Yesterday we awoke to sunshine for our first day in L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, 30 minutes outside Avignon, and our home for the next three weeks where we are planning to really unwind after the previous two months travelling in the UK and Italy.
We are treated to a warm weekend more like spring weather than what you would expect for the start of November.
Our morning starts a short distance from our apartment opposite the Notre-Dame-des-Anges church at the historic Cafe de France, a member of the Association of Historic Cafes of Europe, for a coffee before picking up some fresh croissants and a baguette at the boulangerie next door.
After breakfast we head out to wander the streets of the town to discover a little bit of our new surroundings and pick up some food supplies. Temptation is everywhere with delightful speciality food stores along the narrow streets and squares.
In a charcuterie we pick up a crouton pastry roll filled with terrine, from the patisserie some petite tarts, at the grocer tomatoes, in a shop with regional products Provençal terrine with juniper berries and black cherry confiture, local rose and white wine, and goats cheese and Brie from the fromagerie.
There is going to be so much to explore here – from the antiques and produce markets on Sundays and Thursdays, the many cafes and restaurants, food stores, speciality shops and art galleries to the river Sorgue, canals that criss cross the town and the famous waterwheels.
Halloween is surprisingly a hit even in L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue
On this day the streets are full of flocks of children dressed in Halloween costume out trick-or-treating going into the shops and holding out their loot bags. The shop keepers feel obliged to participate and fork out with treats.
Sunday morning arrives – market day
We are keen to take a look at what’s on offer.
Cheeses in all their glory
Olives – something for every taste
The square at the start of our street which holds the Notre-Dame-des-Anges church has been transformed in the early morning and is full of stalls selling flowers, fruit and vegetables, nuts, spices, olives, cheese, terrines and pates, roasted chickens and vegetables, glacé fruits, saucisson, tapenades, wines, fish, as well as clothing, colourful Provençal pottery, linen, bric a brac and so on.
The square outside the church is today full of market stalls
Today we don’t get to the antiques stalls and shops for which L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue is so renown. There is no need to try to cram it all in one morning as we can take a look at these next Thursday or Sunday.
Stocked up with chicken, roasted potatoes and eggplant slices, peppered pate, cheeses, tomatoes, strawberries, clementines, bananas, baguette, olives and cashews, we drop these back at the apartment.
Time now to look around at the various stalls throughout the other streets packed with locals and tourists before stopping for a leisurely lunch of salade nicoise by the river at Le Grande Cafe de la Sorgue, enjoy the warm sunshine and watch the world go by.
Le Grande Cafe de la Sorgue is a good place to waste a few hours
When we go back to our apartment the stalls have been cleared away and the streets washed down and all is calm again.
43.920023
5.050979