We arrived in Provence at the Les Frennes Hotel outside of Avignon. The weather definitely changed for the better, and the TGV ride from Paris was amazing.

The Papal palace in Avignon is in the heart of the city. Its scale is fitting for the image of papal power that the Pontiff endeavored to project.

The interior courtyard of the Papal palace was just as intimidating in scope.

A quick drive from Avignon, Arles is home to a coliseum that dates from Roman times. The coliseum still hosts bullfights and was in the movie "Ronin."

Sue played the role of Caesar from high above the coliseum.

Les Baux is situated not far from Arles. It is a fortified town built on top of the leading edge of the Alps' foothills, the Alpilles.

Despite visiting Les Baux in late October, Provence gave us a small taste of summer. It was a gloriously sunny and HOT day.

Les Baux came into its prime just before France was united as a country. Provence was a battle ground between the Italian dukes, various Spanish forces, and the French from the north.

We heard stories of a very nice hotel in Les Baux that we missed. We are planning on remedying that error on our next trip.

The Pont du Gard is near the Chateauneuf du Pape wine region, not far from Avignon. We arrived just before sunset.

The bridge was a carefully engineered means of bringing water to the region. Originally built by the Romans, French royalty gave it a face lift during the 15th century.

After Arles, we moved our home base to Aix, a fun university town. Here is one of the ornate wooden front doors to St. Sauveur cathedral.

St. Sauveur's doors were protected from the ravages of the Revolutionaries by a wooden cover that fits over the sculpture that was designed to protect the work from the weather.

The view of Mont St. Victoire is essentially the same from above Cezanne's studio, outside of Aix, as it was when he painted the work used as the link to this page.

Bonnieux, in the heart of the Vaucluse hills, is the homebase of Peter Mayle's books on Provence. It is unbelievably beautiful.

We took the quick drive to Bonnieux from Aix. It was the final stop on our trip before we returned to Avignon to catch the TGV back to Paris, very bittersweet.

Two weeks in France: Paris, the Barge cruise in Burgundy, and a week exploring Provence. It was a great honeymoon.