France! Provence! Freebies!

Hello Friends!

EEK!
Has it really been almost three months since my last post?!
Let's just call it my "Summer Recess" ;)

I have been busy...
creating, traveling, and some yucky stuff too.

Let's start with my looong overdue trip to France.
We started in Avignon, in Provence.
I had never been to this part of France before,
and I LOVED it!!

In the 14th century, this medieval city in the South of France was the seat of the papacy.
It was moved from Rome to Avignon 
because the newly elected French pope did not feel secure from his Roman rivals.
This Gothic beauty is the Palais de Papes (Palace of the Popes),
beautifully lit up at night and there are 
restaurants on the square for dining al fresco with this spectacular view:



Let's tour around the town a bit:

The Hotel de Ville, which is not a hotel at all,
but the name of the city government building:

 The Petit Palais:

Avignon, being a medieval city, is full of little cobblestone passageways like this:

An amusing fresco on the Theatre of Arts:

Inside the marketplace:

 

Look at all these wonderful herbs and salts!
Even rose petal salt and lavender salt!

Artichoke hearts, sundried tomatoes, capers and hearts of palm wrapped in prosciutto:

Yum!  How I'd love to go marketing here every day!  But it's definitely expensive...
those large capers on the stem (delicious) cost approximately $17.50 per pound!!
And the tomatoes are ~ $27.50 per pound!  :O

This is a charcuterie, selling all kinds of cured meats...
ham and in particular, many, many kinds of sausages:

Some charming doorways:

Fabulous teas:

A lovely little shoppe near and dear to my heart,
lots of French papier, fabrics, trims, gifties:


I cannot restrain myself from taking pictures of beautiful food,
these are of a fabulous dinner we had at our hotel, La Mirande:

 

Oh, how I wish I could remember what the dishes were, lol!
But they were fantastic!!
And after a few glasses of the wonderful Cote de Provence rose,
I forgot to take pics of the beautiful desserts!

Let's tour around Provence a bit.
The beautiful village of Roussillon:


 

 

And Gordes:

 

Gordes is where they filmed the movie "A Good Year"

with Russell Crowe and Marion Cotillard,

a terrific movie...if you haven't seen it yet, I highly recommend!

This brings me to...The Lavender Fields:

What surprised me was how many of them there were.

There were the large lavender fields,

and I didn't even get to the largest ones,

but there were lots and lots of smaller ones spread out all over the province.

Well, that concludes our little tour of Provence.

From there, we took the bullet train (TGV) to Paris,

which takes only 2 1/2 to 3 hours!

I will be posting my Paris pics in a few days,

so please check back.

Thank you for sticking with me, I realize how much I love blogging,

and how much I missed it!

And your reward you for sticking with me through this looong post:  

Freebies!!

The last image, the postmark, is a png with a transparent background.

Click to enlarge, right click and save!

More Friday fun to be had at Fabulously Creative Friday!  

Lots of great ideas at Show and Tell Friday!  

Lovely blues at Anything Blue Friday!

Lots of links to lovely pinks at Pink Saturday!

Creative living, decorating, and craft ideas at Inspired Sunday!

Lovely tablescapes at Seasonal Sundays!

Cute and crafty stuff at Make it Monday!

Vintage creativity at Knick of Time Tuesday!

Be inspired by Inspire Me Tuesday!

For links to lovely, shabby, chippy whites, stop by Blissful Whites Wednesday!

Beautiful greys at Grey Dey Thursdeys.

Lovely things to be found at

French cottagey links at Feathered Nest Friday!

 

♥♥♥ Thank you so much for visiting and for all your lovely comments!! ♥♥♥
Have a great weekend!