Leah & Julian in The World

Sadly not a year in Provence, like Peter Mayle!

We spent 3 nights in Arles and did a day trip to Avignon.

Typical provencal street

Arles is small (25,000) but picturesque.  It has some fantastic Roman ruins, is known for its bullfights (although the season hasn’t started yet) and it’s where Van Gogh painted some of his best pieces, including one of my personal favourites, Starry Night over the Rhone.

Not quite Van Gogh...

We had to go to the farmer’s markets on Wednesday morning, which are apparently some of the biggest in the region.  Although the produce looked excellent, they weren’t the best markets we’ve seen – they would be better if we were locals or were able to cook whilst here.

Tomatoes at the farmer's market

Avignon was a small and unimportant town until the French Pope moved the papal seat here.  For nearly 30 years there were 2 separate Popes – on at the Vatican and one in Avignon.  For nearly a century after the papacy was restored to Rome, Avignonians spoke Italian.

St Benezet Bridge, Avignon

It was always going to be a big day of travel:  Italy to France, Riomaggiore to Arles, 600km, five trains, 11 hours.

Then the French decided to call a rail strike.  Chaos erupts.  Trains are cancelled.  Tourists are stranded.  Fed up Italian train officials on the border station of Ventimiglia wish they shared their border with a different, less prone to industrial action country (three times in the last 10 months we heard).

Make that now an epic 15 hours of travel.

We arrived in Arles at 10:30pm, exhausted but jubilent that we made it to Arles at all (we ignored the advice of the rail official in Nice who told us to stay the night).  Fortunately, the reception at Hotel Regence waited until we arrived to check-in.  And people say the French are rude!

This train will be taking no passengers

Amy and I at her flat in Ferney

We spent the last 2 nights with my cousin Amy, who lives in Ferney-Voltaire, just past the Swiss/French border in France.  Ferney (as locals prefer to call it – apparently Voltaire was  not a nice guy) is a cute little village, with an excellent boulangerie (bakery) and Indian restaurant.

We spent yesterday touring Geneva, with Amy as our very capable guide.  It was so nice to not have to worry about which bus to catch or how to navigate in the city.  We visited the UN, the botanic gardens, tooks a boat across Lake Geneva and explored the old town.  It was a most glorious spring day and I must confess that Geneva (and in fact, all of Switzerland), now holds a special place in my heart.

Outside the UN

Thank you so much Amy (and Lis) for having us and showing us the sites.  It was definately one of the highlights of our trip!

Sunny Geneva (note the snow-covered mountain in the background!)