Weekend Waygone 9

This past weekend was a bit busy.  On Friday we took a trip into Avignon, beyond the medieval ramparts, where we took a tour of the Palais des Papes (palace of the popes).  The palace was huge and my favorite room was the kitchen which resembled that of the Willy Wonka fizzy lifting drinks... it was an incredibly tall cone type stone room where they would have a big fire going in the middle and make thousands and thousands of dishes for the feasts.  After listening to a few more fun facts from the whispering audio guide speaking in English, we snuck off to an art museum.

Collection Lambert was an amazing contemporary art museum.  We took our time, and seemed to be the only people in there at the time, and saw Anselm Kiefer, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Barbara Kruger, Andres Serrano, and many more.  Per usual, we exited through the gift shop and I so badly wish I had the space in my luggage to spare for a catalog of the exhibition, or other small souvenir.  They had a beautiful Basquiat scarf that was so very tempting, but a little too out of my price range this time around.

Saturday we earned a bit of a break before hitting the road to Aix en Provence for Sunday.  We were able to visit an art couple's home where they have Louis Marchutz's old lithography press.  They told us about the artist, the press, the materials, and did a drawing transfer demonstration.  This place was an artist's dream world... and they had a pet horse that acted like a big dog.  It was fantastic.

Once we were offered some lunch, paired with some homemade Southern sweet tea... yuuu-uum, we then had the privilege of visiting Cezanne's old painting studio at Chateau Noir.  There is a touristy studio open to the public, but we were able to be spoiled once again by getting a tour of the real deal.  We got to stand in the very places he stood while painting his masterpieces and it was amazing to see how things have gone untouched for over 100 years.