One last sketch from our trip to Marseille, Notre Dame de La Garde – the view was amazing, thankfully, we took an Uber to the top as it would have been a long steep climb.

As I sit at La Cave Des Pas Sages the leaves are changing colors, and the people walking by have donned jackets and longer pants – l’automne est dans l’air.

Tuesday we visited Avignon’s top tourist attraction, the Palace of the Popes. For a number of years in the 1300s nine different popes ruled the church from here, not from Rome. My apprehensions about visiting it again were somewhat validated. The crowds have grown since we first came to Avignon many years ago, yet the Palace is still a beautiful place. Tricia just posted photos and some history, the beauty will amaze you.

Autumn is a time of dramatic colors, a spectacular exercise of complimentary colors: oranges against the blue sky and red against the fading green. Van Gogh loved complimentary colors he said, “I seek to express the terrible passions of humanity by means of red and green… by putting the colors in opposition and by means of their contrast, one against the other, I can express the terrible human passions.”

A server at the end of her shift at La Fabrique, a cafe near Les Halles, the city market.

Daily we are reminded that we are short timers in France. In twelve days we leave Avignon and drive to Germany to visit Ciara and Nathaniel in Germany. She is my step-brother’s daughter and Nathaniel is an officer in the Air Force, now stationed in Germany. Then we spend a last week in Paris, take the Eurostar to London for our flight back to the USA.

Many followers both here and on Instagram have said that I need to publish a book of my sketches and a bit of our story here in France. Well I have started work on it, so we will see how it goes, not sure if it will be just an e-book or not, we will see.