The next excursion was to Chateaurenard (which sounds better than it is) and St Remy de Provence.  

This trip was out into the countryside and oddly had lots of roundabouts which seemed to all be pointing to the same destinations. Thankfully I've given up trying to make sense of the signs, and simply enjoyed the journey. 

And what a journey it was. We went through a wine and olive microcosm with big beautiful chateaus and large fields. We were heading toward Arles, which you've heard from tales of Vincent Van Gogh, and along the side of the road were piles of clippings which could easily be painted into the Haystacks series. 

In St Remy we had our first experience with (super intuitive!) French parking lot meters. We were given the first 45 minutes free, with the option to add more time now or later. We decided to take a quick stroll first, because the advertised big mercato (marche?) hadn't made parking too difficult... so either it was a total bust or we were in the wrong place (... France... signs... yada yada). 

It was a cute little town but as we chatted with a shopkeeper we learned that Christmas doesn't really bring in lots of tourists or shoppers. So, ever the capitalist bahgain shopper, I was able to score not only some cool "d'arte" postcards, but a killer sweaterdress for a rockbottom price!  

And it was about this time that I discovered I couldn't find my phone. 

Wha?

So after panicking and searching my backpack three times we rushed back to the car (5 minutes free left!) and headed through the roundabouts and back home to Barbentane. 

(Yes, found my phone.)  

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