Dreaming of France -- Lavender

Thank you for joining this weekly meme. Grab a copy of the photo above and link back to An Accidental Blog. Share with the rest of us your passion for France. Did you read a good book set in France? See a movie? Take a photo in France? Have an adventure? Eat a fabulous meal or even just a pastry? Or if you're in France now, go ahead and lord it over the rest of us. We can take it.

This week, I'm also linking up with Paris in July, a  yearly meme hosted by a couple of bloggers who also love France.

Every day, my Fitbit urges me to walk 250 steps each hour for nine hours in a row. Nevermind that I might have already reached my 10,000 step goal. It wants me moving every hour from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. I've figured out that if I walk out my back door, down the alley, turn left and walk around the block to my front door, that's about 250 steps.
As I made that circuit the other day, I felt a nostalgia, a warm feeling. I couldn't figure out why. I made the walk a couple more times before I realized that it was the smell of lavender wafting to my nose as I passed a large lavender bush on the corner. I stopped to watch the deep purple stems covered with fat bees that buzzed fiercely. They were drawn by the scent too.

I envy my neighbor's lovely lavender bush, but I know that next year at this time, I will be inundated by the smell because I'll be living in southern France.
I wonder if the lavender fields are awash in bees busily gathering pollen to create their lavender honey.
Will I grow tired of the scent? I don't think so.
I have to admit that the smell of diesel fuel reminds me of Paris. My second trip to France, acting as an au pair, I got lost in the bus system, wandering the city with a 3-year-old and 4-year-old girl. We finally got on the correct bus, headed in the correct direction, but the smell of diesel fuel always takes me right back there.
Is there something that reminds you of France -- a smell, a sound, a sight, a taste?

Thanks so much for playing along with Dreaming of France. Please leave your name and a link to your blog on Mr. Linky below. I really appreciate your participation and I hope you'll leave a comment plus visit each other's blogs.

Dreaming of France -- Southern France

Thank you for joining this weekly meme. Grab a copy of the photo above and link back to An Accidental Blog. Share with the rest of us your passion for France. Did you read a good book set in France? See a movie? Take a photo in France? Have an adventure? Eat a fabulous meal or even just a pastry? Or if you're in France now, go ahead and lord it over the rest of us. We can take it.

Yesterday, I had a lovely Skype conversation with my friend Delana who moved to Aix en Provence for a year and never came back to the States. 

She's answering questions about how to transition to France. So we talked about things like when to apply for our Carte de Sejour. I didn't even know that we needed to do that!

Delana suggested we come over in May for a few weeks to feel out the area in Languedoc and decide where we would like to rent an apartment for a few months while looking for a house.

Earl and I both jumped at the chance to visit France this year and immediately started calculating how expensive the trip would be. 

I found an apartment in Nimes for 10 days. Nimes is right on the cusp between Provence and Languedoc, but technically in Languedoc.

 I thought Nimes would be a perfect place to stay so that we could visit Delana and tour Languedoc. That's when I remembered that Earl and I had visited Nimes before, on our bicycle trip through Provence.

We started in Avignon. 

This is me in front of the Pont de Avignon

We rode our bikes 40 miles that first day from Avignon to see the Pont du Gard, the famous Roman aqueduct.

I don't know why, but it surprised me that we could ride our bikes across something that old!

And here's another shot after we had crossed. 

At the end of the day, we arrived in Nimes where we spent the night. Our hotel was located across the street from a Roman amphitheater, and we also toured some Roman gardens. 

As much as we'd love to, we may not get to visit France this spring, but I know that next May we'll definitely be flying across the ocean as we look for a new home in France.

Dreaming of France -- Blue Skies

Please join this weekly meme. Grab a copy of the photo above and link back to An Accidental Blog. Share with the rest of us your passion for France. Did you read a good book set in France? See a movie? Take a photo in France? Have an adventure? Eat a fabulous meal or even just a pastry? Or if you're in France now, go ahead and lord it over the rest of us. We can take it.

It's especially poignant in the fall as I see planes race across the painfully blue sky. I want to be on that plane jetting toward France. I can imagine the sky is equally sharp in the south of France. After all, so many artists are drawn there to paint because of the light.

When we visited in March, gray clouds muffled the brilliance of the sky, but we still got to stand and admire the scenery that Paul Cezanne recreated on his canvases. 

Up the road above Aix en Provence, Cezanne's studio is preserved. 

And farther up the road is a lookout with recreations of Cezanne's paintings so we could look at the paintings and at the mountain that Cezanne captured.

Here's one of Cezanne's paintings. 

And here's the view from the lookout. Of course, the scenery has changed greatly since Cezanne painted there. 

But I need to show a beautiful blue sky, so here's a picture that my friend Leah took in Nice. 

And here's another one that shows the sky and the beach. 

Hope you're wishing on planes flying across beautiful clear skies too. 

Thanks for playing along with Dreaming of France.