Day 19 Orange Provence

Day 19 was about getting out of Avignon and seeing the Provencal countryside. Johnny had always had a hankering to see Chateau Neuf du Pape. It was the area that the Avignon popes sourced all their food and wine from. Every tiny patch of land was planted with vines. Though it was late in the season, there were till bunches of grapes to be found and still troupes of farm hands tending them. We hoped we would get some cellar tasting but they appeared to only open to the public on certain days and we were out of luck. As we arrived at the first one shortly after 10, it was probably just as well. We were so surprised to see how stony and weedy the ground was. We were used to the lush red soil of Australian vinyards. We did climb up to the ruined Chateau Neuf du Pape which stood on a rocky outcrop overlooking the vines. They stretched off into the horizon. Not all the chateaus were ruined. There was one stunning medieval hall that had been made into a hotel and restaurant. The hills were ablaze with small vinyards. All of them Monsieur…et Fils. I guess in France you are born into the industry. We then drove to Orange. This was a prosperous place but we arrived through one of the dusty suburbs. Out in the boon-docks there was a magnificent Roman triumphal arch, but it har4dly seemed to rate a mention with the locals. It was next to a 400 place car park on the outskirts of town and next to another contender for the worst toilet in France. Ah yes, while we are on the subject of toilets… yesterday, at the site of the Palace du Papes in Avignon (a place of world wide cultural significance that hosts thousands of guests each week), we needed to spend a penny. We were spoilt for choice as there were two within a metre of one another. I opened the door hopefully but it was a dirt, rusty squat toilet that issued and indescribable aroma. No problem, I thought. I’’ go to the other one. This one was worse. It had a seat but something akin to the chainsaw massacre had occurred in there. There was an actual pool of urine you has to hurdle to get to the facilities. Enough said about this. Last night was not our best night out. We had settled on a restaurant acclaimed as a hidden gem. We set off at 7 and got slightly lost. No problem. With Johnny navigating we soon righted the situation. When we arrived at 7.30 it was closed. We looked at nearby places and went to one that took my eye. It was chokka! The bloke laughed when I asked if there was a table for 2. We left and went to one across the street. At least this was open and rhere were several people at the tables. The waiter was very friendly and helpful, so it all began well. 40 mins later we had the wine but no food. There was not even a crust of bread. Finally the food arrived. Mine was chef’s choice of beef and Johnny had the duck. The chef should have made another choice and all that could be said about the duck was that it was not ducky. We raced through our meal and left. We didn’t want the night to end on a sour note so we moved on to L Ópera café for dessert. Thus place was buzzing and worth the wait. Johnny had a gooey chocolate cake with a coat of spun toffee. I had a strawberry soup (delivered with a straw for drinking) with a shell of the spun toffee. Now that’s better! When we arrived in Orange we heard there was going to be a market in progress. We walked into the town through some pretty uninspiring and empty streets, but then the whole place spreng into life. All the locals were at the market and it was all happening there. Again there were the amazing specialist stalls. If we were home I would have bought some of that knobbly coal black salami to try. We found cake heaven and our eyes became bigger than our stomachs. We settled on a slab of vanilla ream tart. The woman helpfully cut it into two and wrapped it for us as if it were a precious parcel. We found a place that did coffee and had our cake there. Delicious does not even come close to describing it. The French don’t do toilets well but they win the gold medal for cakes. Our reason for going to Orange was to see the amazingly intact Roman theatre. The Romans were no fools. To prevent the locals from turning on them when they swept in and took over the place, they provided free entertainment every day of the week. The theatre was utterly magnificent. The back wall of the theatre was 103 metres long, 1.80 metres thick and 37 metres high. The semicircular seats climbed up the hill to dizzying heights. The theatre is still in use and top flight performers still vie to perform there because of the great acoustics. We climbed right to the top. When we finished at the theatre we wanted to get only a small lunch as we had booked for thurs night at the restaurant that was booked out on Wed. We bought a chicken and salad filled baguette and had it near the triumphal arch with the apple juice and gorgeously sweet and aromatic muscatel grapes we had brought with us. Perfect. From there we drove on to Carpenteras. This was on the Way back to Avignon so we thought we would have a walk through as we were there. It was an ordinary working town rather than a tourist spot, but it still has a magnificent church, some fabulous historic houses and all those little squares shaded by plane trees while a fountain burbles in the sun. France can’t help itself. It is casually beautiful, even when you don’t expect it to be.We popped into a local museum and gallery. There were lots of interesting things but we were fascinated by a globe of the world that was so old there was no Australia. It was a slow. sleepy drive home and a rest before dinner. When we got back to the barge, the sweetie, Monsieur Pap had hoisted up an Australian flag for us and a Canadian flag for our neighbors. That was such a nice touch.