Spain? Italy? Nope, Caves!

You know on those long trips where the scenery all starts to blend together and you end up just blacking out and waking up to something totally different?  Morning excursions on a comfy bus are perfect for this...

Medieval Timepiece

Being where Montpellier is located, it is not unthinkable that one of these could take us to Spain or even Italy. Waking up to a body of water on one side and a whole new type of architecture on the other can be a real surprise.  Sadly, none of these excursions took us out o the country, but if I showed you pictures without saying otherwise you might be fooled (that is if I remembered to bring my camera, so instead here is a picture of more French architecture.)

Avignon

Above is the Town of Avignon, which housed the "Palace de Papes," the palace of the pope, back when a sect of Christians left the Vatican and the Catholic church to make their own division, Protestantism; which goes to show even people back then knew when some religion is just to extreme to deal with.  After this, we went once more to the sea, to a town on the Coast called Saint Marie de la Mer, a town which, despite the French name, could have fit right in with Spain.

The one final excursion took us through the river valleys to what looked like basically a whole in the wall- which it turned out to be, and much more.  A several thousand year old one, to be exact- La Grotte De Clamouse.  Now caves aren't particularly photogenic, especially with the whole "flash photography will destroy everything (but all the other unnatural human interaction somehow won't)" rule, but if the tour guide says that a certain rock formation looks like a word you recognize to be a sea creature, you should take a picture of it.

There's also what they call a "light opera" inside one of the bigger rooms, captured here by a certain mustache-adorned person in our group:


Just up the road from this was a small town. And by town I mean more like a village, one with just the perfect amount modernity of to cater to tourists- not that it needs that.  I've used the term "too beautiful to be real" before, but it couldn't fit here better.  The town looks straight out of Italy, and is mostly made up of one single road that winds up the side of the hill, with a path in the middle just wide enough for several people.  There is constantly water flowing down on the sides from springs where people can fill up their water bottles, or just to sit and look at.  Also in the town is a monastery and a church, a little square with restaurants, and pretty much little else.  But to be honest, it was pretty much good that way.