Theatre festivals and hiking next to lakes!

Bonjour a tous! I will condense two trips into one post, because I am so behind! 

Avignon Saturday, July 12

Every year, the city of Avignon hosts a 3-week long theatre festival in July. During this day, troupes and theatre groups from all over the country come to the quaint town to promote their shows, musicals, and plays. Many advertise on the main street in their costumes, and it is a truly fantastic site! A lot of medieval characters, superheroes, cartoon characters, and others. 

The first thing we saw when we arrived in Avignon, however, was a giant purple moose. 

 

Here's an example of some of the street performances you might see: 

Streets are filled with actors and actresses, many of them playing music or singing:



At the end of the main road, the famous Papal Palace, the refuge of popes in the 14th century, stands in all its glory:

Inside, one can learn a lot about the papal way of life

Acrobatic shows took place right outside:

These sorts of advertising posters of theatre plays on every single street:

The view of the little palace from the Pont d'Avignon, a medieval bridge built in the 1100's, but destroyed soon afterwards when Louis VIII laid siege on Avignon. A pity, but made for a great tourist attraction nonetheless! 

Me and Ashlie, another intern from Oklahoma, on the Pont d'Avignon

Can you tell apart the fake from the real? :) 

Another acrobatic show in front of the papal palace:

Hiking at Lake Annecy, July 19th

Next week, we set out to conquer the pretty and quaint lakeside town of Annecy. However, before getting to the actual center of town, we "accidentally" climbed a peak called Col des Sautes, from which one gets a pretty good view of Lake Annecy:

This was just a ~1200 m elevation, so not too exciting, but considering we started off at ~560 something, it was a pretty good hike. 

Taking in the view at Lac Annecy! 

The cliffs were really awesome and at one point we actually had to climb up using a rope put in there for that purpose. 

The water was fantastic, I promise! It was really warm and I just really did not want to get out. I really recommend this to anyone in the Geneva / Hautes-Alpes region. :)  

Coming up next: Lyon and hiking in Bourg d'Oisans. I've been really behind on this blogging thing.