Chateau de Chantilly - A Day’s Escape from Paris

By the time we arrived in the town of Chantilly it was mid-morning. The cloudy sky and cold breezes that blew down the rues of Paris had given way to glorious sunshine and frosted pastures in the Hauts-de-France department, “the North Pole of France” as the southerners, exaggeratedly, calls it.

Our destination was the Chateau de Chantilly and at the entrance gate of the vast domaine large patches of the pond were frozen and on the one or two isolated thawed spots, white swans and harlequin ducks paddled in search of food.

The train ride from Paris to Chantilly ran through the rather boring industrial north of Paris and beyond that, farmland, mostly unseen because most of the rolling hills were carved out to build a straight flat terrain for the train tracks to allow the regional train to pick up some form of speed. The few patches of landscape I could see through the dirty window looked forlorn under the grey sky. A landscape that did not looked forward to the winter ahead. Only as we neared Chantilly did the sun emerged from beyond the dissipating clouds.

 A portrait of Chantilly as it looked around 1741.

The chateau is an 800-year old outpost whose history is closely intertwined with French royals and one of the most distinguished and noble families in France, the Montmorency family. Today the statue of Anne de Montmorency on a horse, the 1^st Duke of Montmorency, (the duke originally build the first castle around 1528) can be seen in front of the castle’s drawbridge. The original mansion was destroyed during the French Revolution and between 1875 and 1882, Henri d'Orléans, the Duke of Aumale, the fifth son of King Louis-Philippe I of France, rebuilt the chateau as we see it today. (For more information about the owners of the estate click in the link.)

Within the chateau is the Musée Condé, our main focus of the day. According to a little research I did it seems the museum’s art galleries are the second largest collection of antique paintings in France after that of the Louvre. Any museum compared to the Louvre is worth a visit!

The chateau’s second major feature is its stables, which houses the Musée de Cheval, the Museum for the Horse. The STABLES could well be the most spectacular stables in France and approaching the vast chateau complex from the west and coming upon the stables first, one could easily mistake the stables for the actual chateau. Lavish in design!

French aloofness?

Many have written or talked about the aloofness of the French, but thrice on our short visit to Paris we experienced the opposite. Twice at the Gare du Nord train station. First, when a man helped M with her baggage down the stairs, (we were temporarily separated while I was searching for a ticket kiosk and which I eventually found hidden behind a huge billboard.) The second event was when another Frenchman, seeing me struggling with the ATM not accepting my credit card for some reason (I have used the same card several times before at other ATMs) helped me getting train tickets by using his own card and then I paid him back in cash.  

The third time was when we arrived at the Chantilly train station, a 25-minute ride with a regional train north of Paris. There was no taxi available at the time and the bus service to the chateau, according to another bus driver at the bus terminus, was only to arrive an hour from our arrival. I was not willing to waste that amount of time! However, a young French gentleman and his girlfriend/wife who arrived on the same train as us were waiting for a hotel shuttle to pick them up. When the shuttle arrived he asked the driver if he could drop us off at the chateau. The driver graciously agreed and we were very grateful. Later in the morning, I notice the same couple was also visitors to the Musée Condé. Upon seeing them I took the opportunity to thank them again for their assistance.    

An Unchanged Layout

The Duke of Aumale, an ardent collector of art, old books and manuscripts, was the last private owner of the Chateau de Chantilly. In the large Gallery of Painting he hung his paintings of suit his own personal taste. In fact, the layout closely relates to the Duke’s personal history and the layout has not changed since he bequeathed the domaine to the Institute of France in 1886. On the left wall of the grand gallery the art works are mainly Italian, reminders of his mother's family background and his time traveling through Italy. On the opposite wall are works from France, relating to his father’s side of the family and his own illustrious career in the French military.

 The Gallery of Painting.

Got to have some family pics on the wall too!

In the Sanctuary, a small inner room for the castle, hangs the treasures of the Museum’s collection; two paintings by Renaissance painter, Raphael: The Virgin of the House of Orleans and The Three Graces, and 40 pages of the miniature illumination manuscript, The book of Hours of Etienne Chevalier by Jean Fouquet. 

In the Reading Room, with its warm wood atmosphere, in one corner, kept in a locked glass cabinet I was thrilled to discover the Complete Works of François de Malherbe (1555 – 1628), a possible ancestor of mine on my mother’s side. Being an amateur genealogist for the past 15 years (my mother’s maiden name is Malherbe) and I having traced the Malherbes back to 1066 AD when one of them accompanied William, the Conqueror, as a knight, to conquer England, this, I have to admit, was my personal highlight of the day. The book was printed in 1630 and its cover is still in immaculate condition.

A 1630 print of Les Euvres de Mr Francois de Malherbe

 

François De Malherbe was a great reformer of French poetry and by some described as the father of French poetry. In South Africa, centuries later, the Malherbe family, descendants from Gidion Malherbe that arrived at the Cape of Good Hope from Normandy, France, in 1687, was instrumental in the development of the Afrikaans language and several of the family men were poets, writers and educators through the generations. 

Unfortunately, probably the most valuable book in the museum’s library cannot be seen except in digital format. It is the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, one of the best surviving examples of French Gothic manuscript illumination. (To learn more about manuscript illumination, click on the link.)

 Entrance to the Musée de Cheval

After our visit to the Musee Conde, we walked the half mile or so to the Horse museum. Meandering through the stables, seemingly one ancient horse stall to another, modernized to museum style, it does a decent job of capturing the history of the horse in military and personal usage; the history of saddles, stirrups, horse bits, and horse racing at the famous Chantilly race course, and much more. The stables are thought-provoking, to some degree, but as the French would say: C’est mon truc, the English equivalent of “not my cup of tea.” I have to admit it seemed M enjoyed the horse museum far more than I did, especially the royal carriages on show. She's got a soft spot for carriages.

 Collage of the Horse Museum

At the totally inadequately staffed snack restaurant on site, we waited way too long to be served and lingered only a short while after the late lunch before walking back to the estate’s entrance to await our bus back to the Chantilly train station.

 The Chateau de Chantilly basking in the late afternoon sun

Chantilly, the chateau, art museum and stables is certainly worth a visit. The estate is vast with woods, ponds, leafy walkways and bike lanes, and even small hamlets in the woods where workers used to live. It would have been a pleasant adventure to rent a golf cart, take a picnic basket and tour the vast estate, but that would be more appropriate during the summer months. Unfortunately we traveled there during December.

During the trip’s planning phase I initially included a visit to the Chateau of Vincennes in Paris, (close proximity) but I am glad M did some research, discovered the Paris chateau is not worth a visit and we both looked at Chantilly as an alternative to still our grave for visiting a castle of some sort on our short trip to France. I am glad we did investigate Chantilly. It was a fantastic escape from Paris. 

 Chantilly Chapel

 Two enormous horse heads dominates a small square   

Christmas in Paris

When I started to plan for the short European vacation over the Christmas season there was one day I knew was going to be difficult to plan for: Christmas Day in Paris. According to my internet research every museum except one, most public facilities and even many restaurants were going to be closed on Christmas. And if the weather was going to be miserable that day it would mean we would be stuck in the apartment, a lost day of sightseeing. It would be a restful day, but unwanted. But you can’t believe everything you read on the Internet. Thank goodness Christmas day turned out to be sunny and a splendid day of new experiences.

On the train from Amsterdam to Paris via Brussels

This was our 3rd visit to France and 5th to Paris (what makes you think it is one of our favorite destinations) and walking the rues, between all those Haussmannian pierre de taille (dressed stone) buildings and seeing all those familiar landmarks again made me feel I’m home again. Even using the metro has become second nature.

And for not believing everything you read on the internet, well that is true. On previous occasions we have stayed in the 3^rd, 4^th, 6^th 10^th arrondissements and this time our apartment was in the 11^th. It was a little outside the usual tourist area and on the internet it showed there were several grocery stores in our area. However, arriving late on a Sunday afternoon we were in need of some basic groceries like milk, coffee, bottled water, wine (always, but specifically not needed on that day because I bought a bottle of South African red wine, a Nederburg Cabernet Sauvignon in Amsterdam) and also some vegetables, butter, cheese, etc. because I had to make dinner that night with some sausage we bought at a Christmas market in Amsterdam, which was supposed to be dried, but was not at all.

Google maps showed that all the groceries stores in the area would be closed by 12 noon with the last one opened only until 2 pm. We arrived at our apartment after 4 pm and immediately went searching for an open store, hopeful for a non-French owned produce store that sometimes also sells a few general groceries or a superette along Boulevard de Beaumarchais, which was not far from our apartment. Well, we found a Franprix convenient store, not shown on Google maps at all, just two blocks away and it was opened on Sundays until late. It was even opened on Christmas day until 12 pm. So while M had her feet up and caught up on her emails and Facebook correspondence, I slapped together a Penne with a Bolognaise sauce made from Dutch sausage, red wine, mushrooms and Swiss Emmental cheese and served it up with a small green salad and a few slices of baguette and creamy French butter. The strong flavorful dish was well supported by the Nederburg Cabernet Sauvignon.  

The George Pompidou Centre for Modern Art

One of the places that have eluded me on previous visits is the Pompidou Centre for modern art in the Beaubourg area. It is the largest modern art museum in Europe and two of its floors are dedicated as vast a library for research. I like all forms of art and all mediums, and I like to believe I have a balanced outlook on art. As long as it is reasonably pleasing on the eye or evokes a reaction or I can understand what the artist is trying to convey I will appreciate it. I will admit that since a young age I have had a soft spot for Wassily Kandinsky, Salvador Dali, Picasso and the landscapes of Camille Pissarro. I thoroughly enjoyed the morning’s visit to the Pompidou Centre, M probably not that much, although I have to acknowledge there were some works that totally baffled my mind and which I would not call art. Or rather, “art” that can be done by anyone with a few brain cells, not necessarily enough cells to be talented. But hey, who am I to judge? Their work is in the Pompidou and mine isn’t.         

Indian art exhibition inside the Saint Merry Church on Rue Saint-Martin

After a late lunch, we roamed the streets in a seemingly “aimless” fashion, browsed the open markets down Rue Saint-Martin, popped into Saint Merry Church to look at an exhibition of Indian mixed medium art, sculpture and photography, until we ended up at the Saint-Jacques Tower and from there walked to the Hôtel De Ville and a Christmas “market” on its square. There weren’t many stalls, (nothing compared to the real thing with a festive vibe we experienced in Amsterdam outside the Rijksmuseum,) just a carousel for kids, some artistic natural representation of a festive season (I guess in an effort to attract everyone without offending anyone) and not much more. Dusk was settling upon Paris and we started to walk down Quai de Gesvres toward the Place de Bastille and our apartment, realized its crazy to walk that far in a nasty cold breeze and on tired feet, so we stopped at a Starbucks for warm coffee and some people watching of Parisians hurrying passed us with their last minute shopping on Christmas Eve, and then walked back to the Hôtel De Ville metro station and caught the train home.

One of the arrangements I could secure beforehand for Christmas evening was a dinner cruise on the Seine River. It seems that among Parisians a dinner cruise on the eve of Christmas was very popular and traditional, but cruises on Christmas evening were more for tourist. The only museum that was opened according to my internet research was the Jacquemart-Andre Art Museum, which claims to have an impressive Italian collection, but also had a special exhibition over the Christmas season of Caravagio paintings. But I didn’t wanted to take the chance of buying tickets up front, not knowing whether the museum was really going to be open or not.  

On Christmas morning, the first thing I did was tried to call the museum but no one answered the phone. Maybe they were busy, maybe they were closed after all. Not deterred though, we stepped out into the cold Parisian streets, boarded the Line 1 metro at Bastille station, switched trains at Franklin Roosevelt station to Line 9, traveled to Saint-Philippe-du-Roule station and emerged from the underground in glorious sunshine. At a Starbuck on Avenue Myron Herrick we enjoyed a croissant and coffee before we walked to Boulevard Haussmann and the museum. The museum was open and very busy. Because I didn’t buy tickets beforehand we had to wait nearly an hour to get inside and the line grew longer by the minute. Tour groups and people who bought specifically timed tickets beforehand had preference. However, it was well worth the wait.

Inside the Jacquemart-Andre Museum

The museum was previously the mansion of Édouard André, a very rich Parisian banker during the late 19^th century and his wife, the painter Nélie Jacquemart, who, upon her death, bequeathed the mansion and its collections to the Institut de France as a museum. These two traveled the continent extensively and were great art collectors and built the mansion specifically as a place to display their art collection. I guess you could call them showoffs. Although impressive it was not as impressive as what we would see the next day at Chantilly, but then…there is a difference between being rich and being royal.    

After the visit to the museum we took the train to the nearest station to the Place de la Concorde. We enjoyed a light lunch and a glass of Chablis under the covered colonnade at Café Sanseveria on Rue de Rivoli and then started to explore the area. We have traveled through this area on several occasions by bus, but never actually got off to explore it. But that is why I keep on coming back to Paris. There is always something new to explore and there are still so many places I have not yet visited. After all these visits I still have not been to the Les Invalides, the L’Orangerie, the Rodin museum or the Picasso museum. Last mentioned has also been in reconstruction on previous visits and this time it was closed on the Monday before Christmas. But at least this time I got to visit the Pompidou Centre.

L'eglise de la Madeleine

First up in exploring the area around  the Place de la Concorde was a visit to the church with the most beautiful name, L'église de la Madeleine. It is just me, but the name Madeleine is such a beautiful rhythmic name. Built in the Neo-Classical style, inspired by a Roman temple in Nimes, France, it is a rather unusual style for a church, with its Corinthian columns and beautiful carved pediment featuring a scene of the Last Judgment. Arriving just before 4 pm, the place was chock-full, standing room only, Christmas afternoon Mass was probably to start any minute, but I was not sure. Not that we were planning to stay, we were just drifting through. For a usual Catholic church, the inside was rather darkish but beautiful. From its steps it offered a spectacular golden-yellowish view down Rue Royale towards the Luxor Obelisk and the French National Assembly building beyond the Pont de la Concorde.  

At the entrance gates to the Jardin des Tuileries, M indulged in a warm sugar-filled crêpe. By now thousands of Parisians and tourists, wrapped up in scarves, woolen hats and windbreakers joined us to enjoy the rare sunny day in the middle of winter as we strolled down the garden paths of the Tuileries towards the Louvre. A golden sunset was descending upon Paris and apart from enjoying the wintry scenery, the duck ponds and the statues along the paths through the Tuileries Garden we were making up time before we had to be at the marina in front of the Musee D’Orsay for our dinner cruise at 6:30pm.

We lingered for a while at the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel, sitting on the stone blocks nearby, more taking a breath than anything else, then ventured to the Louvre to snap more photos, capturing the moment. We crossed the Pont du Carrousel to the left bank of the Seine and at the Café La Fregate, in full view of the lighted Louvre Palace, we enjoyed a hot drink, the very same place we enjoyed a breakfast 6 years ago on our first morning of our first visit to Paris.        

The icons of New York and Paris together, constructed by the same artists, Gustave Eiffel. The Status of Liberty on the little man-made island in the Seine River, Île  aux Cygnes, at the Pont de Grenelle in the 15^th arrondissements, not too far from the Eiffel Tower. (By the way, there are 5 statues of Liberty in Paris.)

  

By the time we got to the marina, darkness has descended upon Paris and a bone chilling breeze was blowing down the Seine River as we lined up and waited to board the boat. As mentioned in my previous post, this trip was not a foodies’ paradise and the dinner and the Bordeaux wine on board was nothing spectacular, but it was by no stretch of the imagination the best of the vacation, visually and on the palate. However, for me it was not about the food, it was about the atmosphere, that moment and place in time, being in Paris on a nighttime cruise, experiencing the city and its lights from a different perspective, and being with M at the end of a very unexpectedly enjoyable exploratory day.  

An Enchanted Day in Vaison-la-Romaine

 

From the parking garage next door to the Marché les Halles d’Avignon, the city’s marketplace near the Palace of the Popes, we zigzagged our way northward through the ancient narrow streets until we exited the city’s old ramparts through Porte du Rocher to join Boulevard de la Ligne (Route D225). Avignon is a maze and we would have been totally lost without a GPS. Running all along the mighty Rhone River, the boulevard later becomes the Route Touristique des Bords du Rhone, The Tourist Route of the Rhône (Route D907/D225). We followed the road until it swung away from the river and at the first major roundabout where the D907 heads north to Sorgues and the D225 heads to Carpentras, we went north. My clear intention was to avoid any major highways or autoroutes. I wanted to explore the backroads of Provence, from roundabout to roundabout, through lanes bordered by fields of fruit trees, vineyards and old stone farmhouses, and whenever we got to the outskirts of a town, the road was flanked by factories and warehouses, and filled with service trucks. No problem! There was no rush. We had time on our hands.  We were slow traveling France.

It may have been lunch time and shops were closed but the wares were still displayed outside in Vaison-la-Romaine

When I recently wrote about Spain and the magical day spent in Barcelona’s Bari Gotic I mentioned that another enthralled travel day was a visit to Vaison-la-Romaine in the Haut-Vaucluse region of France, loosely defined as the northern section of Provence.  It was our last day in Provence before returning to Paris for a further dose of enchantment.

Caesar Augustus statue high up on the stage's wall

Our first destination for the day was the town of Orange, a major Roman period town. Later it became a unique Dutch Principality (from 1544 to 1702) in the south of France before it was ceded to Louis IV of France. It was a popular Protestant destination during the French Wars of Religions (1562 - 1598). However, the Dutch, the House of Orange-Nassau, never ceded the title, Prince/Princess of Orange. For that matter, neither did the Kingdom of Prussia, the House of Hohenzollern, which also laid claim to the title. The Dutch continued to use the title for the heir apparent to the Dutch throne. Today, the thirteen year old Princess Catharina-Amelia, current heir apparent to the Dutch throne, is the first Princess of Orange to claim the title in her own right since 1417 when Mary of Baux-Orange, the last Princess of Orange, died.

 The back of the stage area of the Amphitheater.

 

 

The itinerary for Orange called for a visit to the weekly market, the ancient Roman amphitheater and the Triumphal Arch, the oldest complete structure in Orange, possibly built during the reign of Augustus (27 BC - AD 14). In the end we spent most of our 2 hours in Orange at the magnificent amphitheater and the adjacent museum, before a short walk through the market and never got to see the Triumphal Arch. But that’s the way travel days sometimes goes.

 From the top row of the seating area the people looks tiny near the stage.

The lonely figure in the first row on the right is M. 

The Amphitheater, still in use today as a musical venue, is ginormous, even by today’s standards, and a glorious testament to the skills of the builders of the Roman Empire. Started in the 1^st century AD under Caesar Augustus, it is the most well preserved Roman amphitheater in Europe. It was extraordinary to see such an ancient building still in relative good condition. While M stayed on level ground near the stage I climbed all the way to the top of the seating area. The seats of the amphitheater rest against the side of St. Eutrope Hill, which dominates Orange. Below the hill’s summit is the St. Eutrope Park, this at one time housed the Chateau Nassau, but because of William III, the Prince of Orange’s protectionism of Protestants it was destroyed in 1672 on the command of Louis XIV, the sun king, in his effort to enforce Catholicism.   

 A Pink Floyd concert at the Theatre Antique L'Orange

From Orange we travelled along Route D977 passed the turn offs to classic Provençal villages, with names that flow off the tongue like liquid poetry: Gigondas (little brother of the Châteauneuf-du-Pape wine region), Sablet, Segúret, and Rasteau until the road started to run more or less parallel to the Ouvèze River, which took us into the town of Vaison-la-Romaine.

The 1st century Roman bridge 

We parked our car just inside the new town on Avenue Cesar Geoffray about 200 meters from Pont Romaine de Vaison-la-Romaine, a bridge built by the Romans in the 1st century AD and which is still in used today.  We first explored the lower town or new town, where the ancient Roman settlement was located. We walked uphill along Grand Rue until it becomes Avenue General de Gaulle and at the tourism office next to the Musée Archéologique Théo Desplans we stopped. It was lunch time and in the south of France lunch time is sacred. There was nearly no one around. The place felt deserted. Shops we all closed. It felt like we had the place to ourselves. M and I annexed a bench that overlooked the city’s Roman ruins to eat our lunch that we brought along from our apartment while we waited for the museum to open again after lunch. Lunch consisted of some rustic black olive bread, sharp pale yellow cheese we bought at the Gordes market a few days ago, fruit and some “to die for” yogurt.

[Please let me indulge for a minute about French yogurt. If you haven’t eaten French yogurt yet, put it on your “foods I must try” list. I am not a big yogurt eater, or rather I never used to be, but I fell in love with their yogurts during my travels through France, especially the ones that come in tiny delicate glass jars with the clear fruit and fruit juices at the bottom and the thick, creamy yogurt on top. It is simply heaven in a jar.
The difference between American and French/European yogurt is a higher fat content. French yogurt contains nearly double the amount of fat than the American standard percentage. And fat means flavor. There is a French word vachement.
In Google it translates to: really, bloody or damned! If used as a superlative, it means “unbelievable”, or in American English “Oh my god, it’s frigging awesome.”]

 

 



Apart from some kids also waiting for the museum to open, there was no one on the streets.

 

After lunch we visited the archeology museum, walked along Rue Burrus and beheld the splendor of the Roman ruins. Through a public garden and along more Roman ruins we arrived at the Cathedral Notre Dame De Nazareth, a classic Romanesque-style church, the present building dates back to the 1200s, although some parts inside dates back to the Merovingian period, early 8^th Century. It was by far the oldest church building I have ever been into. We lingered for a while, and then in a roundabout way, passed more Roman ruins, we arrived back on Rue Grand and made our way back to our car.

More Roman ruins, a tranquil garden and the cathedral in the distance 

 

The Cathedral Notre Dame De Nazareth

 

 Inside the Cathedral Notre Dame De Nazareth

And we nearly missed the magic of the day!

 

It was already late afternoon and had more than an hour’s drive back to Avignon ahead and I was ready to go in order to avoid driving in the dark. But then M suggested we took a quick walk through the old town on the other side of the river. Bless her soul for making the suggestion. Our “quick” walk turned into more than an hour of being transported back to a 14^th Century “stone sanctuary.” What was so strange was that there were no tourists. We walked the ancient streets all by ourselves.

 

After visits to the charmed hilltop villages of Gordes and Roussillon, and spending time sipping wine in various historic Châteauneuf-du-Pape wines cellars, and watching the sun set over the Rhône River at Ponte d’Avignon, and finding some beautiful classic French copper kitchen utensils at a flea market on Place Pie in Avignon (the seller specially unpacking his wares again because we came to the market very late), I didn’t think anything could beat our Provençal experiences so far until we cross the Ouvèze River into the old medieval town on the left bank and entered a time machine, which transported us centuries back.

 

The old town, perfectly restored, or maintained, I am not sure, retained its ambiance of centuries ago. Steep narrow cobbled stone streets, flanked by ancient grey stone houses, gardens hidden behind iron gates and tall walls, multiple tiny plazas with water fountains, and here a house with blue and there one with green and further down the road a house with burgundy red and around a corner one with brown shutters. On one square a bed & breakfast hotel, around a corner an artisan’s shop. On top of the hill, very strategically placed and overlooking the new town and the valley behind the old town, the ruins of Chateau Comtal, the old castle of the Counts of Toulouse, which provided the town’s folk a safe haven during the Religious Wars. The pictures really tell the true story of the magic of those ancient streets in this enchanted hamlet with houses and gardens clinging to the steep hill like rock climbers ascending El Capitano in Yosemite National Park.

 Looking down from the top of the hill beyond the old town, farms and vineyards

The twilight hour was near when we eventually left Vaison-la-Romaine and we had to totally rely on Samantha, our trusted Garmin GPS to lead us back to Avignon and its narrow ancient streets. That evening as we walked back from the parking garage we didn’t directly went to our rented apartment, but meandered along the many quieter backstreets in the vicinity of our apartment, away from the small squares, populous and noisy, and the busy streets that house banks, neighborhood bars, a Carrafour supermarket, and other shops. On a quiet pedestrian-only street we came upon a tiny restaurant, a true mom-and-pop (actually a husband-and-wife) hole-in-the-wall, with space for only 5 or 6 el fresco tables. It had no diners occupying any of the tables and we were initially skeptical as we studied the menu on an easel near the entrance. A very friendly lady asked if we were Americans and in English explained that their food was traditional French.

 

A man standing nearby leaning against a wall, smoking a cigarette also chipped in and said the restaurant was a neighborhood favorite and that the food was very good. Between them they convinced us and we sat down and enjoyed a fabulous plat du jour; a mixed greens house salad, a creamy Normandy pork stew with vegetables (a la chicken pot pie style), presented in tiny Le Creuset-like pots, followed by a delightful local Provençal version of Tiramisu in tiny Mason jars. (It reminded me of those delicious yogurts in glass jars.) As the evening matured more diners filled the empty tables, lively conversation ensued and the quiet thoroughfare became a joyous celebration of that quintessential French pastime, dinner. It turned out to be one of our best open air dinners in France. It was quite late in the evening and after many glasses of Côtes du Rhône red wine we found our way back to Rue Carnot and our apartment. A perfect day to end a truly enchanted stay in Provence!

A tranquil garden space 

Another fountain. The old town is littered with fountains

 

M next to the Ouvèze River with the ancient Roman bridge in the background

 A last look at Vaison-la-Romaine at the twilight hour