Quite a day.......said goodbye to my English students and Raphael took me to the train station to catch my train to Paris. It is not possible to go West to East down in the South of France. Paris is the hub so I had to go North by train so I could fly South by plane. Make sense? I could have flown from Nantes to Toulon, but it would have cost around $300. Train to Paris was much, much less expensive and even with flying to Toulon from Paris, I stayed under the $300. It is sort of crazy, but that's the way it is.
At the Toulon Airport was picked up by Julian's high school friend. The family lives probably at least an hour away out in the countryside. Pulled up to their house and the front was filled with big sunflowers in bloom. That was a special greeting in itself. Lovely newly built white house, very clean and minimalistic. Julien and Lilly met at Paris Disney which is interesting. He's French and she's Italian (and speaks French and English, quite a lady) They have a sweet and fun daughter who we enjoyed playing Barbie with.
I have no "bucket list" just dreams of the most special things I'd like to see. When these dreams come true it is surreal. I stand in the place and almost can't believe I'm there and usually shed a tear.
I've loved lavender since I discovered it in 1980 in Black Mountain, NC. I bought a tiny dark blue bottle of lavender fragrance, made in France, and the rest is history. I've been to several lavender farms...Idaho, Washington, Canada and England and to now have been able to come to one of the most spectacular regions was almost beyond belief.
Thank you my dear friend for making my dream come true. To our hosts a special loving thank you.
This day was a lot more than lavender. I was in so many small towns that I could not prounounce so I won't try. One little place ran into another. Went to a huge lake, put our feet in the river, had a picnic lunch, The day was just beyond belief.
Day one we drove out into the countryside and stopped at a famous winery. _______ Later we bought a bottle of the wine at the grocery store and it was fine, but my type but I'm sure it was good. I'm a sweet wine drinker.
Went to a terrific beach town and had an oceanside drink and relaxed. Then we did the most popular thing in France and that was to walk and walk. As we were walking and walking further I just kept thinking as far as we are going we're going to have to walk that far back, yikes. We passed by the marina that was full of wonderful boats, substantial boats. Toured around the historic area and visited a beautiful church. There was a caroussel at the beach along with a ferris wheel. The guys kindly offered to walk back, get the car and come to pick us up. I was beyond happy!!!!! So Lilly wanted to go on the ferris wheel, so we did. We were looking out over the beach, sea (don't call it the ocean) and the town. It was so fun and we had such a good time and laughed a lot and took way too many pictures.
After lavender day I was totally exhausted and was contemplating a nap. Went out to the diningroom and Julien said that I needed to go see the waterfall, I really had to come see it. Well, despite my utter exhaustion I sort of figured I better go since I probably wouldn't have another chance since we were leaving the next day. He said it was close by (that is their definition.....never trust the French when it comes to walking because their ideas of "not too far" is very different from mine.)
So we took off down a dirt road across the main street. We walked a fair amount and I saw some water cascading over this wide area and said, "Oh that is a neat waterfall." I was informed that wasn't the waterfall and I was feeling sad and wondering where it was. I was told not too far. So we walked on and on and I was wondering what I was thinking when I said sure I'll go when I was so tired. Again I was thinking if I'm walking this far I still have to come back. I had that thought many times on this trip. We were in the boonies and they could not have even got a rescue helicopter in the rescue me, I'm sure they would just say you need to walk out.
