La Peyrardiere.

I spent three weeks with an American family living just outside of a small town called Gonfaron, two hours by train from Marseille. Gonfaron is famous for it's turtle sanctuary/farm that protects and breeds endangered turtles from France (a little strange, no?). There's also an annual 'flying donkey' festival that I missed by just one day! The big event of the festival is a parade through the town with a paper mache donkey at the end, which they light on fire at dusk (again, a little crazy, no?). The town was pretty cute though, the people very friendly, and the local co-op wine was amazing.

Jill and her twin girls, Celeste on the left and Camille on the right. John was working the weekend, he's one of several private helicopter pilots for a Russian billionaire who owns a famous English soccer team. Specifically he is one of three pilots for the Russian just when he's in Cannes, although he has flown with him to the Caribbean just to pilot his helicopter there as well...the life, eh?!

One of the first warm days in Gonfaron (back in March) and Camille insisted on wearing her mittens. Sometimes they called the girls by their rapper names 'Heavy C' (Celeste, on the left) and 'C-Lite' (Camille, on the right)...they have a big size difference...haha. They were a fun family.

John and Jill are renovating their 225 year old house, so we helped them paint some window frames...these are some of their old clothes they have for helpx-ers to wear while painting, etc. It's a blast from the past! Also, Marc's hair is almost doubled in volume now, May 8th. This was mid-March. (Marc spent his days off with me at their house).

I also helped with dinners most nights and Marc cooked every Sunday night that he came.

...and I made lots of desserts, like Grandma Kuntze's delicious raspberry pie (a huge hit with everyone!)

One night Jennifer (another helpx-er from Austin, Texas) and I got pizza for dinner from this truck, equipped with a stone oven! We saw a few of these throughout France, which was not what we expected of the French, but this pizza was delicious.

...picking up wine from the co-op...

Another task we did was clean old wine bottles and then fill with olive oil, also from the local co-op. John and Jill picked olives from their own trees one day and exchanged them, according to weight and the seasons fruit growth, for JUGS of olive oil. Look at the colour! So fresh.

This is the view from the front of John and Jill's house, a small vineyard. The grapes would be processed at the co-op and the owners would have a good supply of wine for the year. One day a man (a nomad/gypsy shepherd sort of guy) came with his family and setup a fence around the vineyard. The next day there were literally hundreds of sheep grazing, and fertilizing, the vineyards.

A couple days later, the sheep showed up on another neighbouring vineyard...this time they were all shaved! ...I'm so glad I saw them a few days earlier, and fuzzy 'cause they were ugly lookin' sheep, see below.

The wisteria was just coming to bloom the days before I left. But this grows all over the area so I saw full purple blooms in Marseille, they are gorgeous.

The vineyards behind John & Jill's house. The surrounding area is nothing but hills, mountains and vineyards.

In Gonfaron. I like the 'homemade' sign posted at the bottom. I think it's for a game like Bocce ball (aka Petanque) and is really popular with older men in the south.

...Gonfaron...

John & Jill were so nice and their girls are cuties. It was nice to be in one place, a home, for 3 weeks straight. And Gonfaron and the surrounding area is just what you would think the prettiest part of a the French countryside looks like. I would definitely recommend a trip to the small towns of Provence.

One more thing...Robert et Cecile, c'est pour vous.
(Written on the door of the room I stayed in at John & Jill's).