Toulouse to Avignon, France, Tuesday September 9th

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The train trip was interesting because we shared a compartment with a young Algerian man. He had come to France as a very young child and his siblings had been born here. He pointed out views of interest and was friendly and pleasant. At one point a grubby older man entered the carriage and lurched into the seat beside Keith. He greeted us in Spanish and we all replied. He then noted our companion more closely and began a tirade of what sounded to me like abuse in very fast French. The young man just ignored him and looked studiously out of the window but it was obviously an uncomfortable moment for him and the clearly drunk man’s demeanour was quite aggressive. As suddenly as he arrived, he left, with a few tossed comments and the shaking of his fist. When I asked what he had been saying, our friend passed it off, just explaining that the man was not in his right mind and was drunk. Had we witnessed racism or just the ranting of a crazy man? There are many moments like this when we glimpse real life and not just a tourist’s view, but we don’t have the long term experience to interpret a lot of what we see in the correct context. Making assumptions from our Australian view point can lead to misinterpretations.

When we arrived in Avignon we were met by Myrtille, one of our Couch Surfing visitors of 2007, and her mother, Catherine. It was a wonderful coincidence that Mytille was home, since she has been working in Indonesia and will return to Australia soon. They took us for a very quick tour of Avignon so that we would be able to find our bearings for our visit the next day. The famous bridge stretches three quarters of the way over the river to a island, with the remainder having been destroyed by heavy flood time currents.

We drank tea and ate biscuits in the sunny garden at the back of Catherine’s house. The recently arrived canaries were sorting out who would dominate in their cage which was reminiscent of the Sydney Opera house, while the cat luxuriated in the sunshine and the cocker spaniel, Roussie, overcame her shyness in meeting us. This garden is a labour of love for Catherine and she showed me the well that she and one of her sons had dug, sheltered in a glade of bamboo. Inside the house is an amazing cacophony of light and vivid colours, with yellows and oranges contrasting with reds and brilliant greens. Book shelves act as walls and more climb the stair case and fill the bedrooms. Having once worked in a bookshop, texts form the basis of one of her many collections and are organised into subject and type. I would have loved to have at least a month to delve into the volumes but it would take many years to read them all. Every surface is covered in interesting items; a collection of spinning tops, magnets that all depict food, enticing coffee table books, little lights and candles, vases and sculptures, mobiles – all expressing Catherine’s love of light, colour and design.

After a while we set off for a tour of the immediate area, which is called Le Pontet, and is a suburb of Avignon, about four kilometres outside the walls. Catherine stayed behind to work as a tutor to a private student. We stopped at the castle to pay for Myrtylle’s sister Clara’s dancing lessons, but the crowd would have meant a long wait.Now used as a music and dancing academy, it would once have been the home of the Count of Le Pontet in the times when France was not a unified country with one government, and the feudal system reigned. There is an ancient bridge across a little stream at the front of the building and a recent formal garden adds to the castle’s dignity. It is a bit of a beautiful anachronism between modern houses, the shopping centre and the Jules Verne High School where Myrtille once attended and Clara now goes. We followed the canal path under magnificent plane trees which are a symbol of Avignon.Left to grow naturally, they create the kind of shade really appreciated on a hot summer’s day under a glaring blue sky, and even with a steel grey overcast sky such as we were experiencing, the green leaves looked fresh and inviting. Myrtille cogitated on national characteristics and said that the French can be rude. I asked if it is due to historical reasons with the English and she said that she thought that they simply do not speak English very well, which is due to the way it is taught in schools. In the cases of English speakers experiencing rudeness, she thought that it may be more due to feelings of language inadequacy on the part of the French, rather than to acute historic sensitivity. She felt that many French people were less open than most Australians.

We called at the pharmacy to find out about increasing our supply of anti-malaria medication, because we had originally only thought that we would visit Tanzania for two to three weeks and now we were going for five and a half weeks. Unfortunately we needed a prescription so we emailed the travel doctor and our own doctor in Australia to try to arrange for a prescription to be faxed through.

Dinner was a most delicious Tarte au Fromage and salad, and I made sure that I collected the recipe. Clara had come home so it was interesting to meet her and to discuss her school, where she is starting her final year. The family have had several older overseas students staying with them, and one of them was even called Holly, so she could pronounce the name correctly, unlike many French people who say ‘Olly’.

The palace of the popes dominates the Avignon skyline.