Vive la France

After about 10 days in Spain -- traveling by car, train and plane around a large country, where I don't know the language and can't read the road signs -- it was a profound relief and pleasure to arrive in France. We flew from Barcelona to Marseilles, rented a car and drove to a country inn in Provence for four nights. It's outside the Roman city of Arles and is called Mas de la Chapelle (which means, more or less, farm by the chapel). The inn is about 8-10 miles outside the city but feels many worlds away, and being located along an unnamed country lane, it's not easy to find even with a good quality GPS.

At Mas de la Chapelle, Arles, France

Built around a 17th-Century (!) chapel, the property goes on for many acres that include a tiled swimming pool, gardens, statuary, water features, and various rooms for guests tucked here and there. We were housed in the main building adjacent to the chapel and the owner's quarters.
No restaurant at the Mas, and given the out-of-the-way location, we had picnic dinners on the grounds most nights and enjoyed fantastic lunches in the various towns of (beautiful!) Provence that we visited.
Here are a couple of photos from the grounds of the inn.

The pool

Tales of those fantastic lunches coming.............