Les Baux, Provence Day 18

Well we definitely saved the best hotel for last! We left this morning after breakfast and drove west again, back to Provence. Arrived here around here around 3 and after check in drove to St. Remy.

Back to the hotel, it is totally fancy schmancy. Even has air conditioning. We have to switch rooms tomorrow because we booked late (like the beginning of March so our room is taken the second night and we have to switch to a different one). We're about 1 kilometer down the road from the main bldg. where Werner and Susan are. These are the gardens in front of our little building.

Once we checked in, we drove to St. Remy. I've really been looking forward to this since we went to the Van Gogh exhibit in Amsterdam. St. Remy is where Van Gogh was hospitalized after cutting off his ear lobe. He spent more than a year there and did a lot of his most famous paintings. They have a walk that supposedly takes you to the different locations of the paintings.

After ensconsing Werner on a bench, we headed out on the walk. My goal was to get to the place where he painted Starry Night. So two miles and a lot of painting later, we get to the display board of Starry Night which was right in front of the Visitor's Center. It did not look like the location of the painting so we went in and asked where the location was. The woman there shakes her head and says, "Eet's in hez imagination." Oy vey. I know that he set up his easel and painted at the scene which is what it said when we saw the painting at the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam but I didn't want to argue and we were sweating like pigs so I called an end to my Van Gogh mission and we headed back to the mental hospital, St. Paul's (still being used as a center for art therapy). They had beautiful cloisters.

We then drove back to the hotel, cooled down, and went to our 8pm dinner reservation in the hotel's restaurant. I have no photos because it was so hotsy totsy I thought I'd be kicked out. We ate outside on the most gorgeous terrace with the most gorgeous people. Each table seemed to have 4 or 5 wait staff. I barely could understand the maiter'd tell me about the menu in English so I ended up getting the Prix Fixe vegetarian dinner. Oh, I also hadn't eaten anything since breakfast so two cosmo's later I was practically conversing in French and having to hold in giggles. It was a fabulous meal that took 3 hours. The women's menus did have prices on them so I'm not even going to think about what it cost.

Tomorrow Susan and Werner are going to hang out at the hotel. Rick and I plan to visit Arles and the village of Les Baux. One more day of real vacation before we head to Geneva and our flight home Tuesday. Here's one more shot I took on the way to Les Baux. As you may notice, I think I have the camera fixed.