It`s hard to believe that today is our last full day in France! We`ve been here three weeks and it went by so fast. It was quite an amazing holiday…two holidays in fact. The first part, in Paris, was an urban holiday in a city with much history and culture. The second part was totally different and totally non-urban….
We thought we`d visit Manosque, the city we`ve been staying in for the last week or so. It turns out the city has quite a history…dating back an awful long time. We`ve been staying in the outlying `burbs but the town centre is built around an ancient walled city. Several of the main gates are still standing and walking though the inner city is like walking through time.
One church, the first church established on the ruins of another church, dates back to the 10th century or earlier. That means the walled community is probably more the 1,000 years old! By the 13th century, another church (parish) was in existence…barely 3 city blocks away! It`s difficult to even fathom. According to local lore, people had a difficult time here. Too hot in the summer (amen!) and too cold in the winter at -10 degrees (ok…not getting a lot of sympathy from this Canadian). But I can be empathetic with the locals…we have air conditioning in the car and an easy mode of transportation to the beach.
We drop off the kids to the laser tag centre while I explore the local supermarket for low-price cigars and scotch. The scotch is cheaper here than at the duty free store and Cuban cigars even cheaper (because they are government regulated). At the Intermarché, I grab a 4-pack of baguettes and 1-liter bottle scotch. I love France!
Back home, more swimming (yes…it`s still freakin`hot!) A quick dinner and the children finally put on their play (they were amazing…theatre runs in their blood). And that`s it…tomorrow we begin the journey home. We leave at 4 pm at Marseilles, then arrive home way past midnight. Nobody is happy about going home but we are in a good state of mind. We had a great holiday.