Provence for Slowpokes: A Week Later....

We woke up this weekend thinking if this is Saturday we must be at the market in Apt..the cheese man,croissants,cafe creme,olives..but Oskar the cat,meowling to be fed ,and then go out was a reality check.
How lucky we were to have had this time in Provence again.
A week earlier I had dropped my friend Peggy back at Avignon to get her train home to Zurich, only to find out upon arrival at the station, that there had been a solidarity strike of the TGV lines(the first leg of her journey) and she and many others were left stranded and certainly about to miss their various connections. I stayed as long as I could,then she met some Swiss people and they banded together, so was able to get back and pack,a task inevitably left till the last minute.(the lines started running shortly but she did not get home till 2 am)
Our last day together had been spent in Oppede le Vieux, located only 5 km from the gite. It is built on a spur of the Luberon range and in the Middle Ages was an important town and administrative center for the Papal state of Avignon. Over hundreds of years and especially after the second World War the village was abandoned in favour of another village closer to "civilisation". It fell into great ruin but today is slowly being restored in an honorable fashion and is once more lived in albeit in a remote spot. It is a great mecca for those hardy souls who scale stone faces, as it is THE wild rocky climbing area.
..Very charming and peaceful and kind of higgledy piggledy with only one small terraced restaurant which has a marvellous kitchen. You have to walk up from a new parking area located way below the village, unless you have a medical parking sticker(which we do). Whew.
So for now,goodbye to wine tasting in the caves..