Beyond Arles

From Arles I took other little jaunts and discovered villages such as Gordes and Roussillion and fields of sunflowers and lavender which set my heart racing and camera clicking ...... and then of course, back to the Lot for more meandering through the winding roads and exploring the honey coloured stone villages, and painting and sketching.

Arles and Provence

From Normandy I ventured down to Provence (yes I know I was heading back in the direction I’d just come, and beyond – but there was a little stop to gather breath in the Lot). I was lucky to have a couple of weeks in Arles and to spend time exploring that part of Provence.

Arles is a beautiful Roman built city (and I thought the Lot was old!) with a maze of tiny narrow streets, and renown for Vincent Van Gogh’s presence. It has a Roman arena with real (but gentle!) bullfights, the Rhone river, perfect for promenading along in the hot evenings, a huge market twice weekly and plenty of small boutiques and cafes.

Normandy

St Vaast la Hougue, Normandy

I drove there via all sorts of interesting places, including Mont St Michel. This was a busy fishing town with a large marina – tractors trundled through the village laden with mussels and oysters, and fishing boats lined up at the wharf across the road and sold their freshly caught catch. was totally on my own with no tv and no friends to pop into the bar with, so a good time for sketching and painting.

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Summer in France

Well I couldn’t keep away could I?

I just had to experience spring and summer in France. This was a truly different experience filled with even more visits to the bars and restaurants due to even more people coming out of the woodwork once the weather improved.

These seasons were beautiful – flowers absolutely everywhere, the poppies were stunning when they magically appeared and took over the fields, blue and yellow irises lined the roadsides and the roses seemed to pop out of the footpaths and climb all over any wall they could find.


And then came the poppies........ great fields of them took me by surprise as I rounded corners.