We love Bordeaux, but it’s not the best place to be in the dead of summer — especially in our apartment without air conditioning. So we opted to join the masses of Frenchies leaving town for an August break, and we headed east to Provence and the Cote d’Azur.
We packed up our rental car on a Friday morning, hoping to beat some of the Saturday traffic we were warned about. As always, we found the French (and Dutch/German/Spanish/etc.) drivers to be courteous and well-behaved, and we didn’t see any aggressive or dangerous driving as we crossed France. It’s such a stark contrast with American highways, which can feel quite dangerous thanks to frequent road rage incidents and reckless/idiotic drivers.
After three hours, we arrived in Carcassonne, a small city in the Occitanie region that’s known for its well-preserved medieval citadel. We checked into our hotel, then made our way up to the castle, which was built in the 12th century by the Trencavels, a French noble family. The narrow streets were tightly packed with tourists, but they cleared out a bit as dinnertime approached, and we were able to soak in the atmosphere at a cute little wine bar overlooking a couple of the citadel’s 52 towers.
Feeling like we’d gotten the gist of Carcassonne, we hit the road the following morning and set our sights on Nimes, about an hour and a half away. The city is famous for its Roman sites, including a beautifully preserved amphitheater (we drove by, but it was too damn hot to tour it) and a temple dating back to the Roman Empire (pictured above). We just missed the market but had a picnic in front of the 1st-century Temple of Diana ruins at the Jardin de la Fontaine before retreating back into our air-conditioned car (temperatures were well into the 90s) and continuing east.
Our final destination was Avignon, a city on the Rhone River that we have visited twice before — once when Oli was a baby, and again two summers ago, when we had Covid and couldn’t explore as much as we wanted. We’ve found it’s an ideal base for poking around Provence, with dozens of beautiful villages situated just a half hour or so away. We rented the same gite as before, a rustic little cottage on the grounds of a maison de maitre with a tranquil pool surrounded by trees buzzing with cicadas (the unofficial mascot of Provence). We spent most of the next week swimming, playing Monopoly, and drinking rosé by the pool.
We also squeezed in a bit of sightseeing, spending an afternoon swimming beneath the Pont du Gard, a Roman aqueduct built in the 1st century to carry water to Nimes when it was a Roman colony. Another day, we visited the 14th-century Papal Palace in Avignon, from the city’s brief stint as the papal capital. We also visited the charming village of L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue on market day, and browsed for antiques at the huge Saturday morning brocante at Villeneuve-les-Avignon.
Our week in Avignon was incredibly peaceful, so the next leg of our journey was a bit of a rude awakening. With a few open days between bookings and the chance to score a free hotel thanks to my credit card points, we headed south to Marseille. We’d heard that the port city is grimy and dangerous, but also artsy and progressive. Unfortunately our (admittedly limited) experience leaned more toward the former. The city felt very dirty and chaotic, filled with sweaty cruise passengers, and I don’t think we’ll return. A highlight was our boat ride to see les Calanques, a network of limestone cliffs hugged by crystalline coves along the coastline. But Oli felt a bit queasy on the boat, and it was hot as heck, and I think we all wished we were back lounging by the pool in Avignon.
After two days, we couldn’t get out of Marseille fast enough. We made a not-so-quick stop at a mall by the port, where Todd had a shopping spree at Decathlon and we guiltily indulged in lunch at Five Guys (it tasted like home!). Then we made the scenic 30-minute drive to Cassis, a town so breathtaking that we nearly drove off a cliff as we made our approach.
Cassis is a village on the Mediterranean that reminds me of coastal Italy — very colorful, very hilly, painfully quaint. It was also painfully crowded, and I think we heard more English-speakers (so many Americans!) than French people during our stay. Still, the beauty of the place made up for the fact that there were so many tourists in this place where we were touristing. We stayed in a cute, central Airbnb with air conditioning and treated ourselves to a day at the beach club with comfy chairs and parasols overlooking the jam-packed sand and the dramatic cliffs beyond. The beach itself was composed mostly of small, smooth pebbles (hard to walk on!), and we searched for sea glass when we weren’t bobbing around in the clear blue waves. Once we’d had our fill of the sun, we joined the hoi poloi in promenading along the perimeter of the port, where there are lots of seafood restaurants and gelato shops. On our last day in town, we hit up the sprawling morning market and later on savored a seafood dinner (clams and mussels and monkfish with crisp Cassis wine) right on the beach before sharing a night swim under the light of the moon (the boys, anyway… I just watched).
We decided to make the 6.5-hour drive back to Bordeaux in one day, stopping midway in Narbonne for a quick meal at McDonald’s. Have I talked about French McDonald’s? They truly are better and more respectable than they are in the U.S., with nice playgrounds, clean facilities, friendly workers, and expansive menus. Sitting outside on the McDo’s patio, eating our frites while Oli played with some French kids, we sensed a distinct shift in the air as a strong breeze blew in. As we got closer to Bordeaux, we noticed that the fields of sunflowers that had shone so brightly earlier in the month were now dull and withering, and we even spotted a few trees that were starting to change color. Is that you, fall? Indeed, we were relieved to find that Bordeaux was a good 20 degrees cooler than we left it two weeks ago. We also discovered that one of our bikes had been stolen, although the thief had the decency to leave Oli’s bike leaning against the pole. Oh well, c’est la vie.
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