Our Provencial Knight in Shining Range Rover

Saturday, September 19, 2015

Today we were up bright and early for our 8am flight to Marseille. After an hour delay we arrived in mainland France around 10:30am and picked up our rental car. Our fucking rental car. God I hate that thing. It’s some sort of hybrid car, but it seems more like a spaceship to me. Someone will have to explain to me how the engine turning off and then back on again every time I come to complete stop is better for the environment. Because it is definitely not better for my patience. Oh, and it rolls backwards down hills until it musters up enough of that “green energy” to propel you forward. I haven’t rolled down hills this much since I was 15 years old in my Honda learning how to drive a stick. Although one thing that is growing on me here – roundabouts. Hated them at first. But once you drive an entire day and only see a handful of stoplights you kind of start to appreciate them.

Our first stop was the village of Le Baux de Provence. Before heading up to the village we stopped at the Carriers de Lumieres, which is a former stone quarry that has been transformed into multimedia art shows that project images of famous paintings onto the stone, all set to music. We all know I’m not exactly a cultured art aficionado. After all, my version of the Sistine Chapel is the old mural at The Poop Deck. But this was actually really awesome. The gopro wasn’t a fan of the darkness, but I managed to get a few pics.

After that we headed up to the village and had lunch and a walk around. The views from the village are pretty cool. They reminded Jorgie of that scene in Pride and Prejudice when Keira Knightley is standing on the cliffs pensively. Since Jorgie’s dream is essentially to time travel back a few hundred years and actually be Jane Austen, we knew we had the perfect location for our “Headshot du Jour”.  For your viewing pleasure:

The village has a fortified castle at the top that they have basically turned into a renaissance fair. When we arrived they were in the middle of a catapult demonstration, so we decided to have a watch. All I have to say is wow. Wow, catapults are fucking slow. That’s a lot of work to slingshot a fucking rock in the air. I’ve watched paint try faster – I think paint inhalation has probably killed more people than the catapult too. If that fort held back in the day, it’s probably because the enemy was too lazy to climb up the hill, because I don’t think those weapons would do it.

We decided to call it a day and check in to our villa in the Luberon valley. However, fate had other plans. Plans to get us really really lost. We made it to Gordes, but our shitty car navigation had no clue where our villa was. Nor did we. So I drove around in circles for about an hour. In the town, out of the town, up the hill, down the hill. Finally we just stopped at a wine shop where a nice man let us borrow his phone to call the villa and the owner came and got us in his Range Rover.   Mental notes were made to return to said wine shop and buy some wine.  Now – lets talk about our savior in the Range Rover.  Okay, so he isn’t a looker.  But he owns a beautiful Villa in Provence and has at least half a mil of cars in the garage.  Needless to say we are trying to sell Jorige on a “Beauty and the Beast” love story and pawn her off on this guy so that we have the villa at our disposal.  She thinks she can get him on a diet at workout regime and turn him into Mr. Darcy.  The villa is basically the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. It’s like heaven. And now there is no doubt in mind. I must be rich. Like, really rich. Scrooge McDuck pool of money rich.  I better get on these Headshots du Jour, doubletime.  I’m having doubts that this amazing blog will bankroll my dreams of grandeur.