Ascension Day is here! And although we expected that everything would be closed, we headed to the nearby city of Apt and found commerce alive and well. Apt, however, was a rather boring destination, at least for a six-year-old and her mother in tow, so we bought a few children's books at a used bookstore, and kept going.
We moved on to Bonnieux, one of the region's famous perched villages. These were built during the Middle Ages up on steep ridges, as fortified cities designed to protect their inhabitants from marauding hordes. The valleys held the agriculture, and the villages held the villagers during times of war, which were apparently fairly regular. They're absolutely gorgeous, and Bonnieux is one of our favorites. Ria was in a particularly skippy and happy mood, to the delight of the French tourists crawling all over the place. She is a good traveler, sweet and happy and very appreciative of the wonders of the small: cats, rocks, string. In the car on the way there, I asked if she wanted to look at the books we'd just bought for her, and she said, "Not yet. I've got a string and some shells to play with for now."
We had a lovely lunch at an outdoor cafe on the edge of the ramparts, with a spectacular view over the valley floor below. Ria was less than enthused with her soup, so gobbled down all the crudites on my plate instead. Neither of us liked the anchovy paste (admittedly, Ria didn't bother to taste it before condemning it with a face). We both loved the marinated red pepper.
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