Sponge Bucket: sunflowers and lavender. or not.

like so many things on this trip, the decision to go to provence was a last minute one, made as a result of realising i had just over a week to kill before i was to meet charlie in barcelona. a quick google search revealed the benefits of heading north: the sunflowers! the quaint little country houses! the medieval buildings! the fresh food markets! however it was the lavender fields that i really wanted to see. i imagined myself frolicking through a sea of purple in a sundress and perhaps a little straw hat like i was in some sort of lana del rey-esque film clip, emerging at the end smelling like a bath bomb. yes, yes and yes.

my lack of planning had its downside though; there was a festival on that weekend in avignon — the hub of provence in which to see the lavender — so finding accommodation proved mucho tricky. however, i found a lovely little room for rent through airbnb in a town called uzés, which wasn’t too far away and from which i assumed i could easily get a bus to avignon. i only booked two nights, as i thought one full day was all i needed for the day trip and the two half days would be enough to explore uzés, which looked beautiful in it’s own right.

what i didn’t realise is that public transport in small country towns in the south of france isn’t quite up to scratch. arriving by train to the town of nimes on a friday afternoon, i had to wait 2 and a half hours to get a bus to uzés — a fact that should have been ominous to me but which didn’t really click at the time. when i finally did arrive at my lodgings, i was met by a very sweet little family who had adorably hung a sign up on their front door saying, ‘MELISSA! it’s here!’ complete with a work of art lovingly finger-painted by the family’s two-year-old son. mercifully, gwen, the mother, spoke excellent english and showed me around the house while her three little ones followed, wide-eyed and tugging on their mother’s skirt, asking what she was saying in that funny language. ‘they are very curious about you’, gwen told me, ‘they want to know if you have ever seen a kangaroo’. cute!

i was feeling a bit under the weather, so after taking a nap, i decided to head to the nearby tourist office to find out the best way to see the lavender.

‘no, no, it is impossible,’ the lady at the desk told me as soon as i enquired. ‘you haff no car, you cannot see the lavender.’

‘but surely there is a bus or a train i could take?’ i pleaded.

‘no! no car, no lavender!’

fuming but undeterred, i went home to google all the tour operators in the area who would help my fulfil my lana fantasies. aha! i thought upon finding a tour that would show me the best lavender fields provence had to offer. take that bitch face, it is possible! the fact that this particular tour ran to and from avignon was no problem, i thought, as i would merely catch the bus to nimes and the train to avignon in the morning and again coming home. i booked the tour and took myself out for dinner in celebration of outsmarting the wicked woman who had the audacity to call herself a tourist-helper-outer.

however, as i was digging into my mushroom ravioli (which was delicious fyi), my two-hour-plus wait at the bus station kept nagging at my brain. i decided it was probably in my interest to find out exactly what times the buses/ trains ran, rather than just winging it the following day. alas, bitch face was correct and i did not deserve the delicious ravioli. the tour would have me back in avignon by 7.15pm but the last train to nimes was at 7.20pm, which would’ve been cutting it fine enough, even if the last bus to uzés wasn’t at 7pm. blerrrrrrrg! i was gutted and shot off several ‘please don’t charge my credit card, there has been a mistake, cannot do tour!!!!!’ emails to the tour company. by the morning, i had a reply from them but it only said something along the lines of ‘yes, we are looking forward to meeting you too!!!’ panicking, i asked gwen if she could possibly help me communicate with these very friendly idiots and she was able to sort it out for me, bless her.

so that was that. no lavender fields for me. i decided not to dwell and make the most of the beautiful area i had found myself in by chance. uzés really is lovely and i had the fortune of being there on market day, when the whole town literally becomes a marketplace. every street was full of vendors selling flowers, fruit, vegetables, cheese, spices, textiles, handmade jewellery, homeswares, wooden toys, second-hand books, brightly coloured patchwork clothing favoured by hippies. it was wonderful and i spent the morning wandering around eating a bag of the freshest, most delicious falafel i have ever had. i also wanted to see some of the medieval buildings while i was there, so later on i took the train to nimes to see the old gladiator arena (did you know gladiators fought in france? i did not but it was all very fascinating). i did a self-guided audio tour of the place and it was magnificent; they voice-acted out a real gladiator battle, complete with roars of the crowd and the clashing of swords. i also learnt that the battles weren’t at all how it was portrayed in the russell crowe movie. for one, most gladiators were volunteers who trained for years in special schools for the honour of competing. and a lot of the battles didn’t end in death… it cost too much money to train more gladiators. the audio guide said it was more like their version of boxing… just, you know, with swords. and spiked clubs. and sometimes lions.

after that thrilling encounter with history (only slightly spoiled by a concert stage in the middle of the arena), i visited the maison carree, a roman temple which used to be the epicentre of all of nimes’ most important decision-making and which is now used to house a very low budget and confusing 3d movie explaining the history of nimes most prominent persons (all men, booo). it was in french but had english subtitles and i still had no idea what i was looking at. because i had purchased the ‘three historical sites for 10 euro day pass’, next i was i off to the tour magne, an old watchtower which offered spectacular views of the town. the tower itself was pretty cool and the view was kinda neat but climbing the winding stairs in 35 degree heat was not a good time. all in all, i’d give the experience 3.5 out 5 stars… margaret?

now here come the pics! coming up: the north of spain, also known — and vehemently endorsed by the locals — as catalonia.

ciao! xx