As most of you know, this is a much anticipated trip. We've been talking about buying a place here for eons, but will it live up to our expectations? This is the first time that we are spending more than a few days here and we have lots to explore.
We rented a place off the internet, in a town called Lourmarin, that we'd never heard of, that didn't take credit cards and sent the travelers cheques for the deposit off in the mail to some unknown person in Aix en Provence. All the while crossing our fingers that the little cottage really did exist. The TGV or high speed train from Paris took about 3 hours and dropped us off near Aix. We jumped in the rental car armed with our map and directions to the town that read as follows...take direction aix-en-provence...then direction sisteron, take the pertius exit then direction cavaillon, villelaure, cadenet, then lourmarin. What kind of directions were these? No names or streets, highways, routes, etc. We were to learn that this is indeed the best way to find where you're going. The signs are all marked with the town names at each round-about and it is nearly impossible to see the little names of the roads.
Lourmarin is indeed exactly where we wanted to stay. It is centrally located, in the middle of all the towns we planned on visiting. The little cottage we rented is perfect for us. Although there are lots of open markets each day of the week, we found a supermarket about 10 minutes drive away to buy all our staples and plan to explore the markets for fresh items.
