We began our journey to the South of France with a trip to a really cute winery in Beaujolais (boo-jhoe-lei) which is in Southern Burgundy.  The landscape was especially beautiful and hilly.  Our tour guide, Pascal, has a vineyard in this region that has been in his family for over 400 years.  

  

 After having dinner (and frog legs, which weren't too bad!) we got ready to head out and ended up seeing some lovely swans again.

The next day we stopped at this tiny little town on a hill called Seguret, which means "secure" because it was very secure during the medieval times against attacks.  I thought that it was very interesting that there was a car with a Massachusetts liscence plate...

This is the view from the top of the city, it was pretty fabulous, you can even see the curvature of the earth.  

Some more tiny streets in the city:

There was a very beautiful view of Seguret from Domaine de la Cabasse where we had some amazing wine and even better food. 

After we went to the winery, we checked out the Roman ruins at Vaison la Romaine.  These ruins were thousands of years old, although much of it was reconstructed.  The photo below shows the House of Apollo, thus named for the head of the god Apollo found there.  It was soooo cool finally seeing Roman ruins in person after studying the Roman Empire in school and seeing them on the History Channel all the time.  

We also saw a 2000 year old Roman bridge in the city.  A few years ago the river was actually up and over the bridge.

The Dentilles in the background, where rock miles under the earth's crust had been pushed up to the surface thousands of years ago.  The rock from far below the earth's surface is an integral part of the soil in the vineyards situated near them.  

The next day we went to Moulin des Barres at Maussane, an oil making place!  Their olive oil was very yummy and I will bringing some home.  It was very interesting to hear all the things the owner had to say about how the trees were very old, some 100 years, and that everyone should have a spoonful of olive oil in the morning for their health.  

A very old and destroyed castle from the medieval ages.  The narrow streets were beautiful, as usual.

There was a very yummy cookie shop in the town by the castle as well.  

The view from the castle.  

I enjoyed walking around the little town just below the Castle and imagined what it must have been like when the whole place was up and running.  Unfortunately we didn't go up into the ruins of the castle because they charged a pretty hefty fee, 7.50 euro which is about $10.75.

The next day we drove to the Mediterranean Sea and on the way we saw this huge castle wall.  Pascal told us that the water would have come just to the front door of the castle during the Medieval times.  

Finally in the Mediterranean Sea!  It was very salty and cold, but I got used to it :)

There were real, live flamingos.

..and white horses! which are called the Carmague and are wild.  Make a wish when you see one!

There were also bulls, that you can see in the arena, where men try to pluck a flower between their horns.  

We went to a winery that was modeled after Roman wineries from thousands of years ago.  They make their wine just as the Romans did, stomping the grapes with their feet and even adding ocean water and herbs when the wine is fermenting.  We   tasted the wine and I was surprised that it wasn't that bad. 

We then got to see Pont du Gard which was a Roman Aqueduct built in 50 AD.  It is a magnificent piece of architecture.  There was also a lot of graffiti on the bridge part, but it was really cool because a lot of it was from the 19th century.  

We had some very yummy fish paste/tartar with tapanade on top, which may sound disgusting but was actually very good.  For dessert we had a really delicious apple tart.  

This is a prehistoric grotto that I had to take a picture of since I have never seen a grotto before and am still not sure what it is exactly...

Our second to last winery that we saw was in Chateauneuf du Pape, which is world famous for the wines that come out of the region.  It used to serve the Pope when he was in Avignon.  The soil is very rocky from the Glacier that swept through here thousands of years ago leaving a moraine in its wake.  

Some beautiful grenache grapes

This machine, which costs as much as many houses in the US or more, is used to sort individual grapes and choose the best ones based on color using scanners and air pressure.  This machine boosts the quality of wine produced and almost guarantees a good vintage.  These were the first machines of their kind that my professor and Pascal had ever seen.  

This is the remaining castle at Chateauneuf du Pape and it was a beautiful sight.  I enjoyed my trip the south of France so much and loved the scenery that surrounded me.  I hope that I can go back sometime.