The first thing we did upon arriving in Apt was to sit down for a nice lunch. The French know how to make fantastic salads that are a whole meal. I had Salad Nicoise and Lori's was Parisienne salad.
We thought we would hike to Buoux (pronounced Buxe with a long u) and back since we couldn't get a hotel room there. The trail was well marked on our hiking map. Seemed like an easy thing to do and wasn't a very long hike, only 12 km (8 miles).
It Started with a long uphill walk out of Apt. We didn't see any red and white marks and kept thinking we'd see them soon until we came to a divide in the road and had no idea which way to go. We walked all the way down the hill, back to town to get advice at the Tourist Office and Maison Parc Naturel du Luberon. Their advice was conflicting but we managed.
Which way to go????
Back to town to ask for directions.
Ah, there are the marks on the poles all the way up the hill. How did we miss them the first time????
This one means don't turn here.
The Randonee trails have these yellow signposts telling you how far to the next town. It says Buoux 7km. Should be easy.
The trail was quite well marked and very beautiful.
We came across this mossy little bridge across a small brook.
Tall green trees and a nice flat road. Perfect.
We followed this dry stone wall for quite a ways. We met an old man with a dog. I asked him how far to Buoux and he said 2, maybe 3 kms. Not far at all.
There were snails everywhere. At first we thought they were tiny white flowers.
We enjoyed peeking into people's yards and gardens.
We arrived in a town but unfortunately, it wasn't Buoux.
The first of many fields of grapes that we saw.
We stopped for our second picnic of the day.
There were lots of these large bunches of grapes. Unfortunately, wine grapes are not good for eating.
Whew! Back at the hotel at last! We had walked most of the day.
We even found snails in our shoes.
Luckily, there was a restaurant next door to the hotel so we could get a meal without more walking. I had salad with toasted bread with melted goat cheese. I already miss French cheese.
Lori had a big chunk of mozzarella tomato salad.
The apple pie for dessert was to die for. Good thing we did a lot of walking with all the calories we were consuming. It was a fitting reward for a hard day of walking.
You captured it, girl! Of course, for the two of us,there's always so much more to a day than a photo can illustrate. I'm thinking of us at a five-pronged fork in the path, where we tried each direction for a short ways looking for signs, and of course, the scramble down the hill to the highway before finding the bicycle path. I enjoyed every minute of it!
ReplyDelete