Spending time in Uzes is Magical.

We continue to walk and everything is so picturesque, it's unreal.  We head back to the bed and breakfast to reflect and have a few beers in the courtyard.  (You can see a theme here, right?)

Courtyard in front of the Cathedral of Uzes. 

Walkway starting into the magical forests!

Land abounds!

Beautiful streets in Uzes.

Aha! A door just my size!

Don't you just love this?

We loved the pigeons.

Having fun with the tiny, secret doors.

The whole town is like this.

Steven is crazy.

Tiny cars only!

I want to live here.

Gotcha. 

Later, we get ready and head out for our dinner reservations at  Bec A Vin.  Our gracious hosts, Alexis and Gwilym, recommended the best little place to dine within the walls of Uzes, which means we walked just a few short minutes along the cobbled streets, and, viola!, we were there.

We are greeted very energetically by the owner of the restaurant as we arrive and get seated in the outdoor courtyard.  She comes right up to me, as my new best friend, and cheerfully says, "Tell me all, tell me all, daahhhrling!"  She was so fun.  We dine for hours ... ordering drinks and a three course meal ... and thoroughly enjoying getting to know all of our new friends in Uzes, talking for hours.

Throughout dinner, I kept wanting to talk to this older couple that I just found so interesting.  I was interested in what they did with their lives, what life was like through their eyes?  I feel it's important to strike up conversation with new people, strangers if you will, well, then they won't be strangers. So, as we were leaving, I see them walking outside so I swiftly walk up to say hi and ask them a question, all in French ...but of course.  We ended up talking a while with these kindred spirits, which was lovely.  They were locals in the area and had a sweet story.  They helped us with some french and we helped them with some english, which was hilarious.  It was a nice night.

Oh, so content.

Trying his fanciness on for size ;-)

The courtyard dining.

Beer.

Snails and stuff.

More snails.

My dinner was delicious.

These are the good times.

Desserts!

Still dining, hours later.

  Lovely day, lovely day, lovely day.

A church in Uzes.

Later in the day, Uzes.

We walk around some more, completely fascinated we are.  We find a church, large in stature, medieval ... we go in.  It is quiet with a very peaceful but serious energy, so we whisper ever so slightly to communicate (even though we are the only ones in there).  I show Steven some Holy Water, dip the finger in and now raise, forehead to chest, left to right shoulders.  We walk towards the alter, which is massive but has a humble ease to it, amongst the long wooden pews. I kneel, then "Father and Son and Holy Spirit" before entering to sit.  Steven obliges and follows my suite.

I feel very humbled here at this place.

We sit in awe, in quiet graciousness and respect of the holy space.  We want to say a prayer for grandmother, Betty, aka Mamaw.

A side story here:  On the day before leaving for our European adventures, we find out that she has brain cancer and they must do an immediate surgery on a large tumor.  We dropped everything and went to visit her instantly.  I really wanted to stay for her, but she insisted, as graciously, giving, and thoughtful as she always is, that we continue on our trip and enjoy it to the fullest!  She was truly excited for us.  So, we obviously went, but was thinking of her constantly AND every time we went by a church, I'd pray for her.

So. we sit close, hold hands, then close our eyes and I pray aloud in the church.  After, we just sit in meditation and the world and all it's worries seemed to just fade away ... like they never existed at all.  Walking out, we study the church once more, then make an offering in the name of my grandmother and received a candle in return, which represented the saint of the weak.

This, I will give to Mamaw.

The Uzes Cathedral

First day in Uzes, France.

We are sitting in the courtyard of L'Alboisse after a luxurious night of sleep. LUXURIOUS!  And I'm thinking about the day and night before ...

We had walked the town a bit, oohhhing and ahhhhing every step, every view and glance is breathtakingly gorgeous.  Inspiring.  OLD.  When I say old, I mean OLD, historical, stone and mortar ... everywhere.

At this point, I am fancifully free and everything in the world is perfect.  Don't you just love those moments?

Happy, happy Steven.

We had tapas in the local square, and beer, of course.  We tried octopus straight up for the first time, strange. Lentils in a cumin sauce, talous? or something, hummus of some sort, breads.  Oh, the breads.  Another type of octopus in a curry, served room temperature to slightly chilled, which was quite interesting.

Tapas style, my favorite way to eat.

We tried everything. Yeah boy.

Nothing like octopus tentacles, weird.

We practice our french and the waiter calls Steven "a lazy boy!" and proceeds to hand him an english menu, while handing me the french version.  Ha.  Our waiter was a loud, boisterous and lovely character ... stout, with chin length blond hair and a smile that twinkled with authenticity.  He greeted us with a wonderfully loud and cheerful, "BONJOUR!"  He may need to be a main character in an upcoming Disney movie, for real.

While we are being a "couple of leisure" with our dining and our beer and our grand Disney character of a waiter, Steven accidently drops a piece of octopus curry on the stone ground.  It's about the size of a quartered piece of potato.  Well, all I can say is hello pigeons of Uzes!  Little did we know we were about to open up the flood gates of a little (or a lot of) pigeon action!  First, it's just one little guy with a slight shimmery patch of majestic purple on his neck.  He pecks at this piece of food with swift and meaningful determination, probably because it is two to three times the size of his head.

Then, here come a few more of our new pigeon friends, flying in for some grand action.  Then more come.  Then more.  Before we knew it, we are sitting in the sunshine on historical stone ground enjoying beer and new nibbles, amidst a pigeon rugby match.  We actually named it a "foodball" match.  I wish I had more pictures of the madness, but here are just a few of them fighting it out.

At this point, we are laughing hysterically at this pack of birdies as they peck and throw this object of food around.  They are all fighting and struggling to have a whack at it!  There must be at least a dozen or more scuffling around in a pack and going after this food!  Well, at least we provided a show for the other guests sitting outside with us!  And we laughed and laughed and then some.

Courtyard in Uzes, France at Terroirs.