Day 2: All That And A Bag of Chips

I really don't do French very well, so this will be an interesting trip. We got into Paris Charles de Gaulle about 5:30 am local time, and our train for Avignon didn't leave until 11:40 am. That's a long time in a little train station. Ellen wanted some chips, we got some change and I bought what I thought were plain chips. Turned out they were roasted chicken and thyme flavored. Who ever heard of such a thing? Ellen ate them anyway, so nothing lost.

We were exhausted, both getting virtually no sleep on the plane. Time crawled waiting for our train. We met a couple and their two children from Scarsdale. Kids were 4 and 3, seems impossible to remember Andrea and Ben at that age.

Finally it was train time. We had 1st class reserved seats and the train was very comfortable. I tried to look out the window at the countryside as the outskirts of Paris turned into farm country, but I didn't last very long. We both slept pretty much the whole way, which was much needed.

We are staying in a B&B in Avignon, called A L'Ombre du Palais. It is located right near the center of the old city, across from the Palais Des Papas. We had enough energy for a walk down the main street, a sampling of French baked goods and finding the local supermarket. We both love foreign grocery stores, so interesting to see similar and very different products.

Our B&B hostess treated us to wine and hors d'oeuvres at 7 pm, and made us reservations at L'Epicerie just a few blocks away. Ellen ordered beef, I ordered a seasoned lamb dish, and we ended up both liking each other's better. For dessert, I had an apricot tart with vanilla ice cream. It was obviously made by a pastry chef and the ice cream was home made. It cooled the core, which was necessary since the highs are in the mid-90's.

Tomorrow we have hired a car for 1/2 a day of site seeing ouside of Avignon, then we'll try to finish off the city itself, with the cruise starting on Sunday.