Some Random Thoughts and A Day Trip to Fontaine de Vaucluse

Just a few thoughts/observations:

French people play by the rules. They only cross at crosswalks. The only people jaywalking are tourists, and most of us figure out that this is not what we're supposed to do here, so we follow the locals. Drivers are considerate and when pedestrians are crossing, they always stop. And they are considerate of other drivers too - even to the busses we ride which seem to take up multiple lanes.

The streets in the center part of the city are washed every night. There is no litter, and people go out of their way to use the garbage cans scattered around. Even when we're driving along the roads on the bus, we'll look out the window and see nothing on the side of the road. Why can't we do this?

Everyone has dogs. Most are very well behaved and some walk along next to their owner off leash even with other dogs around. Dogs seem to be welcome in restaurants and shops. Of course, this is probably also why the streets are washed every night.

The streets are empty early in the morning. Our internal clocks get us up pretty early and we go to bed early. The locals are on a different schedule, sleeping later, eating later, and staying up later. But we love those quiet mornings around town.

Why can't we in the US make a decent baguette? And sell them for $1? Why don't we have boulangeries on every street? 

How did we ever navigate without smart phones and Google maps? Did we really walk around with paper maps trying to figure out where we were? Yup, we did. And having the bus and train schedules available at all times... a necessity. The 1990's version of me would have not believed it all to be possible. I have an app on my phone that helps find public bathrooms. And another one that will find a place for us to store our luggage. I haven't used either one yet but I have them just in case. 

Back to today....

Before heading out of town, we did a little shopping for dinner. Bought some soup and quiche and a piece of this amazing looking pistachio flan:

Our AirBnb is just off a square that is in the center of L'Isle sur la Sorgue, and in the center of the square is a church called Collegiale Notre-Dame-des-Anges. The outside has some interesting lines and angles, and we've noticed them especially at night.. see photo back a few posts. But otherwise, it's a simple exterior. That is why we were blown away when we went inside this morning. It is extremely ornate with gold everywhere! According to Google, it is "one of the most magnificent examples of 17th century Provencal Baroque architecture in the south of France". Our jaws dropped.

We grabbed a bus and took for Fontaine-de-Vaucluse, a 10-minute ride east. It's the Sorgue River that runs around L'Isle sur la Sorgue, and the source of the river is a spring in Fontaine-de-Vaucluse. It's short walk from the village and is considered to be the largest spring in France and one of the largest in the world. Several divers and robots have gone down into the spring to try to find the source but they can't get deep enough. Pretty fascinating. It's no longer an option to walk all the way to the source due to falling rocks (no thanks) but we were able to walk the pathway almost there. It is a beautiful day, and the water is crystal clear. And the trees were beautiful.... anyway, it was so very pretty there. I'm very glad we made the trip.

Because we can't walk to the source, they had a live webcam set up so you can see what it looks like. This is a photo of the screen:

The river is lined with little restaurants, but this time of year, most are closed. I'd read about a little place people liked call Snack the Big Fred, so we made the mistake of going there for a sandwich. Kind of a greasy mess, but we did find some good ice cream.

Speaking of public restrooms, I thought this was an interesting placement of the urinals outside of the bathrooms by the parking lot. 

Greg chose not to use them.

 

While waiting for the bus, we met a woman about our age, travelling alone. She is from Australia, and is using public transportation like us to travel all over Provence. Pretty impressive.

Dinner will be at home tonight. Tomorrow morning we move out of this apartment, train to Avignon, and settle in there for 4 nights.