fun journey. I took a bunch of pictures, which you can see here. Take them with a grain of salt, however, because they fail to really capture the true immensity of the landscape. About halfway down the river, we encountered a really cool waterfall that cascaded into the river. Tino said that this is one of the must-do things in the Gorges. Hayley wasn't interested in braving the elements, but I jumped out of the canoe into the river. I swam out the waterfall and was surprised to find that the water was like ice pelting the skin. I immediately started shivering, but I decided to climb up onto a little rock outcropping next to the waterfall for a photo op. We continued canoeing around for a while down the river, stopping for a brief walk across a muddy beach. We had a little time left on our rental, so we just floated around, talking about differences in French and American culture with Tino. We talked about everything from food differences to how we say different animal noises.

About half way!

Staring the ascent

How much more can there be?

View of the chapel from a  path above

From the Gorges of Verdon, we made our way up back up the mountain to the nearby town of Moustier-Sainte Marie. This place was not at all what I had expected. The town itself was very pretty, with a waterfall dividing the town in half. All of the buildings were built in one of my favorite styles of French architecture, with warm-colored brick and red shingles. We walked around for a bit until we noticed that a small chapel built way up in the mountain, overlooking the village. I vaguely remembered someone saying that it was worth the trek up the mountain, the two of us and a few of our friends decided to do some climbing. Suffice to say, it was a long, long way to the top. The path must have been hundreds of years old. It's made of rough hewn stone that has been polished to a slippery sheen by thousands of pilgrims and traveler footsteps over the ages. Dotted along the path circling up to the chapel were these little monuments meant for prayer and meditation. Each one denoted a station of the cross. We made a few stops on the way up to catch our breath, take pictures, and enjoy the amazing view. From that high up, we could see the lake of Verdon and the gorges, the town below, farms scattered through the valley, and the gorgeous countryside. We noted that the waterfall that passes through the town must have at one point also passed through these paths, because we could see dry rock that looked like it at one point bore a waterfall much more impressive than the one in town. There was even a little path from the chapel leading right to one of these rocky areas, which I imagine was used for the monks to come down to get fresh, cold, mountain water. Eventually, we made it up the the chapel, which was actually much bigger than I had expected. There were probably two dozen sets of pews and a beautiful alter area. We paid our respects and spent a little more time checking out the view.

Nummy vanilla chocolate rose-shaped cone!

After taking the slow descent down (it actually took more time than coming up, due to the slippery stones making the path treacherous) we took a bit more time to explore the village. We stumbled up to an artisan ice cream shop that had a really cool twist to their ice cream. They scooped the ice cream into a very remarkable likeness of a rose. It was both delicious and really cute. Afterwards, we made our way back to the College. That evening, we got a group of our people together and bought a bunch of French candies from the local grocery store. We hung out in the school's courtyard and I became the dealer for a candy-casino night of blackjack, which was a tasty and fun way to round out the day.

Melon and passion fruit rose ice cream!

For now, it's back class for another week. We are beginning our work on planning a trip to Italy within the next couple of weeks, which should be quite interesting, especially considering that we have to cram whatever we want to see into one weekend, since we don't have any long weekends to take a vacation on. We might end up splitting it up into one weekend in Rome and another in Florence or something like that. Still a work in progress, though! I'll keep you all posted if we do anything fun!

Anniversary and other shennanigans

Sorry for the recent lapse in posting. Not a whole lot has been happening as of late except for the day to day life of class and relaxation. Last weekend's excursions into more interesting day trips in France were postponed by the college due to thunderstorms. In fact, we have had nothing but cloudy days and rain for the last several days, which is not doing any favors for our beach itches. Instead, we have found other things to do around our small campus to amuse ourselves. One evening was taken up with a volleyball tournament, which was quite a bit of fun. Another night we sat in our little campus movie theater and watched the first Harry Potter movie in French, along with a few episodes of CSI in French, which actually provided some mental stimulation as we tried to keep up with the plots in a different language. We found out that the little cafe/lounge that we have on campus has board games, so we have dumped a few hours into playing Risk with our friends. About half of our group has been going out most nights to the bars/clubs in town and enjoying the nightlife. Thus far, Hayley and I have not gone out with them, as it isn't really something that interests us, especially when we have to wake up early in the morning to make it to breakfast on time before our three hour grammar lectures.

Yesterday was our second anniversary, so we made a fun day out of it. Despite the fact that we had to sit through classes through a good chunk of the day, we still made the most of it. After class got out, we both got all dressed up in our shwanky clothes and went into town to get a nice dinner at a restaurant. We were a little dismayed to have in start raining on our walk into town, but that's life. Dinner was delicious, and we had a table with a rose on it. There is a delicious artisan ice cream shop right down the road from where we had dinner, which we planned on visiting for desert, but they were closed. Not to be deprived of a romantic desert, we stopped at a little Mom and Pop general store and grabbed two candy bars!

This weekend we are going to be heading out to see the Gorges of Verdon, which I will talk more about after we finish. We are both excited for the end of this month, when the rest of our classes start. While we certainly enjoy our time going to the beach, we both feel like we have just a lot of time that we don't really use for anything special. The seminars that we signed up for sound really interesting, and we are both eager to start. Moreso, our theater class begins later this month, which is going to be both a fun experience to be in a play again, but also because it will help enormously with our articulation.



Notes from Hayley:
- Coke is really expensive here. A can of pop costs like $2.50 American. At the place we ate dinner last night, the Coke came in a bottle, but had the same amount of pop as a can, and cost roughly $4.50 American dollars. Suffice to say, we have been ordering water at every restaurant we have been to.
- Topless people everywhere on the beaches. It isn't just a myth. Mostly old women, with a few rare younger women tossed in. We try not to look.
- They have deodorant here and it actually works great. Although her grammar teacher obviously does not wear any, which she is reminded of every time she leans over to look at Hayley's work.
- Whole milk is the only option for breakfast and is never served in a glass. Tastes like butter.