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Tuesday, June 26, 2001
We were up at 4:15 again. And there was only one van of us this morning - Rod, Adam, Bill, Deb, and I. The rest decided to sleep in. I had my breakfast in the room (luscious peach and my sacristan). But we stopped in Cavaillon anyway at a bakery and the others picked up something to eat. Bill had very bad luck this morning. Neither item he purchased was any good. One was very salty when he expected sweet and the other was just plain yucky. He was kind of out of sorts today anyway and that didn’t help.
We arrived at Rousillon and found a beautiful sunrise greeting us. We took pictures of it.
The photos on the left and in the center show some of the wonderful sunrise. The photo on the right shows the town of Rousillon with the warm sunrise light on it.
We then spend a couple of hours in the city, snapping this and that. It’s a colorful town and has lots of eccentric houses. I picked up a chocolate croissant for Bill there and it seemed to help.
The four photos above were all taken at Rousillon. The one on the left shows the entrance to an upscale restaurant. The center two photos show one of the street cafes. The left one was taken from a road that passed above the cafe, while the right one was taken in front of the large door to the cafe. The photo on the right shows some of the residential portion of Rousillon from a higher road.
The three photos above were taken while walking around Rousillon. The photo on the left shows a quiet residential street. The center photo shows a couple of church buttresses through an arch. The photo on the right shows a wall covered with so much ivy that one wonders if the door is usable!
Three more photos from around Rousillon. The photo on the left is a coffee shop with a small dog greeting customers. The center photo is another shop of some sort. The photo on the right shows the inviting front area of a private house.
At our second stop, Bill took a short nap and that really revived him.
Our second stop was at the side of the road to shoot a wheat field that was really pretty. We had to jump a steep sided ditch to get to the field, but it was worth it (photo on the left). I like the pictures I took there. We made another quick stop on the side of the road to shoot a vineyard with a quaint house in the middle of it (photo on the right). The dogs at the farmhouse didn’t like us stopping there, but they were behind a fence, so we ignored them.
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On to the main highway, where we took a short side trip to see Pont Julien (left), which is a Roman bridge that is still in use. In fact, we had driven over it before we realized it. It wasn’t very picturesque, just old. Amazing that something build twenty centuries ago is still in active use today!
We made a quick stop at the Lavender Museum so that Deb could run in and pick up a brochure, but they were still closed. They open at 10 and it was 9:30. We weren’t going to wait. So we went on back to the hotel for breakfast.
We had a lazy afternoon. I spent part of the time sorting through stuff in preparation for packing, since we move on to Paris tomorrow. Then we went down to the main room with our books. We wound up talking instead of reading.
Bill and Adam spent a good portion of the afternoon at the police station with Catherine there to translate. The rental company is making a big stink about the thievery, as if Bill were personally responsible. He’s also in a tizzy because they evidently didn’t give him the insurance coverage he thought he had. He may wind up having to pay quite a bit for the two stolen pieces of van. He’s contesting it and will try to get the credit card company to help him contest it.
About 6 pm, we loaded up the vans again, looking for some sunflowers to shoot. One of the local photographers had given Bill a location to try. We never really found the field he was talking about, but found another that looked promising. We passed a farmhouse on the way back to it and thought it might be polite to ask permission. Well, the old farmer didn’t speak any English and our phrase books weren’t a lot of help. He kept inviting us to eat dinner with him. We kept asking about pictures of flowers. He finally seemed to understand and gave permission. For all we know, the field isn’t his any way!
So, we drove on back this very narrow road and found the field. The flowers are all turned the wrong way. To get them properly means walking through the field to the other side. Not a good prospect as most of us had shorts on..... So we decided to try another field. It took some maneuvering to get turned around, between the ditches on each side of the road and the large mud puddle in the one turn around spot, but we made it.
The third field we stopped at is the one most of us stopped and shot. It wasn’t the best field we had seen, but it was the most accessible. It would have been nice to have gained a little altitude on it, so that the color was more impressive, but we shot it anyway. Getting there involved nearly getting run over when we backed out onto the highway and this truck comes out of nowhere at a high rate of speed. And nearly backing into a drainage ditch. Perilous!
These are three of the photos I took at this field.
So we headed back to the hotel and a late dinner at the Orangerie. Everyone but Bill wound up there for the evening. I had veggies ala Grecque, fish in a pastry with carrots and broccoli, and a chocolate orange dessert with wine. Absolutely delicious.
Then back to the hotel to pack and get some sleep. Finally turned the light out about 11.