avignon road trip

last weekend vanesa, her mother carmen, and i did a road trip up the coast into the south of france (the border is about 55 kilometers from here). our final destination was avignon, to visit the town and view an exhibit of the art of Miquel Barceló.

along the way we made several stops. the first was in a town called Cèret where we wandered through a local market, signed a protest against bull fighting, and stopped in at the museum to take in some art. the featured exhibit was works by an artist by name of jean-pierre pinceman.
the permanent collection features many famous names including Chagall, Gris, Matisse and many more. there is a decent sized collection of Picasso's ceramics (more than on display in the museé picasso in barcelona).

from here we made our way up to the town of Sète for lunch. the waterway runs through town, somewhat reminiscent of venice, or so they claim. after lunch we walked for a while and we stopped into a bar for a coffee and to watch the argentina v germany match. my hostesses are from girona by way of argentina by way of girona. vanesa was born in argentina; her mother was born here. the french were all for germany. we left at the half, when argentina was down 0-1.

next we stopped in a town called Aigues-Mortes. here we wandered through the narrow streets of a fortress and stopped for a beer. by this time we had learned that argentina had failed miserably in its attempt to progress in the copa mundial; the final score was 0-4 for germany.

we went on to Arles to find a hotel, shower and look for supper. unfortunately, this particular weekend was that of their town festival, so all rooms were booked. we continued on towards avignon, and there we finally found a hotel, showers and food.

the next morning we set out to view the Barceló exhibit, which was actually parceled into three buildings: the Palais des papes, the Museé du petit palais and the Collection lambert en avignon. at one point in history (i believe it was the 14th century) the papacy fled rome to avignon. inside a section of this palace was installed part of the Barceló exhibit. his creations were everywhere, including some placements of masks on the heads of some of tombs. this was quite cool and fun. apparently barceló was following in the footsteps of picasso by exhibiting here.


the exhibits continued with a small selection in the petit palais and an extensive collection of paintings in the Lambert collection (no cameras allowed).

after sating ourselves with good art, we grabbed some sandwiches and hit the road back home.

unfortunately, we all wound up with colds. summer colds are no fun and i'm having a particularly difficult time kicking mine. i thought it was on its way out and today it decided to move back in full force. erg.
i have to kick it because this weekend vanesa and i are going to cadaqués...