After a long day of flying, exploring Nice, visiting the lavender fields and driving some more, we finally made it to our first night in France! We left our things in the car and immediately walked to dinner with the locals. It was our first official French meal and we were very excited about it.

Funny story. Logan said before we left for France that he would try foie gras if it was offered to him during our trip, but that he had no explicit intentions of ordering it. When we sat down at our first meal, he decided to order the chef’s tasting menu, which was a sight unseen type of 3-course dinner. Well, guess what? All three courses included a differently prepared type of foie gras. Haha! You can’t say he didn’t try it!

Here’s the view and some photographs of our Airbnb studio apartment in Aix-en-Provence:

Let me know if you’d like the Airbnb listing link and/or a referral to Airbnb (I’ll get a small credit to fund my next adventure to bring you more tips from my travels!)

The next morning, we got up and walked around town, stopping at a local coffee shop to fuel up. It was so perfect and the owners were British! We enjoyed speaking to them and learning their story. Oh, and the coffee was so delicious we came back again later that morning!

Aix-en-Provence has outdoor markets all over the place on Saturdays, which happened to be the day we were there! It seemed as though they were around every corner, supplying every produce, meat, cheese and flowers you could ever ask for. The biggest markets are circled in the photo below:

We had another long day of driving ahead with some exploration at Pont-du-Gard on our way to Annecy. Below is our route for day #2. It took 1.5 hours to drive from Aix-en-Provence to Pont-du-Gard, then 3 hours the rest of the way to Annecy.

But, first, let’s look at Pont-du-Gard!

Pont-du-Gard is an old Roman aqueduct built in the first century AD. It’s amazing seeing the engineering of the culture in that time period. It’s just spectacular!

After we pulled into the parking lot and walked to the building, you simply purchased tickets using the automated teller-like machines and you were good to go! They also had clean restrooms…always an important note in my book!

While we were there, they were testing the pyrotechnics for the nightly light show (during certain parts of the year). We weren’t able to stay for the show, but I bet it would be beautiful!

After exploring the aqueduct, we headed back on the road for the 3 hour trip to the base of the Alps in Annecy! Stay tuned for all there is to see in Annecy in the next post!