Invités

At the end of May we were overjoyed to have Tuan and Julie visit from Halifax. They made a special change in their scheduled vacation to Italy to stop in and see us and it was a delight to catch up.

Because they were only here for two days we thought long and hard about what we would show them and where we would visit. We ended up choosing to leave Marseille and show them what we consider the best of Provence; St. Remy de Provence, Glanum and Les Baux de Provence. These three sites incorporate the a large swatch of history from the Gauls to medieval times, and St. Remy is your typical Provencale town. This is my third time to all of these sites, but I still enjoy them.

Tuan and Julie have told us that every time they come home from Europe they always try to think about how they can make their daily lives more European. I think this is a fantastic philosophy. Their past resolutions have included using bicycles more and buying bread from local bakeries. They have informed us that this trips European lesson is to try to picnic more. Keith and I picnic a lot on our various day trips and I must say it is not only preferable in terms of cost and the convenience of being able to eat whenever you want, but you can also eat where ever you want. We have had some great picnics on the tops of mountains, in old ruins and beside the sea. I would encourage everyone to picnic more often.

I have always visited Les Baux and the other sites in the off season. This has worked out wonderfully in terms of being able to wander around without crowds or line ups, but on this trip we did reap some of the benefits of visiting in tourist season. Firstly at Les Baux they had the role players putting on little shows to explain aspects of medieval armor and weapons to children which is always entertaining. Secondly and most importantly  they were actually firing the different catapults and the the trebuchet.   We were all lucky enough to be picked from the crowd to participate in launching the different siege engines for the audience.

Julie and I were fortunate in that it took little effort to launch this catapult like contraption, but Keith and Tuan spent roughly ten minutes each winding up the trebuchet and were left with sore muscles.

We were so happy to host Tuan and Juile. It was a lovely visit, but too short.