One Filly Travels

I was going to write up a detailed description of my trip home starting from my easy drive from Valensole to the Marseille Airport on Thursday morn at 6 am.  But, you all know I made it home so I will skip the gory details of overpaying a taxi for the ride to the Best Western once I got to the Orly airport because I couldn't find the free shuttle in my two hour search of Terminal 4.  I will also skip the details of the delayed French Bee flight the next day when the airlines had us change gates three times and we finally left 2-1/2 hours later.   The one positive was the flight was not full and we all had entire rows to stretch out for the 10 hour flight.  No movies to watch unless you were fluent in French. And, the French people can assure you I am NOT fluent.                                       Say goodbye to overcast and cloudy Paris at Orly airpor...

  Venturing out #2              By the time I got back from my Valensole excursion on full day #1, I decided to find a real supermarket for staples of coffee, milk, and water. However, my phone was almost out of battery.  It shouldn’t be that hard to find a store, right?  The trusty GPS in her last gasp of battery guided me to a Casino Supermarket in Manosque. (No, there was no gambling there—that is just the name). I drove and GPS said I was there.  Looked around, saw a plumbing store, and a E-lect something, which looked like a clothes store or an electronics place.  I decided to go through the town of Manosque blinding looking for a damn Casino Supermarket.  The smart thing would have been to ask someone at the very beginning of town but instead I drove through about 10 round-abouts and taking some iffy turns into neighborhoods that clearly could not sustain a big market...

  Venturing out First order of business was to find dinner the first night I showed up.  Les Chambres, as I said, is a bedroom community with no stores, restaurants, or food trucks.  However, back at the round-about where I went array earlier there is a specialty market where I picked up some fruit, a chicken dinner, corn, and breads.  Easy but couldn’t find coffee, milk, or water. I will live.  I had brought decaf (and two creamers) from the last hotel. Came in handy.  Mangy and I had a good dinner.  Ready for exploring on Tuesday.  Got a good night’s rest and woke up with the sun because there was nothing stopping it from waking me up.  I have no curtains. (It gets dark by 10pm and gets light by 6:00am or earlier).    From what I have read, the best fields are around Valensole.  That is where I am heading. The season for  lavende  doesn’t get going until July.  I did...

Valensole Airbnb   Once I got to the rental car place at the Marseille airport, everything was pretty easy.  I upgraded to a Peugeot automatic with navigation.  The guy programmed it for me in English.  However, he didn’t go over the gadgets and how to start it or put it in drive.  I sat there for about 30 minutes adjusting and figuring and frankly, a little nervous to get on the road.  As a safety precaution, I used my GPS on my phone.  Thankful I thought of that because the car’s navigation system wasn’t talking to me (was it something I said?) and I couldn’t see the screen for the glare or just because it was on a light I didn’t know how to adjust.  No traffic, yay! It was about 2:30pm and check-in to the Airbnb was at 3:30. I was on schedule and was able to navigate the toll road (just one) like a Countryman.  I took one wrong turn because I was following the GPS and I swear she said at the round-about t...