Sur le pont d’Avignon

Avignon proves to be a great choice for Sol, Leonie and I for our two-months-in-France-time. It is a lovely town of almost 100 000 inhabitants, situated in the South of France by the Rhone river. I picked it for it’s central location in Provence, nice climate and ancient town centre which is protected as a Unesco Heritage site.

Another pull towards Avignon was  finding David and Lucien on https://www.airbnb.com/, a platform for private vacation rentals. David rented part of his house to us at a very reasonable price and we ended up becoming friends with him and his 11 year old son Lucien – who lives in Lausanne with his mother and visits for vacations and every other weekend.

Living with a local is great: We get to practice our French every day, read Lucien’s comic books, watch his movies, play cards together, meet David’s friends, participate in David’s pottery class, use his bicycles and go to concerts and Karaoke together.

The house is located five minutes on foot from the old town centre. It is in the Arab quarter of town, at the end of a cul de sac with a nicely treed front yard where the kids can play soccer and climb on walls and trees. It is only a few steps to Majid, the Tunisian baker, who spoils Sol and Leonie with treats he offers them to taste. And a few doors further is the corner store of Mohammed, Aziz and Kamel, the Moroccan trio who sells everything from strawberries, to toilet paper, dates and deodorant.

Besides having wonderful plazas, tiny streets and beautiful old houses and churches Avignon has a vibrant cultural scene. I have never seen so many theatres before. We were lucky to be here during the dance festival “Les Hivernales” beginning of the month, which focused on HipHop this year. We watched three shows, one of them happening in the main square, which were each very different and far from mainstream.

Thanks to Ada, a lyrical singer we became friends with, we also experienced some very interesting and moving classical performances. One of them being a concert by Ada singing early Jewish/Spanish music accompanied by Iranian instruments! The kids found it boring, but nevertheless sat through it listening attentively. Yesterday Leonie got invited to one of Ada’s rehearsals and – after that – performance in the town of Salon-de Provence, because she likes to hang out with Ada’s 11 year-old daughter, Kim.

A few times a week we take the train or rent a car (which is cheaper for the three of us) to explore other towns or sights in this beautiful part of Europe. We went to Arles, Nimes, Orange, Les-Baux de Provence, Cassis, Les Calenques de Marseille and Le Pont du Gard (see picture gallery). This week we did a very nice three hour hike by a village called Laudun, which led through vinyards and pine forest and ended up at the Roman site Camp de César up on a rocky plateau with nice views over the plain.