Best Destination in southern France: Les Baux-de-Provence

If any of you plan to visit southern France in the future, the town of Baux en Provence should be at the very top of your list of towns to see.  So far, it is the most beautiful and purely lovely town I've set foot in.

The adorable streets were lined with tiny shops and restaurants.  Here are a few pictures from around town:

There was a candy shop reminiscent of munchkinland:

That sign up there says that photographs are prohibited.  But come on.  You arrange hundreds of colorful lollipops to look like a sugar forest in the middle of a tourist town and expect that no photographs will be taken?  At any rate, you made the mistake of only posting the sign in French, so good luck with a majority of your customers.

And after that I ducked into a little chapel.  One thing I like about the town is that there were tons of open doors.  If the door is open, just walk in and see what you find.  A lot of them were unlabeled, so it was always a surprise.  This chapel didn't look like anything from the outside:

A little ways away, there was a beautiful church that had the statue of a saint resting over her tomb.  She looked so real that when I touched her hand, I expected her to wake up.

I spent some time sitting in this beautiful area devoted to Mary:

After that, I walked into a tiny museum with photos of an American actress who married a French Prince back in the 60's.  I should get a job editing English translations for all the monuments I've been to.

There was a cemetery just outside the Baux castle, which wasn't as pretty as others I've been in.  However, one of the crypts was open, so the morbid side of me had to take a picture.  You can see the body shelves!

And now to the castle!

It was so huge, and do you know what my favorite part about French castles is?  Nothing is off limits.  They don't rope anything off.  It feels like you get to discover the castle, instead of being herded through a carefully orchestrated path which prevents you from breaking/touching/licking anything.  

Here's something which would, without a doubt, be roped off in America:

In our sue-happy culture, there is not a museum under the sun that would trust us to walk up these stairs.  But in France, they just post signs that basically say, "This is dangerous, idiot.  But if you want to go up, no one's stopping you."  So most people climb on up.

I got halfway and realized I'd probably made a mistake, because I was gripping that gate for dear life, but once you're halfway, going up or down is equally dangerous.  So I just climbed to the top.  It will entertain you to know that I was foolish enough to wear a dress on this excursion, and during a few difficult steps on this staircase, I had to decide between using both hands to avoid falling and leaving my skirt to fly in the strong wind, thereby flashing everyone who happened to be in the vicinity.  It wasn't that many people, so whatever.  The climb was worth it, because it made these spectacular views possible:

Breathtaking, non?  

After the adventure in Baux en Provence, Nico brought me back to the house, and I made juicy cheeseburgers and potato wedge fries from scratch.  This is a funny little thing:  you can usually tell when the French like what they're eating, because they will kiss the residue of it off their fingers every now and then. It's really subtle, but something they all seem to do subconsciously.

Nico told me I season meat like his grandmother used to, which I'm going to assume is a compliment.