South of France Days 9 & 10

The next morning Lizzie, Sophie, and Darren left for merry olde England, and Anthony, Brian, Iain and I headed off to Avignon and Marseille. The papacy was in Avignon for 70 years back in the middle ages and we spent some time touring the papal palace (Palais des Papes).



There were a lot of terrible street performers in the square. This lady played the accordian pretty well.

Then we had some lunch and headed over to see the famous bridge. (You may have heard the song "On the Bridge at Avignon".) It used to be much longer, but there was a flood in the 13th century that washed away most of the bridge.






Behind us you can see the old center of Avignon. It still has its city walls.


Dancing on the bridge...




We got some ice cream and walked around the city a bit more, then it was back in the car and off to Marseille! Marseille is very interesting because it is a mix of industry and history. It is the largest port in France. But the old section of town is really lovely.

Here is the cathedral...
This is the old port. We parked near here and took a bus up to the top of a very high hill with narrow, twisty roads.
The view of the city and harbor were beautiful.



There was a church at the top of the hill.



We could also see the Chateau D'if, which is the horrible prision that Edmund Dantes suffers in in the Count of Monte Cristo. We really wanted to go out to see it, but it was too windy for the ferry to run.


We took the bus back down to old port and had some dinner. There were tons of restaurants there on the water, but a lot of them were too expensive for us. We did finally find a nice little restaurant with an inexpensive and delicious set menu.

Here is the old port as night is falling. I took these photos from my seat in the restaurant.



While we were waiting for the check, we played "Beep Your Nose" with Iain. Here he is trying to beed his nose!


We drove home and got in very late. The next day was our last full day in France and we were off to the tallest bridge in the world, the Millau Viaduct. If anyone has seen the new Mr. Bean movie, he drives over this bridge in the film.

Here is Iain reading up on local attractions.


The road to the bridge was through some gorges and it was so beautiful that I realized where we get the word gorgeous from.

Here is the valley that the bridge spans.

And here is the Viaduct from a distance.





The Viaduct was just amazing to see in person.

On our last day in France we had to make a quick pit stop back at Toys R Us so I could use my 16.00 euro credit. We decide to get a present for Iain and he picked out a very soft cuddly animal that we think may be a donkey. We're not sure, but that is what we're going with for now. :) His name is Henri and is definitely Iain's Special Buddy. He wasn't terribly interested in soft toys before Henri. Here are Papa, Iain, and Henri on the flight home all tuckered out.