Friday
Per tradition, we had trouble on our weekend. On Friday evening, we were supposed to leave the residence at 6:26pm to make the 7pm bus to the train station. It seemed that all was going well, but our train was delayed 20 minutes - making our connections impossible to reach. The ticket seller said we have 2 minutes to take another train to get to the station in time for the connection. While Jennifer and I were trying to buy the tickets, Tory, Zsofie, and Erica went to hold the door. Well.. we missed it. The ticket seller told us to run and take the next train to Beziers. We sprinted back to the platform and there was no train. The train was delayed 5 minutes. When we finally jumped off at Beziers, we saw that our connection had just left.
After a frantic 5 minutes, we decided to jump onto the train to Nimes, which was in the right direction. We ride the train an hour and a half to Nimes and found no trains to reach Aix-En-Provence and our non-refundable hotel rooms. The train managers were incredibly kind and very helpful. They ended up ordering us a taxi to drive us to our hotel in Aix-En-Provence (over an hour away). Although it took a while to get a taxi for 5, we still felt like royalty.
After a longer than expected journey, we checked into the hotel and grab a late night snack. My Croque Monsieur was creamy from the Bechamel, salty from the ham and perfectly cheesy. By this time, it was past midnight.
Saturday
The next morning, we all rolled out of bed and went to the comprehensive breakfast spread offered by the hotel. Then, we rolled our way to the bus stop. In a blink of an eye, we were at the tourism office. While we awaited our tour guide, I asked about Michellin-Starred restaurants. While I perused the options, our guide, Max, arrived.
He is a musician who does the private tours as a side gig. Essentially, he knew very little about the history of the towns and drove like a crazy Lebanese man. We gave him teh name Mad Max. We had a very ambitious 9 hours. We visited Gordes, Roussillon, Lourmarin, and Les-Baux-des-Provences. We were supposed to see lavender and sunflower fields, but instead I only found this lonesome sunflower in Roussillon. Gordes was all cobblestone roads and walls. Back in the day, the townspeople built their city on a hill as a fortress to protect themselves from religious hardships. To grow food, they had to remove all the rocks from the foot of the hill. They used them to built the walls and roads in and around the city. Roussillon was all red and orange ochre with buildings matching in color. Lourmarim was the high-end area that had many shops and nice restaurants. Les-baux is not worth visiting unless you want a nice view.
Mad Max drove us back as quickly as possible. At 6:01pm, we made it back to Aix-En-Provence.We roamed around and grabbed a small dinner before heading back to the hotel.
Sunday
We woke up again to a delicious hotel breakfast before our Sunday morning bus to the train. As I confirmed, our buses, it turned out that there are no buses on Sundays. We took a taxi to the train station. We bought our tickets, then walked to the shuttle that takes us to the TGV station. Then we took the train to Avignon. When we arrived in Avignon, I noticed that my phone was lost. I made my way to the information desk and met Richard Marley. He tracked down my phone and sent me to Aix First Class for free. Then, I returned to Aix for free again. I met up with the girls who went ot the Papal Palace.I made it in tome to meet the ladies for lunch before returning to Agde for the evening.. At least I saved my phone..
Visited
Aix-En-Provence
Gordes
Roussillon
Lourmarin
Les-Baux
Avignon
Feeling
Unlucky & Lucky
Out of Breath