ANCIENT TROGLODYTE CAVE HOME MEETS LAVENDER FIELDS IN PROVENCE FRANCE WITH EXPATS FROM THE USA

ANCIENT TROGLODYTE CAVE HOME MEETS LAVENDER FIELDS IN PROVENCE FRANCE WITH EXPATS FROM THE USA

Guess where we are going today.
We’re going to go say and switch trains and then we’re going another train to see the lavender fields.
Oh la.
I know. And guess who’s coming with us? Bella is coming with us.
So, we’re on our very first train. This is one of the good things about living in Nice. We just live five minutes from a tram. Get on the tram. We’re five minutes from the train station. And now we’re on the TGV highspeed train. First stop, Marseilles, France. So, we’ll see you there.
Bye. I watch you as you drive. Do you know I’m looking? And I can’t help but smile. Do you know how much I love you? You put my favorite song on. I put my feet up and we just sing along. And I can’t help but feeling just loving this moment. Can we stay here forever? I’m loving this moment. Can we stay here together? If I could stop the time, don’t you know that I would just [Music] rain. beauty in the mundane. And as the light startled our eyes, we let go of disguise. [Music] And now there’s something in the air and a sparkly shimmer on our skin. Restoring everything within. [Music] Oh, dreamy breezy we go. Easy, easy on our tiptoes. Underco agents of the other. Beyond gravel, beyond. [Music] Hand in hand, building castles out of sand, reaching for the grand swine, we lose track of time. And up high now we climb. Oh, dreamy breezy we go. Easy, easy on our tiptoes. Underco agents of the other. Beyond gravel, beyond [Music] a bigger scale the world inhales as we go, I wouldn’t want it any other way. No [Music] dreamy breezy we go. [Music] Easy, easy on our tiptoes. Underco agents of the other. Beyond gravel, beyond no, dreamy breezy we go. Easy, easy on our tiptoes. Undercover agents of the other. Beyond gravel, beyond all [Music] there was sun and there was rain. beauty in the mundane. And as the light startled our eyes, we let go of disguise. [Music] And now But if you walk down to See? And that is the beautiful Abby Dak here in Provence. Look at the beautiful fields of lavender. Yesterday there was sun and there was rainy. [Music] And as the light startled our eyes, we let go of disguise. [Music] And now there’s something in the air and a sparkly shimmer on our skin. So we noticed that they built a lot of these stone privacy walls. And the way they build them is they stack the bottom stones up and then when you get to the top of the wall, you stack the top row all pointy. The idea is by doing them pointy, it prevents you from climbing over the wall. Here’s another example of the wall with the pointed stones on top to keep you from climbing over. Here’s another example. That wall with the pointed stones on top. [Music] Dreamy breezy. We go easy, easy on our tiptoes. Under cover, agents of the other. Beyond gravel, beyond. [Music] Hand in hand, building castles out of sand, reaching for the grand below a line. We lose track of time. And up high, now we climb. Oh, dreamy breezy. We go easy, easy on our tiptoes. Under cover, agents of the other. Beyond gravel, beyond [Music] a bigger scale, the world inhales. The town that we are staying in is such a cute town. It’s called Cotenyak and that’s where we found an Airbnb. This isn’t the Airbnb we’re staying and this just happens to be one of the houses here. And I thought it’s so nice with wind chimes. You can just hear them on the wind. So pretty. This town is rated one of the most beautiful in France. It’s very charming. So, we are just wandering heading down into the center of town looking for a restaurant where we have a dinner reservation this evening. It’s so quiet. All you can hear are footsteps on the street. I love this door knocker. I wish we needed a door knocker on our door. I would want one like that. This town looks very old. We haven’t done any research on the history, but by the time you’re seeing this video, I will have done a little bit of research to find out how old it is. So pretty, isn’t it? Look at that. It’s all uphill back to our Airbnb. Oh, look at a town.
Now, the most important thing in every old Renaissance town was to have a fountain that brought fresh water because the apartments and buildings themselves did not have fresh water. You had to bring a jar or a pitcher down here, fill it up at the fountain, and then there was usually a washing area where you could wash laundry around it. So this is the leftover original fountain around which a city was built. Interesting. There’s another pretty door. This looks like a gentrified house.
They fixed up the neighborhood there. Yes, it’s very nice. It’s the old water spot for that house. Oh, there’s one for rent. It’s a long way from everything, but it is a pretty town. We’re getting further along in town. Okay. I don’t know who this is, but in case he’s somebody you know, he died for France. [Music] Yesterday there was sun and there was rain. Beauty in the mundane. And as the light startled our eyes, we let go of disguise. [Music] June 27th, 1944. Oh, I see. The street is Ru Gabrielle Phelis and it’s named after the guy who died for France on July 27th, 1944. Again, this is one of the oldest of the old French towns. You could see it dates back probably to the Renaissance time, even before streets and roads. It looks like they had carriage openings for horses down the downstairs and the apartments upstairs. And the narrowness of the street and the windingness of the street call back to an earlier time. This is somebody’s old stable. The large stones at the base are to keep the wagon wheels from hitting the sides as they p pulled in because the hub stickked out a little bit. So, originally somebody kept a carriage and a horse in there on the ground floor. There’s an old stream that flows underneath the city. That’s where the water for the wells came from. So, [Music] We love you. [Music] [Music] [Music] for ship. [Music] This is a good [Music] Bella Bella. I thank God for everything he’s done to me. Every morning when I open the window, I feel little fresh me. We praise God. [Applause] [Music] I will [Music] come on. [Music] tried to get a reservation here, but unfortunately they were booked this evening. So, we’re going to another recommended restaurant here in town. [Music] So this could be the old village laundry here. Lots of room for washing clothes. [Music] So, the water would first come out into the first basin. That would be where you’d be soaking and soaking the clothes. The second would be the wash basin with soap. And then the third is the rinse at the end. So when people lived here in the Renaissance times, this was the public laundry for the whole city. Everybody would come here and do their laundry in this project in this building as a community get together thing. And now an you have your own washer and dryer at your house, don’t you, Ann?
I do.
You brought America here to France. You was here before we got here. You lucky duck. You You don’t have to come to the village square to do your laundry anymore.
Not yet. [Music] Tonight is the set music which is what all this music is about. [Music] Tonight we’re having dinner at Picot Proance. and a sparkly shimmer on her skin. [Music] This is Ann at a very secret garden having a little glass of rosé after a day of checking out the music festival here in town. She wants to crawl up into the mountains afterwards and check out the troglodites to see what the troglodites used to live just like in the old days here in France. I’ll let her edit as needed for that. But she’s been like all over. Like first we were at like the train station and we rented a car. Then she said, “Let’s let’s drive to like two hours in this direction, and then after that, we’ll just we don’t want to really go to the place.” Even though it’s like a monastery, we just look through the fence at the monastery, take a picture, and then let’s just get back in the car and then yell at each other because we’re lost and we can’t get a signal. And then let’s drive for like three more hours. in the other direction to the point where the road signs start saying nice like we’ve driven so far almost back home. But luckily,
this is not true. Here we are in a little town where you drive by a stone wall that’s 60 cm high and then make a left turn down a hill and then we ended up on the top of a hill because that was the wrong place. And then again we couldn’t get a signal. Then we called the person from the Airbnb and that person wouldn’t answer. And then we got like in a car. We’re like a little bit short with each other. We’re like, I I can’t get a hold of them. I don’t know where it is. And then I said like, well, let me just follow the GPS. Let’s just plug in the thing. Oh, that’s just Wait. Just sit right here in the parking lot. Don’t Don’t you move one more inch until I get directions. And then at that point, Belle and I figured, well, let’s just drive away and see what happens. And we followed the GPS. And the roads are really, really wiggly here. Like it’s almost like Vil Franchare, like you can see a road, then you can see something else, but even though it’s there, you sometimes can’t get to it.
Eventually, we found it. Then we parked the car in the only open parking spot on the street in front of our Airbnb. And then we walked into the Airbnb. We changed and we walked into town. We found this delightful little place. It’s like a little paradise hidden away in France. So if you’re ever in this part of town, just realize there’s no way to like know where you’re supposed to go. What town are you in, Jess? I’m in some little town.
What town?
I think it’s like Trogoditeville. Troglavville. Something like that. Ann will probably take Trogville. And then over top there’ll be a letter that’ll say, “This is what Jeff said, Trogville, but we’re really here in this little town.” And she’ll straighten you out. Sometimes late in the afternoon like FJ Jeff has already stopped for like a happy hour.
The story gets a little silly. So this is how to train your dog at a restaurant. You use the bread from the bread basket and the dog behaves beautifully underneath the table. Mark’s command. Okay. All right. Did you say she would like some butter with that bread? Swipe of butter. [Music] So discreet. Nobody noticed. [Music] What’s that noise? [Music] There was sun and there was rain. Beauty in the mundane. [Music] [Music] [Music] on my I am feeling so fly up in the zone now. I’m like a golden crown burning high up in the sky. Oh, it’s the way you make me feel so good. Feel so good right now. It’s the way you make me feel so good. I keep on falling apart from my intuition. But I’m pretending it’s all my fault. No, no, no. The way you making me get you drink me like cake. I keep painting the picture. All right. No, I don’t care much for people like them. Oh nah nah darling. So if you look closely up there in the hills, we have some trogodite homes where people actually lived in that cliff and they may even still live there. years ago, I saw some Tragodite homes that were still being lived in and that were furnished quite nicely. I didn’t get to go in myself, but I saw photographs of what the insides look like. And we’re not 100% sure there are people living in the trogodite homes up here, but there they are up there. [Music] la. Don’t Almost. Perhaps a better view of the trogodite homes. Look, there might be somebody living in that one. See, look at that. Looks like it has a window and a railing. Pretty interesting, isn’t it? So, we’re coming up the hill towards the Airbnb that we’re staying at tonight. Lots of kitty cats in this town. It’s the first place in France I’ve seen so many cats. We don’t have that many cats running around in Nice. So, we’re staying in that apartment up there. So, here we have Jeff at what looks like it may have been a troglodite house. Hello, Mr. Trogodite. Hello. Hello, Mr. Trogodite. Can we come in and see your house? Look at that. Inside you’ll see there’s like smoke marks on the roof from having a fire in here. There’s like a little wall between like one part in the front and where you would sleep in the back. So this was like a trogodite house in the old days. And if you look closely, you can see like Neat Neanderthal paintings on the wall in blood. Where?
Right over there. Where?
Right over there.
Point to where? Oh me trogodite sleep good in cave last night. Someday my children all this will be yours. I leave this troglodite house to my children. Because of the inheritance rules, you will only own three quarters of it. But it’s all yours, my children. Who gets the other quarter? You, my trogodite wife.
Where are these paintings you speak of? M.
Boom. Luck. Boom. Luck.
Where are the troglodite paintings?
Right here. Sorry. non troglodite, you have to stay outside the troglodite house while the rest of us explore the troglodite guest house. This would be the little spot where you keep your trogdite keys when you come in. Here’s another little spot here where you take like if you caught a rabbit the night before, you put them there. This is a spot here for your little coffee maker. It’s like a little bar. See, there’s a little spot in the corner there that used to be where water came into the trogodide house. And there’s like a hook in the wall here. And over here, as we get to the back where the animals come jumping out. This is where the animals come jumping out of the trogodide house to see an. And here, let me give you a tour of the whole trogodide house. This would be what I call the trogodite master suite right here. This is where you and your trogodite partner would relax and have a wonderful evening. Oh, look. Poor Ann. She’s so far away. This is like almost as big as our apartment in Nice. All right, back to the real world. Goodbye to my trogodite friends. I love you all.
Where are the paintings?
Boom. Laka laka laka. Here’s a painting right here. There’s a painting right there. Trogodite. And one up here. And more up there. Come to trocodite world. You see them all. They’re all here in trocodite world. Careful there. I was told there’s a large animal that comes out of the trogloite house and attacks you. That’s why all those pictures were on the wall of like spears and stuff killing those bad trogodite enemies. Okay, are you ready to go get breakfast? I am.
All right, let’s go.
Boom. Laka laka.
And we are off on another adventure today. As you can see, it’s all downhill. So, if you come to Colton Yak, bring your walking shoes. I would say bring your hiking boots or your mountain climbing boots. Yeah, it is. It’s not for people with mobility issues for sure.
Here we are. 1746, the gate to the city. It’s in the cornerstone over the entryway. Interesting.
This is where you have to go through the gate and make a hard turn to the left. Oh goodness. Don’t drive into somebody’s house, Jeff.
You can see on the wall there where they’ve hit that down spout a couple of times already. [Music] So, it’s the only thing we’re doing is just following downhill, figuring downhill is where we want to end up because there’s not exactly any GPS directions at this point. Now it looks like we make a hard bright. [Music] Well, at least you have a car on automatic and not manual like last time. Manual, we would have hit a couple of walls already. So when you come to France to visit these towns, I would highly suggest you get the full insurance coverage
and the smallest car Are you going to get through there? No, I’m going to have to. That was close. I don’t know where these people come from. Why are they driving a car? They said, “Just imagine maneuvering these streets in a wider car
or like a SUV, like a big big GMC Denali. And you’ll see from the street sign it’s yield no right turn oneway Treat. Look at this. A two-way street. Unbelievable. All right. Remarkable. [Music] So, here at the end of a long trip from high on the top of a hill, we get our first glimpse of the lavender fields here. [Music] Yesterday, [Music] so it’s our lavender ice cream. And even Bella has some.
She doesn’t want to look up. She’s too busy. Too busy eating ice cream. [Music] And a sparkly shimmer on our skin. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Applause] [Music] Uh-oh. [Music] Oh no. Oh no. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Yesterday there was sun and there was rain. Beauty in the mundane. And as the light startled our eyes, we let go of disguise. [Music] And now there’s something in the air and a sparkly shimmer on our skin, restoring everything within. Oh, [Music]

Come with us, in this new video, as we explore Provence, for a weekend getaway. In this video, Part 1, we take the train to Provence in search of some lavender fields, explore a charming village voted “one of France’s most beautiful villages”, and Jeff will give you a tour of a real “troglodyte cave house”, one of many that surround the village of Cotignac, France.

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Hi! We are An and Jeff Scott, two happily retired septuagenarians from the USA, who had a dream. That dream was to retire in France. So, we sold most of our “stuff”, packed and shipped the rest, and with our bossy little Yorkie, Bella, said “goodbye” to the USA. In 2024, we moved from the sunny coast of southwest Florida to the sunny coast of the south of France, to enjoy our “golden years” and embrace the “joie de vivre” available to us, here in beautiful Nice, France.

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