He's Back!

Yes, that's right, only 24 hours later and he's back to his usual chirpy cheeky self. Being the gentleman that I am I don't want to dwell on the gory details for too long, but safe to say I felt and sounded like an over-inflated dead rodent bagpipe creating sounds and smells not meant to be heard by anything even vaguely human. Ok, enough of that.

Well today, we convinced Gabriel to take us to Le Baux de Provence, which is one of the most visited places in France outside of Paris. It could have been a film set for some medieval epic with it's position on a rocky crag surrounded by uncertain mountains and encompassed by fortifications, but instead it was a tourist trap full of crockery, small painted terracotta figurines and replica swords.

We found a small chapel which I thought was intersting because they'd painted a biblical mural on the walls using the local scenery as a backdrop. I liked it because it makes Christ seem more imminent, aproachable and manifest.

Outside the chapel was a beautiful metal cross, they seem to have them al over the place, in the countryside at cross-roads, in market squares etc... I guess they're the legacy of Roman Catholicism to the background of Provence.

After leaving the slightly damp and overcast Les Alpilles mountains, we headed for the vibrant market of Arles, where we tried to get as many freebies as possible. If we could poke it with a cocktail stick and make it stay it was destined to be a pre-lunch morsel. Sausage, ham, cheese, bead, olive oil (a bit difficult to stab), mango, olives, melon, stuff-we-had-no-idea-what-it-was, all was consumed and enjoyed. Deborah wanted to come away with a puppy, I fancied the live goat, but we left with nothing.