Europe Trip July 2013: July 11 Luberon Villages: Les Baux, Gordes, Roussillon

But why did we have to leave our really "nice" hotel outside Arles? (view from the parking lot). Curtis shorted out the power for the entire floor the first night with our faulty plug converter. It had worked fine until last night. There wasn't any AC, TV or power for a while.... oops!

Ate breakfast at this patisserie. Just loved the woman in the window watching the world go by - perfect!

I will call to day the fortress tour. Each of these little villages was once a fortress. They have the walls, inside is now filled with windy, narrow streets and closely lined houses. Each one has a fantastic church and some Roman remnants. Each has used the materials which came from the native soils - which gives them a unique coloring (each village was a little different). All of them had spectacular views of the surrounding countryside.

Really, a dead village - mostly for tourists - but fantastic views

lots of tourist stuff - yes, we did indulge :-)

steps up from the original Roman entrance

view of the surrounding area

really interesting (and by that I mean yucky) marshmallow and hard candies

roof top view

french cookies

view of Gordes - looking up

ate our lunch of baguette sandwiches & pastries along this street on some steps

view from Gordes looking down

chatting with the local authorities

loved loved loved the old architecture. So much detail!

lavender fields on the way to Roussillon

In Roussillon - all the houses had a red tint to them. Really very very pretty - still a living village - with stunning views everywhere!

Curtis was excited by the mini-minis. I did think it was a pretty picture with all the color

Take some fig leaves and make you clothes... They really are that huge! Sheree modeled for me ;-)

Panoramic view at the top

tree lined roads along the way

Once we got back to our hotel in Arles, Ted had found us a bull fight a few towns over to go see. This was a local bull fight and the bull fights in France are not lethal. They are teams of 2. They wear all white (well, it starts out white). One man is the distractor, the other runs across the ring (bull in close chase) trying to "comb" out the prizes tied to the bulls horns. The bull do jump over the fences - so the bull fighters jump up on to the railing to escape being rammed or worse. Pretty amazing. They made it look easy. BUT - at the end, they let anyone in the town try it out. The ring was filled with pre-teen little boys trying to prove their testosterone. AND the parents were encouraging it! Not an event I think would go over so well here... Turns out - it wasn't so easy and the paramedics had to earn their pay that night. Scary!