Halloween in France

We are in a French community called La Ciotat for 2.5 weeks, and here over Halloween. Do they celebrate Halloween here? How can we make this a fun experience for our kids when they will miss out on trick or treating and celebrating with friends and classmates at home?

What are we seeing around us? Many of the French shops and cafes do have decorations. We have seen cobwebs, pumpkins, skulls, witches, skeletons and pirate decorations here and there for the last few days. Nov 1 is a holiday, and last week and this week are school holidays related to fall break / All Saints Day. So many people are here in this beach / sea side town for holidays. We heard that the French do not trick-or-treat, so we planned to do our own 'Halloween Party' in our little apartment. 

This morning we did see many wee littles dressed up like pumpkins and a few princesses and tutus on their way, which was adorable. But most costumes we saw for people over the age of 3 were bloody/zombie/witch/dia de muertos style. 

We did see some people trick or treating, and our doorbell rang at 3pm with a group of 11-ish year olds asking for 'bon-bons'... so I gave them some of the chocolate bars we had bought for our own games. I think they thought it was weird that I gave them chocolate, because the rest of the items in their stash were gummies and candies.

We had a huge list of activities and treats for our day:

- ghost bananas

Decorations at the local 'dollar store' helped us check off items
 fromour Halloween themed scavenger hunt

- a scavenger hunt around town

- decorations made from a colouring book we had

Ava the cat

godess/god

chocolate Mars bar

- making our own minimalist costumes with items we already had. Rachel worked really hard to use her black pencil crayons and cardboard to make a chocolate bar costume. Ava used some existing clothing to be a cat. Jason and I made togas to be a god/godess pair.

- vampire teeth snacks

- ghost cookies

- marshmallow skeleton creations

- treasure hunt 'find the bones and candy' and re-create the skeleton game in our apartment

- monster bowling with a pumpkin and decorated paper cups

- fall themed scattegories

- sticking a blindfolded hand into a creepy slimy bowl of guts game

- getting an oreo from our foreheads to our mouths without our hands game

Jason won the oreo game

- Halloween themed pictionary

- bobbing for apples

- making a catapault and shooting candy into a bowl

We didn't even end up carving our very small pumpkins / very large squash because we had so many other fun things to do! It was a very silly, funny, small family celebration that we all really enjoyed.

Hope that you are having a joyous and safe Halloween that makes you laugh wherever you are!

One night in Avignon, France

 Avignon, France

We had one night in Avignon and one morning to explore. We enjoyed having a little apartment in the old city where we could walk around the narrow streets and find our way around. We were very happy that there were real grocery stores close by to purchase enough to make our own dinner and breakfast in our little kitchen.

Jason and I went for a lovely circle run around the outside of the city walls, although it was too bad that we couldn’t walk or run ON the city walls (like we could in Saint Malo or Carcassonne). We saw the bridge ‘to nowhere’ that goes half way into the river now.

In the morning we walked to the “Palais du Papes” but decided not to pay 45 euro for a family ticket to enter. We are all feeling like we have had our fill of castles and old buildings and monuments. But seeing the outside of the palace, the square, and the adjacent gardens, was beautiful. We enjoyed eating our ‘second breakfast’ sugar crepes while overlooking the river and lovely view from the upper gardens.

We walked through the old town narrow streets and then along “Rue des Teinturiers”, which is pretty along the canal. There wasn’t anything happening on a Monday morning in October, but I think on a summer afternoon in July it would be packed with theatre activities and café patio ambiance.

All in all this was a really cute little place and we can see why people like it so much.

We had originally thought we would go an explore the nearby village of Arles, but we decided we didn’t feel up for another Roman amphitheatre or more churches or baths… we are getting to be pretty tired travelers since we’ve been going hard with these sites over the last week or so.

So we grabbed a train for Montpellier and headed that way.

Roman numeral practice for the kids in many places we visit!

Palais de Papes, Avignon

Crepes for 'second breakfast'

Some tourists sight see via 'le petit train'

Leaving Avignon behind

The kids enjoy reading "Warriors" books in English, and
were excited to see this poster in the train station 

Nimes and Pont du Gard on a Sunday

Nimes and Pont du Gard on a Sunday

Our base in Montpellier is just a 40 min train ride from Nimes. We originally thought we would rent a car and do a little road trip from Montpellier toward our next base via Nimes and Avignon, but some people we were going to visit could no longer visit us, so we ended up with some extra time and an option to stay in Montpellier with friends.

It’s also challenging to rent a car on a Sunday, and gas prices / availability are expensive/ difficult right now.

So we decided to take advantage of the 1 euro train ticket special happening due to high gas prices, and caught a Sunday morning train to Nimes.

Nimes is a super cool place. There is a lot to see and do and it’s a very pretty downtown area. If I was going to pick a good 'base' for this region of France to spend some time in, I think I'd pick Nimes. 

We explored “Les Arenas”, our first Roman amphitheatre. It’s in excellent shape and has been in use for 2000 years. We paid our family entrance fee, and walked around listening to the audiotour and learning about gladiator history and bullfighting.

We then walked to the exterior of la “Maison Carree”, which has beautiful columns in incredible shape that are much bigger than we expected. We didn’t go inside.

We had a tricky time finding lunch that worked: Sundays are a challenge that way. The bars/cafes that are open were packed, the indoor market of “Les Halles” was also busy and mostly selling produce and raw meats with less ‘to go’ food that worked for us. We were grateful to find an open pizza place and enjoyed a pizza outside.

We walked to the “Jardin de La Fountaine” and the included “Temple of Diana”. What a beautiful place! There are canals with fish (carp) swimming around, columns and gardens and stairs and swans everywhere. The old temple was interesting to see with some massive stones put together during Roman times and still surviving today. We decided not to walk up to the “Tour Magne” although we saw it from the top of the Arena.

The Temple of Diana

Our next hope was to get to the “Pont du Gard”, a giant Roman aqueduct multi-tiered bridge, which ended up being challenging logistically. The monument itself is nearly 30km away / 35 min by car from the town center. I had previously looked up and hoped we could catch a bus from Nimes city to the monument, but those buses do not run on Sundays.

The train station that is called “Nimes: Pont due Gard” is not helpful at all. That station is 14km from Nimes town center (a 20 min drive) and is also 26km/32 min drive from the monument site. For reference, the town of Avignon is about 30km away from the monument - about the same distance as the Pont du Gare train startion. There aren't many facilities or anything near that train station and it doesn’t make anything more convenient.

So the only option remaining was to either taxi to the monument or skip the monument. Internet sources suggested a taxi would cost approximately $45 US, but our rate with current gas prices ended up being $70 US. We didn't like the cost, but it ended up feeling like the best option at the time.

One of the best parts about this experience for me was trying to communicate to the taxi driver in French. I felt pretty good about our 30 min conversation even though my French isn’t very good. It was fun to try and I learned some about the local olive oil and truffle industry. I also learned how much a taxi driver can make in a tourism heavy town like Nimes! Wow!

We arrived at the Pont du Gard monument and definitely enjoyed our visit. We can see why so many families rent a car, visit here and take a picnic lunch to the river area/park below the bridge. Bring your bathing suit and towels if you go, as wading in the river looked like fun. We walked across the bridge, took some pictures, and enjoyed it. Entrance to the general area and walking across the lower level is free. The purpose of the aquaduct was to carry water 50km from a spring North East to the city of Nimes. The water traveled on the top level of this bridge and it very gradually went downhill carrying the water. The water supplied the town with all water, including the baths. We didn’t go in the museum, which isn't free, although we heard it was cool. We did enjoy seeing the very old olive trees in the park area.

We then had to figure out how to get from the monument to our destination for the night: Avignon. There weren’t any buses on Sundays going this way either, and there wasn’t a taxi stand. Most visitors either came in there own car or on a coach tour bus. We had the tourism office at the monument call us a taxi, and we ended up paying $70 US for a ride to Avignon.

We are still glad we went to the monument, although doing it on another day of the week would have been way cheaper and easier if we could bus.

We had a cute little apartment rented inside the old town of Avignon for the night. Jason and I went for a run around the city walls. We bought groceries and made ourselves dinner and went to bed.