flowers and hillsides

We've been unceasingly entertained by R. & R. (and treated like visiting royalty). Snap has been helping the 'rents with planting plants and seeding grass, and I've been enjoying the quiet and the seemingly endless supply of fine food.

Yesterday, we walked out to the Jardin aux Plantes Parfumées and wandered among the flowers. There was also a cute donkey that I fed some grass to, plus parrots, lizards, frogs, and a koi pond.

This morning, we drove over to the nearby village of Alet — a place with Disneyesque levels of quaintness. On the south side of town we found the ruins of an old abbey. From there, we walked uphill to an odd outcropping of some kind of crumbling white rock with a great view of the valley.

Farther up the hill was a tiny little one-room church from the 12th century, and a few minutes down a dirt road we followed a point on the map to locate a small druidic menhir hidden in the trees. And then back in town, we had lunch in a garden cafe where I got croque-fromage on country bread with herbs and at least five kinds of excellent local cheese.

Off to Portugal tomorrow!