Pézenas

After we left Nîmes we continued to head south. To get to Pézenas from our place you basically head south until you hit the Mediterranean, turn right, and if you get to Spain you've gone too far.  My aunt and uncle have had a place there for probably 15 years now, and it's probably one of our favorite places to go as a family. (As evidenced: here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here)

One day we drove out to a 500 year old mill on a river for a picnic. Sandwiches from a local boulangerie taste especially good on a half-a-millenium old stone table

One afternoon while  I stayed at the house and worked as Alma slept Susan took the other kids to a toy museum in town.

This is my girl in an Olive tree.

 

We took the kids to the sea two times - but once we went to a local swimming hole.  It was a great place to cool off and was a great time.  Well, except for the part where Jonah was swimming right across to the other side, got his feet in some fairly thick and frightening feeling seaweed and stared to panic so I had to dive in with my clothes on and papa-adrenaline-front-crawl over to to pull him back.  Other than that part - it was quite fun.  

We let the kids pick out some ice cream to try to cool down when we were walking around town one day. Unfortunately Alma felt a bit left out- so we found a way for her to cool off as well.

Pezenas is  an artisan town.  It seems like every street you turn down there are silversmiths, potters, glass-blowers, bakers, leather-workers, olive growers, ceramic artists, painters, hat makers etc. Matea was glad to go back to the same bead store she was in last year - and spent time picking out a few beads from the thousands that are in 

On Friday night we went to a wine festival.  We were just describing it as sort of a Southern-French-county-Fair.  Instead of deep-fried-everything-on-a-stick, we had plates of local olives and tapinade (olive paste) spread on slices of artisan bread. We bought a sampler plate of chèvre cheese from a local sheep farmer, we bought fresh local cherry tomatoes, a melon and basil chilled soup and a few other things. There are a bunch of local vineyards who come and set up along the street sampling their 

six

Micah turned 6 on Saturday.
We had a fantastic time together celebrating another year with our funny boy.

He had a great time on his birthday - family and friends - lego - playing in the yard which turns into hide-and-go-seek - turns into head-lamp and flashlight games - turns into bike riding with headlamps down the road in the dark.

Of the three older kids Micah has definitely had a harder time adjusting to the language, school etc - but he has not let all that affect his sense of humor.  He is still a very funny kid.

This birthday also seems like a bit of a turning point for all of us, as Micah was the first to celebrate a birthday after we moved to France, so this is his third birthday here. So that means we're now starting on our third time around on things. Third start of a school year, third autumn, third everything

swingy

I stand by my decision as to where to hang the swing...why do you ask?

Nîmes

On Tuesday we headed down south on a last minute trip and stopped on our way in Nîmes.

The city is about halfway from our place in the Alpes to my aunt & uncle's house down south. Nîmes has history that goes well back to the Roman era - with some significant physical reminders of those times.  The enormous aqueduct Pont du Gard (which we visited on our first trip down south 2 years ago)  was part of the system that brought fresh running water to the indoor plumbing systems of this city about 2000 years ago.

The amphitheater is apparently one of the best preserved in the Roman world. While not the same size as the colosseum in Rome - it is impressively intact for what its been through over the past 2 millennia   

The arena first served obviously as entertainment for the Roman citizens and their guests (the 'circus' part of 'bread and circus'), and over the following centuries was used as a fortress, a miniature walled city, then was then turned back into an arena in Napoleon's time - and is now most well know for its bull-fights.

how NOT to win a bull-fight

The city also has an amazing Roman temple, again one of the best preserved in the Roman world  (I guess Nîmes is like the pickle of antiquity).  Susan and I visited Nîmes years ago, and I remember the inside of the temple - it was rather baren compared to its previous glory - but impressive none the less.  Now the entire inside is a movie theatre that plays a 3D MOVIE!  Unfortunately - the day we were there due to technical difficulties the movie was shown in 2D.  When you see in 2D a movie that was specifically shot for a tourist board in 3D - you realize how much of the footage is pointless waving / pointing / thrusting / and otherwise moving-at-your-face-motion of various forms.  When it's in 2D - it just seems like your watching scenes that they forgot to edit down and then add in the sound, dialoge, and tie them to the rest of the plot.

However, it was quite warm (34°) to be walking around when we were there at noon - so the movie was a bit of a nice respite from the heat.

It was a nice break on the way down and is basically just off the autoroute - pretty amazing that we get to experience these kinds of things during an unplanned stop along a drive.

Trip

Heading off on a last minute trip. I'd say the weather looks promising

Over the river and through the woods...

Saturday we went out for a family hike when Alma woke up from her afternoon nap. The great thing about where we live is that as soon as she wakes up we can leave our house at and be at a trail-head 12 minutes later.

..."trail includes difficult passages..."

Fortunately Alma is stil very content to ride on my back, and the other kids are really great about hiking.  But really - what kid wouldn't like a trail that just goes straight through multiple mountain streams and waterfalls?

The hike is about 3.5km with about 500m of elevation gain - so there's a fairly long stretch that has a fairly significant amount of up.  But we have wised-up and carry more snacks now - and hold them out as blackmail ransom positive rewards for when we reach our destination

Grenoble in the valley below

And the waterfall at the end is a pretty good reward in itself.  When we got to it- Micah paused - then closed his eyes and with outstretched arms said "It was so beautiful I just had to see if it was a dream or not."  Seems reasonable to me.

not sure where he's going...but I'm sure it's safe

It only took about 3 hours for the whole hike, so we were home in time for supper.  Well - home in time for summer-schedule supper just after 8:00 - but still...

le tour

While my sister Marie and her family were here we got a chance to go see Le Tour de France again.  

It did not dissapiont.  

Let's face it - our kids are really in it for the 

caravane publicitaire - an 80 year old tradition where the sponsors of the race have a 20km long parade made up of their  160 vehicles.  

Run at the Truck and catch candy kids...I mean...Safety First, candy second.

It is actually mind-blowing that this parade leads the tour around France on it's 3 497km treck. 

 It's not hard to see how it's possible that they distribute some 16 million tinkety-gifty-things.  

We probably only came home with 10% of that between us.  Unfortunately Alma had come down with a fever, so Susan stayed home with her

The interesting thing for us was that last year the tour came right through our town - so we just walked - but also we were in the middle of the days course. This year we were in one of the bigger towns that the tour went through that day - so there was actually quite a bit of stuff set up there to see and do, and eat.

There were a whole row of tents where they were giving out samples of local cheese, sausage, bread etc- and my kids are becoming quite French and really love local cheese, and they are really quite Watts so they love anything that's free - so it was a pretty good set up for us.

So we wandered around and after we had done everything - and eaten all we could - we walked the full half-block back to our place on the race course.

Where we were on that day's course was sort of at the bottom of a long hill - so although we were on a narrow road that had railings on both sides - the peloton flew through at a pretty good clip.  Not too fast - as there was a pretty tight turn just 50m or so past us - but fast enough that one of the team cars could take a major limb off a child  (in fact the wind from the riders going past sucked Kristine's hat right off her head). That also meant that the entire thing was over in what seemed like 90 seconds.  Good thing the caravane lasted 40 minutes.

Afterwords - since we were in Voiron anyway - we went to the Chartreuse distillery

Because what kid doesn't like going back to the aging caves of the worlds only naturally green liquor that is made from a secret recipe of 130 plants that is only known by two monks?  That's right - no kid doesn't like that.