Southern France and Provence vacation notes and travel tips.
In April 2007, we have made our biggest tour so far. Two weeks in France, the whole week being spent in the south, were full of exciting things. Even not during the most colorful time of the year, we've made lots of photographs to complement the story. In my travel notes below, clicking an image will normally take you its larger version. Don't forget to check my general France travel tips at the end!
Planning the big tour.
I wanted to do two week Easter vacation on the road, going somewhere south, thus gaining some more sun through the year. Several weeks before, I started to plan everything. My idea was to go to the south of France, Provence and Mediterranean sea, then maybe Barcelona and go back to Germany, making a stop for a couple of days in Paris. In the middle of the planing, Barcelona had to be thrown out, simply because it would be too far. Hopefully we'll visit it later.I took a map from my car travel atlas; it wasn't that detailed (10 km scale) but at least it shown the biggest attractions. I tried to match the map with the locations of hotels of Premiere Classe chain. I had an idea of what those hotels were, but we never stayed in them. They are the most cheap you can find in Western Europe, starting from 30 Euro per night for a room for two-three persons (and costs more in more popular places like Paris). You can imagine what's that, but from our previous experience with last year's vacations in France and Belgium, we needed two separate rooms to have a chance to sleep without kids fighting each other.
As we found later, their hotels are different. Newer ones are built to have individual access to each room from outside gallery. Those are significantly better. But in both cases, you have comfort probably comparable with a trailer. You get your own bathroom though, so if you need just a place to sleep and are on a tight budget, there should be no problem to stay a night or two. We survived for two weeks. I think that breakfast sucks there - we never took any. It seems that for 4.50 they offer only things like cheap sliced bread, no croissants, and I can't imagine a breakfast without croissants in France. And croissants are good in any French supermarket. After sitting half an hour before being asked what do we want in a creperie in Gerardmere during our short Alsace vacation, so that kids, annoyed by waiting, were close to destroying everything around, we had no desire to try more cuisine.
I did not want to spend twelve hours driving like crazy and paying the toll on French highways. Going south on them would cost more than 50 Euro in toll, and why not to have a pause in a hotel that would cost you just a little bit more, filling the time with sightseeing? It turned out to be a good decision, though you should not forget that driving through smaller roads may require more fuel in comparison with normal pace on a highway, and saving on toll is sometimes questionable.
It took me a couple of evenings to think through and plan our itinerary through France on the maps, and one evening to make all hotel reservations. I have booked:
One night near Mulhouse, just off the border with Germany. This would be Saturday, so we could buy food for the next day and buy detailed maps. Then, one night in Grenoble (mid-way going south), two nights in Orange, two in Arles, two in Sete, one in Montlucon (mid-way going north to Paris), four nights in Paris and one night near Metz (mid-way going back plus cheese and cider shopping).
We travel GPS-free. I am probably the only driver around without any cool electronic device, using good old paper maps. If I get lost, which sure happens occasionally, I prefer to stop and ask people, practicing my foreign languages for free. People are nice, navigation systems aren't really. If you get lost because of your navigation system, as happens to some extremely happy owners, your chances to get back on track are bad - your mind needs a life support machine now. Through 3700 km logged on the next pages, we only had three or four minor difficulties. Now tell me, who needs GPS?
March 31, 2007. Going south-west.
It wasn't really cold at the end of March the week before our vacation. The Saturday morning was slightly colder, but it was anyways about 8 degrees. I've thought that it could be a good idea to put summer tires, but we I didn't have time because we have moved into another apartment the week before. But winter tires were actually good on the first day at least.When we reached Stuttgart it was already 5 degrees. Going further south, Schwarzwald and oops! snow! and just 2 degrees. When we stopped to have a short lunch we had to jump over the snow.
Our first thought was that when we reach Mulhouse, France, we'll be shopping not only food for the next day but also warm clothing. We have found our hotel at about 3pm but I could not check in with my credit card. Later, the lady at the reception explained me that automated check-in works reliably only with French credit cards, though a French family we met there had the same problem.
I have bought an atlas of France (2.5 km scale), we took some food and that was all for the first day. Sky was clearing and we decided that we don't need to get more clothes.
Our first hotel was pretty good for the price. We stayed there one night again when going home from Switzerland several months later.
April 1, 2007. From Mulhouse to Grenoble. Salines Royales.
The day promised to be sunny. We had to drive to Grenoble and by smaller roads it would take half a day. There were no really special places to see in the areas on our way; the only place I have found was Salines Royales (Royal Saltworks) in Arc-et-Senans, UNESCO World Heritage Site. I did not read about this region when planing our vacation, and from the name we've thought that it's probably some old salt mine and processing plant, so we decided to go there.I expected landscape to be more green but it was too early, even for southern regions of France. At least sun was good:
When we reached Salines Royales, the complex was closed for lunch. We had to wait about an hour. Outside, it didn't look like it was an old mine:
As we've discovered later, Salines Royales has little to do with salt, in regard to them as a tourist attraction. It's an architectural complex, with some buildings used for salt processing couple of centuries ago. Salt was brought from other regions. In the cellar of the main building there is a small exhibition about salt, the history of salt processing and the things whose production is based on salt. That's it about mineral. The main attraction is architecture. The complex is called "ideal site". The buildings and walking paths are built to lay in strictly mathematical forms. Or something like that. Looking at Salines Royales from Google Maps, you can get what is meant with the "ideal site". It wasn't that bad but we were not really impressed. UNESCO had different opinion.
We have finished the whole thing in probably an hour and were gone south.
Our hotel was hidden between offices and warehouses and the highway. A very old one. There were three Premiere Classe hotels in the Grenoble region, and the one I wanted to get, closer to the city, was sold out. This one, in the town of Voreppe, was slightly cheaper, and I think it had to be stinkier. Anyways, it was only one night.
April 2, 2007. Grenoble, lake and dam Serre-Ponçon and going west to Orange.
We parked somewhere not very far from the city center and walked to the very downtown. Grenoble held once Winter Olympics and I believe it's a nice city, though for us it was not the best time of the year. Everywhere you have Alps in the background.
Isere river goes between the downtown and the mountain that offers "exciting views of the Alps", as the tourist guide says.
You can see the cable car going up the mountain on the next picture. We wanted to take it but we had to wait almost an hour and I was afraid it will be too late then.
About noon we left the city and went further south first by N75 and then by smaller roads where we could see the alpine landscapes around. We were going in the direction of the city of Gap.
We have reached Gap and stopped for a quick lunch at Mac Donald's. I wanted to see the lake Serre-Poncon, probably go around it and then drive west to Orange, where we had our next hotel.
The lake is an artificial one, lying between several mountains of the south-western Alps. We've read on the tourist information board that the dam that holds the lake is the biggest in Europe.
The lake was beautiful, but the dam, when seen both from above and from its bottom, is even more impressive. The height takes your breath away.
View from the dam's bottom:
We could go around the lake. Actually, when planing the trip I thought we could see the Alps somewhere west from Gap. But as we spent some time in Grenoble, it was not possible anymore. We even did not go around the lake because it was starting to rain, with big storm clouds coming and I was not comfortable with the idea of going through narrow winding mountain roads in such weather. We took the same road to return to the southern suburbs of Gap, where the road west to Orange began.
When planning I thought that from Gap to Orange was about 100 km and was quite surprised to read on the signs that we had to go about 150 km west. The road D994 runs among old mountains and is quite narrow with sudden turns. There were a couple of tunnels that are one lane only for both directions with traffic light on both ends. So, our speed was quite limited by both signs and myself and we did not want to stop as to save time. But mountains there are quite beautiful. They are very old and eroded. There should be numerous hiking paths in the region; many hostels sighs were around. I asked my wife to do some shots from the car:
After more than one hour of fun driving we've left the old mountains and wineries, lavender and olive places have appeared with numerous signs inviting to taste the oil and other regional products. It was too early for lavender sighting, but I think that you can buy olive oil at any time. In summer, when lavender blooms, the roads should be full with tourists. We stopped briefly near some farm where I made the next shot. Should be a young winery I think:
It was about 7pm and we had to hurry up. We still had to find our hotel whose reception was closing in two hours and we had to buy some food before. Shortly after entering to town we found a supermarket that had to be closed in just two minutes and bought whatever could be grabbed quickly. When driving to our hotel we saw the Triumphal Arch that I wanted to see the next day. We've found our hotel pretty easily. It was one of new Premiere Classe hotels, quite clean but it was probably its cleanliness that attracted some bloody insects. Maybe it was the next one in Arles - unsure now, but anyways, there is a bunch of cheap hotels in Orange like B&B Hotels just across the street. It's a town for tourists.
April 3, 2007. Orange. Classical Rome sightseeing in France.
In the morning we've grabbed a map in the tourist information office (easy to find, on the main street, on the big square) and went straight to the Triumphal Arch, which UNESCO puts on its World Heritage Sites list. Most of us know this kind of architecture from the Triumphal Arch that stands on the Champs d'Elysees in Paris, commemorating French victories, so I never thought that those things are much much older. This one was erected by Romans in the 1st century B.C., on the route of Agrippa, a Roman army general. Orange was one of their first settlements outside the heartland.
It's much smaller than the arch in Paris, and you see that it's really ancient.
The arch is located not in the historical center, and we had to go back, first on the same street and then through narrow streets where you could hardly drive. Luckily we left our car in the hotel.
Below is the town hall.
The main attraction in Orange is not the Triumphal Arch, but the Roman amphitheater, on the UNESCO list as well. As we learned from the guide, almost all amphitheaters preserved only their seat rows whose specific semi-circular form first comes to our mind when we hear the word. The scenes and the wall behind the scene were all destroyed except in Orange. In fact, here, the seat rows were completely gone so that ones you see today are obviously rebuilt from cement to accommodate spectators. There are many interesting events taking place in Orange amphitheater. The entrance ticket includes the use of an audio guide stuffed with tons of information in several languages. For me it was actually too much and sometimes distracting so that I managed only about three quarters of articles (without advanced articles that you can enjoy if you want to spend the whole day there).
The audio guide tells you the story, adding many funny facts to it. Like that the head of the emperor's statue (top left on the following photograph) was interchangeable. It saved Romans work of making a new statue completely when a new guy comes to power in Rome. They just put a new head every time.
As I said, seats are rebuilt in our time. But the back wall is original too. After visiting the amphitheater and a museum we went to the hill that you see on this photo behind the back wall.
Inside the back wall there is a long gallery with rooms (or niches) where artists could take a rest. The day was quite hot but here it was like winter.
Later at home, I have found that Google Maps shows the Amphitheather in great detail. The satellite view is amazing.
After leaving the amphitheater we went to the town museum, located across the street. Many Roman art pieces, and also tools and other things, were moved here, but the museum is mostly dedicated to the whole history of Orange. My son decided to photograph a scary Cyclops:
As I said, we went up to the hill that is behind the amphitheater. From its top you can enjoy the view of everything. There are also old ruins on the hill but they are closed for visitors because of dangerous erosion. I think that teenagers ignore the fence though - ruins did not look very pristine.
Part 2: The colors of Roussillon. Avignon, Arles. Camargue, Sete and up north to Paris.