Our visit to L'Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, the Ochre factory and rained out in Aix

Roussilon's Ochre factory (little bit out of order,but oh well...)

After our lunch we headed to see the Applied Pigment and Ochre Conservatory in Roussillon which was recommended by Cecile. Driving into the town we noticed Grand Canyon colored cliffs lining the road- deep reds and oranges that were reflected in the bright houses of the Provencal houses. We all loved the conservatory visit as it was something quite different from the market-church-castle trek that we'd been on lately. We walked into a room filled with tubes of paint from the last 100 years, lined with jars of pigment of every color. As we went on we discovered that we were touring an ochre quarry from the early 1900s (until 1945) to see the process of extraction, filtering, drying and packing that workers would take to get ochre from the earth into paint tubes.

Ochre was first used to paint prehistoric cave walls, and then was re-discovered in the late 1800s and sold throughout the world as a natural pigment with a strong and vivid hue, used commonly in painting and pottery. At the end of the tour we were able to make paints from natural pigments, which kept everyone occupied for some time.

Dinner was a delicious ratatouille made from a gigantic box of eggplant, peppers, zucchinis and onions that we found for 4 euros at a corner store. What was considered unsellable here would have been considered top quality in Kodiak... But then again, when you are rolling in eggplant and red peppers they are hard to get rid of (kind of like salmon on certain days in Kodiak).

The trough for filtering out sand from ochre pigment.

The elaborate sifting machine.

Sven in the gift shop :-)

Testing and creating paints.

Picking apples.

L'Isle-Sur-la-Sorgue on market day
On a quest to visit a market, we read aboutL'Isle-Sur-La-Sorgue 20 minutes down the crazy village roads (according to our guidebook the 3rd biggest antique town in France). It ended up being swamped with antique-hunters (many British or American) and the stalls being spread out all throughout the town, over bridges and along canals. This cute village is filled with gently flowing canals filled with ducks, but alas also filled with throngs of tourists and a Harley-Davidson motor-cade. But we ended up finding nice iron door knocker to bring home and the girls were able to find T-shirts.

Lunch was (for Fish) a big mass of raw hamburger topped with a raw egg- Steak Tartar. The waiter had to ask (politely), "Are you sure???" But he enjoyed it.

Sven's lunch

Canal water running through town.

Daddy dancing with Bella.

Bella got the camera...

The meeting of the fox and the hound.

Our rainy Monday in Aix-en-Provence

Monday was a slow day- reading and writing early in the morning, then eventually jumping into the car to make the one-hour drive to Aix-en-Provence where we had plans to see Phillipe (Agathe's dad) where he was visiting his parents. We don't have any good photos from Aix because we were just walking in the rain most of the time. What we did have, though, is an incredible couscous lunch and a good time visiting Phillipe! After getting soaked we decided to head home and have a quiet night, which felt great...

Bella eating Aix's specialty- calissons (made with pâte d'amande (almond paste) and crystallized melons, with a layer of "feuille d'hostie" (the thin wafer the catholic host is made of) underneath, and a crispy sugar coating on top).

Phillipe

Yummy couscous dinner.