Medieval France

After Tim and Eglantines wedding, we spent the rest of the week staying in an apartment in Saint-Remy de Provence. It’s a central point for reaching the string of medieval towns in Provence. We visited the fantastic city of Avignon, toured the great papal palace, one of the largest and most impressive medieval Gothic buildings I’ve ever seen and walked on the famous bridge, Le Pont d'Avignon. We went to see the great roman aqueduct at Pont-du-Gard. It was great weather and we had Liam in the carrier and sat by the river, ate our lunch and threw stones into the river.
The apartment was very well equipped and was in a renovated farm house in a quiet location just outside the town. We had a BBQ one evening by the pool and enjoyed the relatively warm evening. On our last day we went to Niemes and bumped into Diana and John outside the tourist centre. We walked around the old city, looked at the Amphitheatre and had lunch in a park. After, we drove to Marseille airport to catch our flight back to Stockholm.

Liam hits the beach

While staying in Saint-Remy, we planned a beach day and drove the 50 min drive to Saintes-Maries-de-La-Mer. It’s an open marchland area south of Nimes, with fields of grass, loads of horses and flamingos. We only caught glimpses of the flamingos, but the horses were in stables and farms all over the place. The small seaside town is a bit of an odd place, more like a Mexican ranch to me, than a French resort. This was to be Liam’s first beach day. He donned his new red swim gear and took in the beach view. He was fascinated by the sand and held it up in his hands and let it fall like water. He filled his bucket, squashed the sand castles I made and generally enjoyed himself. The water was warm enough for us and Caroline and I both swam, but it was a bit cold for Liam. He realised he could crawl into the water, but wanted out as soon as a small wave came. It was only after an hour or so that he tried eating the sand… I suppose he was getting hungry and it seemed like a good idea. So we saved him from it and went for an ice-cream and Liam got some food too.

A wedding in France

You just can’t beat a good location for a wedding, and a remote village top church in France makes a great one. That’s where Tim and Eglantine had chosen to get married this year.
Caroline, Liam and I flew down to via Munich to Marseille and then with a hire car on to the village of Sabran, which is 20min north of Avignon. It was a very small village on a hill with views out of the wooded countryside. We were all staying in a complex of self accommodation rooms and cottages on a hillside, with lots of steps. The wedding was on Saturday afternoon on the small and very pretty old church on the top of the hill. The 100 guests made the climb up through the village in time and nicely filled the small church. Liam was in good form but the long French ceremony eventually lost his interest, so I went out with him from time to time or stood at the back. Afterwards everyone mingled for photos and walked back to the reception. This was fun, with good food and some funny speeches and film shows of the wedding couple. Liam had a great time and was up most of the nigh laughing and amusing the guests. The next day all the guests were invited to a brunch by the river. This turned out to be more of an adventure, with the entire party and the food having to be transported over the river to the riverbank on the other side. It made quite a spectacular seen and surely something only the Kennaugh’s could pull off, which they did. On the Monday we said our goodbyes and set off for Saint-Remy de Provence, where we would spend the rest of the week in a holiday cottage.