A bit of a failure!

We decided today that we really had to do more than shop, eat and sit about. So we planned a walk.

We did start the day with shopping though - at the Marche Paysan in Apt. This is a very different market from the others, as it is purely local farmers and producers selling their own produce. Very popular, you can buy here all sorts of seasonal fruit and vegetables; the kind of misshapen, but tasty, pieces that would not get into the supermarkets in the UK. A lot of serious discussion goes on regarding the produce. A real joy!

Then we drove up to Viens, an old hilltop village. There, you are already around 650m up, so a bit of a cheat really. We tried to follow the walk in a book we had, but were very soon, hopelessly lost. The French take their Randonnes very seriously and have devised this system of waymarkers - splashes of colour on walls, trees etc. The problem is that they become very confused, so you have no real idea whether you are following yellow, red, blue, white or any combination of these. Then they get rubbed out and then they get crossed out.

So . . . we had no idea which way to go and it was getting very hot. We abandoned the idea, had a picnic lunch and made our way back to the shade . . . and to sit about!! We'll be eating soon!

This picture is what I regard as very typical of this area. A church tower amongst other ruined old buildings situated at the top of a hill overlooking a landscape of trees, rocky outcrops, vineyards and fields of lavender. This was at the beginning of the walk when we were enthusiastically following the yellow splashes . . . where did they go?