Day 11 (Luberon)

I forgot to mention how cold it is here now. Right now we are experiencing the Minstral winds which blow down from the north through the Rhone valley. Even though the days are amazingly clear and sunny, the wind brings a chill to your bones. It's like the winds we had while hiking above the tree-line when we did the AT. I didn't really pack for weather like this so I've been wearing my jeans and jacket for the last two days. I wish I had something thicker, because at times when the wind blows particularly hard I'm freezing. Today was our second optional excursion. Gill took us on a tour of Massif du Luberon. We got to see a bunch of old villages high in the mountains, it was very pretty (though it felt a little repetitive). While traveling around we got to see Marquis du Sade's castle, which is awesome. Probably my favorite place that we stopped at today was Roussillon. It has these breathtaking cliffs that are made of ochre deposites, the colors are amazing. I couldn't resist the temptation and I bought a couple of little jars of ochre for painting. I'll probably never use them, but I thought they'd be a nice unique thing to bring home from France. We finished off the night eating out at the organic restaurant in Isle Sur la Sorgue. The food was really good (though kind of expensive). Also the sous chef ended up being from California so Dr. Mehta talked with her a bit and set up a meeting for us to go learn about the restaurant business in France which should be fun.