Orange You Glad?

Driving down from Basel to Costa Brava, Catalonia is about a 9 hour journey. What better way to break the monotony of the gorgeous French countryside with fields after fields of lavender (wow!) than by staying overnight in a charming medieval town and chowing down scrumptious French food right?

We stopped over the small town of Orange (ow-rAnch) in France. According to Wikipedia, Orange is located in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region and boasts a truckload of Roman architecture which made me think for a while that I was in Italy. A Roman amphitheater still stands and is actually still in use. It has a working stage, a restaurant and a small museum. I was satisfied just touching the walls and marveling how they built it back then.

Orange has pretty architecture as you can see in their opera below and of course, their own arc de triomphe. With approximately 30,000 inhabitants, Orange keeps the spirit of their town alive, reflected in their architecture and the overall quaintness with potted flowers and people lining up in warm bakeries on clean cobble stoned streets.