Avignon Nîmes Uzès, 2014 This is another photoset from our time in France. This one has photos from a few cities near Montpellier, within reach of a day trip: Avignon, Nîmes, and Uzès. As usual, my wife's blog has lots more photos, along with details like restaurant names, GPS coordinates, lodging info, etc.: Keewi's Adventures. As with previous sets, the "original" photos here are actually reduced size, so contact me if you want a true original. And again, photos in this set are lightly manipulated: contrast adjustment on most, saturation adjustment on a couple, and people Photoshopped out in a couple. You get bonus points if you can spot a Photoshop artifact :->. Avignon Avignon is a ridiculously beautiful town with lots of historic buildings – walking around in Avignon is almost like walking around in a big open-air museum. It's also at the confluence of some major routes, so you find yourself driving past Avignon to go to many other places. As a result, we went there several times. These first photos are from 28 February 2014. This next set of photos are from Villeneuve-lès-Avignon, a village just on the opposite side of the river from Avignon (visible in the 15th photo above). The shining city in the distance in these photos is Avignon. Villeneuve-lès-Avignon is very peaceful, with several lovely attractions such as a fort (the Fort Saint-André) and an abbey (Abbaye Saint André). The fort has a large grounds that you can walk around, and the abbey has a small garden. Well worth the quick bus ride from Avignon. The next photos are a little tour of the Calvet Museum in Avignon. I didn't get the attribution of the first painting, but I'm pretty sure that Keewi and I once did a jigsaw puzzle of it :->. The second is Charles William de Hamilton, "Plantes, reptiles et insectes dans un sous-bois", 1832. The third is of Saint Longin, by Don Marcel Puech, 1986. The first is a detail from a Lyonnaise table from the 16th century. The second is René Seyssaud, "Châtaigniers en fleur", 1952. The third is "Tête d'Ammon", 1st century A.D. The first is a detail from a papyrus "Livre des Morts", 2nd century B.C. The second is a funerary stele that did not have a date. The third is Joseph Vernet, "La bergère des Alpes", 18th century. The first is a bust of Georges Cuvier, the great French naturalist, by David d'Angers, 19th century. The second is Jean-Antoine Constantin, "La Fontaine de Vaucluse", 1823. The third is Pierre Jacques Volaire, "La Pêche au clair de lune", 18th century. The next six photos are from the Musée Lapidaire, a small museum of ancient statuary and ceramics that sucked us in. I don't have notes on these except that the drinking vessel (photo 3) is from southern Italy, 4th century A.D., and the statue in the last photo is of Athena, 3rd century B.C. if I understood the Museum's sign correctly. The next group of photos are from a later trip to Avignon on 15 July 2014. In fact, they are all from Villeneuve-lès-Avignon, where the flowers in the abbey's garden were in glorious bloom. Nîmes Now we are in Nîmes, on 23 July 2014. It has a Roman amphitheater that is spectacular from the outside, but unfortunately – as so many are – has been ruined with metal stairs and railings everywhere inside, completely destroying the old Roman character of it. I wish they wouldn't do that. One nice thing about the amphitheatre, though, is that they have a whole set of big posters explaining all of the different types of gladiators that used to fight in the Roman circuses, with pictures of each type. Very interesting! Anyway, apart from that Nîmes was not terribly exciting. Uzès Uzès is a pretty little town that has an old palace in it that one can take a tour of. A nice day trip. The sunflowers in the last photo were on the road between Uzès and Sommières. I didn't take any photos in Sommières, so that is that! These images copyright © 2015 Ben Haller. All rights reserved.