Quarries, kayaks and castles

“Brilliant”, “spectacular”, “unique”, “amazing”, “you’ve got to see it to believe it” are all things the kids said when pushed to describe the Carrière des Lumières at Les Baux de Provence near St Rémy. All agreed that words cannot describe the experience. Suffice to say that two of them (at least) came out of the 30 minute show in tears, which shows just how good it was! Although when we left NZ some knew little, or nothing, about the lives of the two famous painters, Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gaugin, by the end of the trip, they will be quite the experts.

 Not many people in the world can claim to have kayaked under a 2,000 year old aqueduct. Built to carry water from Uzès to Nîmes for Roman baths, this massive structure is now a World Heritage site. Some kayaking skills were called for as we negotiated the rapids and eddies of the Gardon River, but everyone seemed to manage well, especially Madame and Jesse, although Dana and Abbey visited rather more sandbanks than the rest of us.

 Avignon is a wonderfully preserved medieval city with a 4 km long several metres high wall around the old town and many beautiful buildings of sand-coloured stone. We visited the immense Palais des Papes, the biggest Gothic palace in Europe, built for the Popes of Rome in the 14^th century, and the Pont d’Avignon, where Madame finally got to dance and sing the famous song – trouble was, she made everyone else do it too!