Nostradamus gets it wrong!

Sunday 1st October 2017 - Vallabregues, South West of Avignon.

Hecky, Pecky, it's October already!  The morning started misty but improved to be a warm and mainly sunny day.  We moved off north from Aix en Provence and then west to Mallemort where we had our coffee stop and made a purchase at the boulangerie.....

And we got another surprise treat for later.

After we had consumed the pain aux raisens we visited the town of St Remy de Provence.  It was highly recommended by the Michelin Guide Book.  It is the birth place of Nostradamus and the place where Van Gogh did many of his famous paintings.  I'm not sure how many of you know the predictions of Nostradamus (I don't think many people do because he used strange word play to obscure his true meanings).  Even the end of the world in 2012 prediction is confused by the fact he never mentioned 2012 or the end of the world!!!  Apparently he missed a very important prediction for today......he didn't predict that Burnley would beat Everton, at Goodison Park, 1 - 0 and go 6th in the Premiership table!  He can't have been much of a visionary!

The town itself disappointed us a bit.  The main square was filled with a fun fair but didn't look very pretty from what we could see.  The church was nothing to look at and a bit run down on the inside but once would have been impressive.  The small alleys were pleasant and we did find a pleasant Place with people eating outside a restaurant.

There were definately plenty of nice looking restaurants.

Just outside the town is an asylum called St Pauls where Van Gogh booked himself into in his later life. 

He painted many of his later paintings here especially those of the wheat field outside and the Alpilles mountains in the distance, he also did the Starry Night painting whilst here.  Within a year of leaving St Remy he committed suicide by shooting himself in the chest at the age of 37 years, and without acclaim.....sad really!

The asylum is next to a Roman town called Glanum which is now, not surprisingly ruined.  However an Arc de Triomphe and a Mausoleum remain largely intact.....

The Mausoleum has actually been proved to be a memorial rather than a burial site from 30BC.  These two monuments were worth the visit alone.

We moved on again intending to find an Aire de Camping Car for the night by the Rhone.  We found the place which was flat and spacious with nice wide marked out places to stay.  Four motorhomes were already in place and we took the remaining space.  I waved pleasantly at the French chap in the van next door and we began to set up.  He came across and started to tell us that we were not allowed to stay overnight?  He didn't speak any English and we couldn't make much sense of what he was telling us.  Eventually, we decided to leave the van and cycle into the nearest two towns and then come back to see if he (and the other vans) were still present.  I had already decided we would stay the night anyway.

We cycled to Tarascon and Beaucaire.  Towns on opposite sides of the Rhone, both with old chateaux.

The chateau at Tarascon.

Part of the chateau at Beaucaire.  Beaucaire marginally was the nicer as it had a canal side port for pleasure craft but it seemed to have a large Arabic ethic population and it also had a large dog poo problem.  I'm not specifically linking the two things!  The stink of dog poo and the sight of it near the castle entrance was unbelievable.  To say the small bare grassy area near the entrance was carpeted in it was hardly an understatement.  We have noticed that France seems to have a bit of a problem with dog poo in certain areas and the signage prohibiting it is usually quite graffic.  You will be pleased to know I didn't photo it.  You can imagine how horrified Janice was, I had to keep her on a short leash!

Back to the Aire and (surprise, surprise) all the same vans are still there ready for their overnight stay including our neighbour!  What a load of rubbish he was telling us (if we could understand it).  We also had our tea and settled in for the night.

My little surprise from the boulangerie was.....

It was lovely......I hope the talk of dog poo hasn't put you off!