It's a strike

Today wa a strange travel day

     Some people question the sanity of my traveling 6 hours by train one way and spending two nights in a hotel room just to have wine with a person who may be considered a stranger.
     But you gotta do what you gotta do.
    My too short stay in the Arles region is over.  But it was interesting.
    It was hot.  I did not take shorts, despite being warned that it was going to be hot.  I don't ever recall having sweat drip off my knees while wearing pants, but maybe it has.  I know it did the other day.
     The French rail system workers are striking.  They do a couple of days here, a couple of days there.  Today was a strike day.
     So when I went to buy a ticket from Arles to Geneva, I was told I could not get out of Arles by train to the TGV station in Avignon.
     I asked the clerk what I should do.
     "Do you have a bicycle?" she asked.  Even if I did, I would not venture riding 40 miles in the heat on unknown French roads.  So I told her no.
     "Then I guess you will have to take the bus."  That would have been my first response, but I don't work for the French rails.
     I went by bus from Arles to Avignon, then boarded the TGV to Geneva.
     Here's the strange part.
     The bus left at 11:30, so I had time to kill.  I had coffee and a croissant, then wandered to the station.  I noticed Arles was having a market, so I browsed the market.
     Any thing you wanted was there.  But the produce and the fish were amazing! Mounds of melons and tomatoes and fish and cheese and........I could not buy a thing.
     I eventually completed my wander and went to the train station.
     I took off my back and and saw that it was open!  Unzipped!! I t has never done that in all the years I have had it......so I suspect someone in the market opened my pack and stuck their eyes in to ogle my dirty underwear and socks.
     Nothing is missing.    Unnerving, to say the least.
     I am posting some random photos from the past couple of days.  Some you may have seen before, I am not the sharpest tack on the strip right now.
     The moon here looks almost full....and it is beautiful over the lake.

In Vevey they are replacing two buildings....but they are keeping the fronts to make sure the new buildings blend in.

Julia's party palace

I am glad they did not use Roman numerals to number the seats....but what happened to the 600s?

Roman ruins are just darn impressive

practice for something

More practice for something

Maybe this is the something?  Notice, the matador is tapping the bull on the back because the animal survives these battles.

The sun eventually ste on the Roman empire.

This was just odd

Misters  for the flowers

Field trip!!

From the top of the clock tower bridge in St Chamas

Before the roans, people were living in cliff houses in St Chamas

Stairs up to the clock tower

The house Dan and I stayed in in 2011...might even be my stuff still on the balcony!

This is in Arles as a remembrance

Bull sausage......

A bag of lavender

Need a mattress?