France Trip in May 2013 - St Remy de Provence

Arthur & I went to France in May for 11 days. It was a trip that Arthur had bought us for our one year anniversary (yay!) Both of us have never been to France and was keeping it for a special occasion. (OK maybe not in my case, I just never had a chance to go but I was dying to go to Paris - that's why I name my dog Paris). In any case we went to Southern France Provence area for 5 days and then Paris for 7 days. What a glorious glorious glorious vacation! We went to St Remy de Provence in the south and stayed there for five days:

St Remy de Provence is gorgeous! Look at that picture above of the olive trees in Saint Remy. St Remy is a famous place back in the hey dady that Van Gogh actually used to live there - and was institutionalized there as well. Now that I have been in St Remy, I can understand the paintings better, along with Van Gogh's famous iris painting. The blue is soo light blue, the green is an amazing gorgeous green.

This is the institution that Van Gogh was in

I'm sure the picture above is Van Gogh's inspiration:

We went to some villages around Provence, my favorite is Rousillon:

Love me some lavender! If only it is not so fragile and bulky, I would have bought a few of them for home!

Gorgeous... Smelled a little strong to my liking though - I know don't shoot me!

We also went to various different markets around Provence. This area is very famous for the farmers' market. It happens once a week in each village. We hit the markets in L'isle sur la Sorgue on Sunday as well as in St Remy on Wednesday, where we were staying in.

We bought one sausage and it was delicious. Definitely not something we can find here in LA

Pivoines.. Peonies

This is L'isle sur la sorgue - which I believe translate to Island by the river

Nougats.. 

Gigantic nougats

mm.. cheese...

The olives in France are fantastic. I never fancy them whenever I eat them in LA because they tend to taste very harsh and olive-y, but in France the flavor is very mild and soft. Yummy!

This is a cheese shop in St Remy , the cheese are very well decorated

L'isle sur la Sorgue

best crepes in France (granted I have only tried two places)

L'isle sur la Sorgue's farmers' market are known for antique furnitures. Sheep and horse in the living room?

Village des Bories - I didn't think it was that great

mm.. kinda forgot which one this is but I believe it is Les Baux de Provence

Les Baux de provence has a ruined castle at the top that we get to walk around at. It's gigantic, here is myself resting by the side wall and enjoying the picturesque view

Rousillon will have to be the best village we visited!

Senanque Abbey Vaucluse - unfortunately we were a few months early, here is what it will look like in July: (Yes those green bushes on the top picture are lavender, sigh.. next time)

Les Baux de provence - visiting the what once used to be a castle

Arles - it gives Arthur & I a headache.. it's like going to a nice small villages for a few days and then suddenly returning to a big city, dirty, traffic... Luckily we just went to visit some Roman ampitheatre to get away from the business