And then came the Mistral, the blustery, cold wind from the polar north that blows through Provence from time to time, sometimes for two weeks at a time. In our case it was just two days, but, it made an impression.

Being bold birders, we carried on anyway, and walked through La Crau Nature Preserve, steppe habitat that used to be the delta of the Durance River. It has been shaped by 6,000 years of sheep and nature and has been preserved as a sheep grazing area since then....therefore...no plantings and only a few buildings needed for sheep and shepherds. There is little protection from the wind. 

We wore our warmest digs, but still.....

 

Below we see S's pants blowing up and J. about to lose the blasted scope.

L. and I thought the howling wind called for a poem and she hatched the brilliant opening phrase..."O Mistral."  For whatever reason, though, we couldn't seem to flesh it out after that perfect title, despite wailing it out from time to time during the trip.  "O Mistral" we would cry with desperate emotion in the hopes that the second line would follow.  But, no..nothing. The whole trip...nothing came to us. It wasn't until I saw these pictures that the rest of the poem burst into my poetic consciousness.

 Vegetation was quite low and the place was studded with stones.

There were many of these conglomerates 

During World War II, the occupying Germans forced the Provencals to make these piles of rocks to deter any allied air landings.

This is a sheep breeding building and the home of a not-so-friendly large shepherd's wife and their scary dog. The large white sheep dogs can be dangerous when they are performing their jobs as sheep protectors.

These are sheep.

 

Thanks to M's brilliant spotting we saw a Hoopoe there, but not much else, and I couldn't run fast enough against the prevailing gale to photograph that desirable, but distant bird.

At this point, our fearless leader decided to show us some of the well-known Provence culture (always with an eye out for birds, though).

We started out with an ancient castle and fortress on a hill.

The Mistral continued to pummel us that day, so our "picnic" on the grass may have lacked something in the way of comfort, but will forever remained scarred into our memories. The only bird we hoped to see there was a no-show. But the Crag Martin (no pics) braved the breeze and we got good looks. 

 The Three Marys are famous in Provence for being sent out to sea in a boat without food or water, yet surviving and washing up on the Meditarrean shore not far from here.

I found doorways awesome in Provence....

Walking up to the town

 There was a little village within the walls. I had a hot chocolate.

This is Gordes, surely the most adorable little town on a hill. 

Goldfinch

A lot of rock houses

Do cute little towns on hills get any cuter?

Well, maybe...here's Roussillon...

And here are some garages built into the ocre rock

"You have to be of a certain stature"...said L.

Where does the color come from for the houses here?

The ocre sandstone hereabout

We had lunch and the waiter had a tough time understanding "I'll have a hamburger without the bun, please"  Kind of out-of-the-box thinking for him, but he was a bit of a tease, I think. 

It had been 50 years since I'd spoken French and really enjoyed it, but was glad to get this tip about "Kiwi"

And in case you want to buy an "ocre thing"...here's your shop.

 

We saw many memorial statues to the "enfants" who died for France in World War I. "enfants" means children, but in this context it is a word of respect with a patriotic nuance. Eg: National Anthem = "Allons, enfants de la Patrie" or "Let's go, sons of the country"

 

And upstairs to residences

Good-bye, beautiful, clean, colorful Roussillon.

Then, there was Ezes where the European Robin managed to make it impossible to get a good photo by sitting and singing enticingly at eye level in a tree....but in the deep shade. Also, toilets were in short supply.

Our next stop was Avignon where we did laundry. It was actually quite exciting to figure out how to make the machines run from a master board of buttons and switches...but mostly because we got to sit en plein air at a table on the square and have a glass of wine while we waited.

We had several memorable meals in this town, and we visited the grounds where the popes lived...looked pretty fancy from the outside.

At some point on a lovely day, we visited the sanatorium in St. Remy where Van Gogh lived for 15 months during his most difficult time. He surely must have had a bipolar experience because there were times when he painted ferociously, a painting a day, and times when he was so depressed he could not get out of bed. It is thought that he may also have been exposed to toxins and that he had epileptic seizures as well. It is all very sad to me and brings me closer to understanding the mental torment that so many others have undergone. 

Because it touched me so deeply, I want to show you some of what we saw ...  so many familiar paintings .... so many of which were painted on the grounds we were standing on. Here is the entrance. Imagine you are there.

This is the Dutchman who left Holland for Paris, then left Paris for Arles where he wanted to set up an artists' colony, and who after just a short while had to admit himself to this "hospice" after he assaulted Gauguin in the streets of Arles and then cut off part of his own ear. Here he was lovingly taken care of by doctors and nurses who must have provided him with some peace after the town of Arles asked him to leave.

This is the garden at St. Paul's painted in this very spot. Looks very much the same.

"La Nuit Etoilee", painted here in St Remy

"Almond trees in blossom", painted here

"The Olive trees", painted here

Love this quiet space

This was Van Gogh's bedroom in "the yellow house" in Arles 

Below is the room he stayed in while he lived in the sanatorium

"Butterfly Garden at St Paul's"

The bathtubs outside his bedroom...looks like they might have offered some sensory deprivation experience to patients

From the back garden - looking toward the chapel

"The Yellow Wheat", similar to the wheat fields of La Crau where he shot himself (presumably) in the abdomen..the event that ended his short life.

Prairie in the mountains, painted here

Here's the beautiful atrium...St Paul's was originally a religious institution that housed several different religions before it became a hospital

This is the garden where prints of several paintings are posted

This Great Tit was feeding young in its cavity nest in this tree along the entranceway.

 

Here he is again with a packet of spiders for his offspring

Chaffinch in the garden

Chaffinch

 

Outside of town there were birding areas where we caught a couple of species and this pretty sight.

Common Kestrel

Common Kestrel

 After our lovely eight days were up with our new friends, we had to split         up...some to go to Paris for a week, and Scott and I rented a car to drive south to Nice. Scott was an awesome driver, but I was a loser navigator on this leg. I couldn't figure out why my phone GPS kept leading me onto narrow dirt roads...very frustrating until I realized I had the GPS set to find routes for Bicycles, not Cars. Got better after I figured that out.

We passed through Nice and stopped at our first apartment in the eastern suburb of Villefranche-Sur-Mer. This was really a terrific beach town and we got our first taste of real "walking" here when we walked from one end to the other along the Mediterranean Sea. Plus our apartment was up, up, up a hill from the beach. We also enjoyed finding the little grocery shop where we bought our gluten-free food (and a baguette or pastry for Scott) to cook up in our apartments.

When we would have our pre-dinner glass of wine, we enjoyed our very own "Rear Window" (a favorite movie of mine) experience. So much "living" noise coming from the apartments across the way, or above us, or next to us, plus some very insistent tomcats about.

Villefrance-Sur-Mer

It's right on the Mediterranean

Around the bend from the busy business port of Nice

And just beautiful to walk around in, visit the old fortress

 

Two days here was all we got...then we turned in the car at the train station and hopped TrenItalia for Pisa. It was a lovely ride...all of it along the Mediterranean coast...such a calm and clear coastline...not like the crashing waves of many of the US coasts we've traveled.

See you in Italy!