After we left Nîmes we continued to head south. To get to Pézenas from our place you basically head south until you hit the Mediterranean, turn right, and if you get to Spain you’ve gone too far. My aunt and uncle have had a place there for probably 15 years now, and it’s probably one of our favorite places to go as a family. (As evidenced: here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here)
One day we drove out to a 500 year old mill on a river for a picnic. Sandwiches from a local boulangerie taste especially good on a half-a-millenium old stone table
One afternoon while I stayed at the house and worked as Alma slept Susan took the other kids to the Pezenas toy museum.
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| This is my girl in an Olive tree. |
We took the kids to the sea two times – but once we went to a local swimming hole. It was a great place to cool off and was a great time not far from Pezenas. Well, except for the part where Jonah was swimming right across to the other side, got his feet in some fairly thick and frightening feeling seaweed and stared to panic so I had to dive in with my clothes on and papa-adrenaline-front-crawl over to to pull him back. Other than that part – it was quite fun.
We let the kids pick out some ice cream to try to cool down when we were walking around town one day. Unfortunately Alma felt a bit left out- so we found a way for her to cool off as well.
Pezenas is an artisan town. It seems like every street you turn down there are silversmiths, potters, glass-blowers, bakers, leather-workers, olive growers, ceramic artists, painters, hat makers etc. Matea was glad to go back to the same bead store she was in last year – and spent time picking out a few beads from the thousands that are in 
On Friday night we went to the Pézenas wine festival. We were just describing it as sort of a Southern-French-county-Fair. Instead of deep-fried-everything-on-a-stick, we had plates of local olives and tapinade (olive paste) spread on slices of artisan bread. We bought a sampler plate of chèvre cheese from a local sheep farmer, we bought fresh local cherry tomatoes, a melon and basil chilled soup and a few other things. There are a bunch of local vineyards who come and set up along the street sampling their
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