Saturday, June 7, 2014 - Day 16

Today is our last full day in France. Tomorrow is just the flight out.

We turned the house back to the owners this morning, and headed out to Paris. It was a total of almost 8 hours, with a couple of stops along the way. We learned a few more things about French fast food along the way.

1. McDonalds doesn't serve breakfast. They don't open until 10am.
2. The only Cheetos they have here are peanut flavored. Really, peanuts? Isn't this the country that makes the best cheeses in the world, and you can't get cheese flavored Cheetos?
3. Pringles makes smoked chicken and smoked ham flavored chips. I can't tell you what they taste like, as we have our standards.

After checking in to the airport Hilton and returning the rental car, we jumped on a train and went in to Paris for dinner and walking around. We stumbled on this little place called Le Bistro d'Henri, and it was tremendous. The place looked cool from the outside, so we had to try it. They only seat about 35 people, and it's a cramped 35. The kitchen is miniature and right there with you. It's a great place for food and a great ambiance.

We walked over to Notre Dame after dinner. The city is packed on a Saturday night, and there are a ton of people in square in front of Notre Dame. For the first time since we've been coming to Paris in 1996, Notre Dame doesn't have an scaffolding on it. They've completed the cleaning job, and the building looks fabulous. It's probably close to what it looks like when it first went up centuries ago.

You can find some Paris photos here.

Friday, June 6 2014 - Day 15

Today was our last day in Provence. It's been a great time and I'm sorry to see it end. But it will be great to get home.

This morning we went to a shop looking for some placemats. We talked to a guy yesterday at the farmers market and he had some placemats we wanted, but not enough for us. He gave us the address of his shop in a nearby town. We went there today thinking we were going to a small store with placemats. It turned out to be much different.

We turned the corner and ran into a huge store with thousands of fabrics for sale. Jan was in nirvana! We found the placemats they were selling, and located three different patterns that would be great in our dining room and kitchen, for a total of 28 placemats. Jan didn't find any fabric that she wanted, and the prices are quite a bit more than in the U.S. But the placemat score was great.

With the placemats we just bought, and the fabrics for table cloths we bought earlier in the week, we've now exceed the about of space we have in our luggage. So this is the first vacation we've taken where we had to buy a suit case just to bring home stuff that we bought during the trip. Another new experience on this vacation!

We spent the afternoon in the town of St-Remy-de-Provence. We started with a little bistro named La Gousse d'Ail, which means The Garlic Clove. So now you know what dominates their dishes. The food was fabulous. They gave us a small bowl of mushroom soup to start. My starter was an onion tart with anchovies and a salad on top. Jan had a home made pasta course with a light pesto sauce, which tasted great and was a huge portion. Jan's main was a ratatouille of sorts with a goat cheese crust. Mine was a steak with potatoes and garlic (what a surprise) that included a couple of whole roasted garlic cloves. Everything was well executed. Another 2 hour lunch! I could get used to this, but my boss probably wouldn't.

We then went down the road to the Monastery of Saint Paul, which is a psychiatric asylum and has been for a very long time. This is where Van Gogh committed himself for a year. It's still an asylum, but only for women patients. We were able to see the room that Van Gogh stayed and saw the lilies and wheat fields he painted in the last year of his life.

We also saw a couple of "treatment bath tubs" from the 19th century, where they would barricade the patient in with a wooden door with their head exposed, and they would periodically surprise them with dowsing their head with cold water. This was believed to cure the patient's wayward thoughts because of the shock of water. Really, you can't make this stuff up. Take a look at the photos if you don't believe me.

We spent the evening getting the house prepped for turning it back to the owners. Bummer.

Here's a few photos.

Thursday, June 5, 2014 - Day 14

Today was a fairly simple day as our trip starts to wind down. But it was a fun day.

The day started with a walk into the town farmers market. We wanted to get a roasted chicken from one of the vendors that sells these in every market, as they smell and look great. Along with the chicken we got a variety of veggies and greens for making a salad. This was lunch, eaten outside on our porch while looking out at the ducks swimming along in the river. It was a great lunch and a time that felt very "Provence".

We spent the afternoon back in Aix-En-Provence. We want to attend the chamber music concert at the church this evening. We just decided to hang out around town and wait for the concert.

We went off to the place we had lunch the other day as Jan wanted another helping of the great dessert she had there, a chocolate sundae. We then walked around town a little bit, looking in on the city hall which is a 16th or 17th century building. We had access to the little center within the building complex along with the hallway on the first floor to see the architecture.

We then spent some time sitting at one of the little Tabac places that are all over every town of France. These places are little bars that sell a variety of cigarette products, drinks and coffee. It's a place to spend a few euros on a coffee and just sit at one of the outside tables and watch the world go by. The one we chose was right next to the church, so we had plenty of people watching available while we drank our coffee, I smoked a cigar and Jan made out some post cards.

The concert this evening was in the old Saint Savieur church I described a couple of days ago. It was a chamber music concert by the Berlin Chamber Music Orchestra, as they bill themselves. It's a group of 6-7 musicians, all string instruments. Anyway, the pieces were by Mozart, Bach and Vivaldi. The musicians were up on the front part of the alter, and we took seats that were right up front practically on top of them. It was cool to see their facial expressions as they looked at each other for timing. The music was excellent and it was a fabulous setting, in an ancient church. What a great experience.

Only a few photos today, which are here. The photos of lunch are pretty inviting I think. More church photos as well, along with the poster of the concert.

Wednesday, June 4, 2014 - Day 13

Lunch dominated our day today. We went to a little restaurant named Le Bistrot du Paradou on the recommendation of our friend Mary Thomas, who was here last year. Housed in the town of Le Paradou, this little restaurant is a local legend and has been since it opened in 1984. The current chef/owner has been in place for the last couple of years.

The special thing about this restaurant is that it only has a single menu each day, which is what everyone gets with no options or alternatives. There's a single price for the menu and it includes a bottle of wine. There actually is a choice on the menu, and that's dessert, There are about 8 different house-prepared desserts and then a variety of ice creams and sorbets. More on that later.

Today's menu was a first course of sliced and roasted eggplant with a diced prepared tomato, the main course of roasted rabbit with house-made pappardelle and a roasted tomato, a cheese course and dessert. I was concerned when I heard about the rabbit, as it's not Jan's favorite normally but she has had it and enjoyed it in the past.

Every one of the courses was fabulous. Jan really liked the rabbit, as did I. The olive oils on the table were locally made and tremendous. The cheese course was a tray of about 10-12 cheeses that the waiters move from one table to another as you're ready for the course, and you take what you want with the tray staying on your table for 10-15 minutes. You'll never see this in the U.S.

Dessert was a real rock star. Jan had the chocolate tart and was literally speechless with how good it was. I had the rum baba, which was already pretty well soaked with rum until the waiter dropped off a bottle of rum to the table, which allows you to add your own rum.

Oh, Jan wants me to note that she had lunch with her two favorite Johns. You'll know what this means after you check the photos.

After our 2+ hour lunch, we headed to the city of Nimes too view the museum of Beaux-Arts. It's a small museum with some cool stuff. There's a Roman mosaic in the floor that was discovered in the 1800s and dates from approximately 100 AD. There is also a small collection of renaissance-era paintings from Italian, French, and Nordic artists. It was generally a good museum, especially the Italian section.

Nimes has a couple of very cool Roman monuments, a huge arena and a "chateau" that's a monument to a goddess. Try as hard as I could, we couldn't get near either of them because the town is prepping for a wide-ranging carnival that has them closing and rerouting a lot of streets. We finally bailed out and headed home.

Today's photos are located here.

Tuesday, June 3, 2014 - Day 12

Today was spend in Aix-En-Provence. Aix is sort of the "happening" town in Provence, sort of like the county seat. I do know that I was able to get the cigars I was looking for (yeah!).

We walked past the little Fontaine des Quatre Dauphins (Four Dolphins fountain), a little 17th century fountain with water coming from the mouths of the four dolphins. It's surrounded by old mansions and is a small, high-end square in town. We then had lunch at a little place right outside the Palace de Justice (the courthouse) while the local market was dismantled and cleared out.

We walked across town on our way to the Cathedral Saint Sauveur (Cathedral of the Holy Savior), but first hit a little square called the Place Hotel De Ville because it's in front of the 17th century city hall. We had to stop and have a café and just take in the sights, as it's a very busy square. It's amazing how many people will just stop in the middle of their work day, sit in an outdoor café and have a coffee and a cigarette (lots of smoking here). No one minded my cigar, which was a good thing for a change.

One thing in the square, outside of the city hall, is a cool plaque dedicated in 2004 on the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Aix by the American 3rd Army (which I think was under Patton's command) on August 21, 1944 with the assistance of the French Resistance fighters from Aix. I had forgotten that the 70th anniversary of D-Day is Friday. These people haven't.

The Cathedral Saint-Sauveur has parts that date back to the 4th century and the very earliest Christianity when the Romans started to adopt it. The Baptistery is indoors now, enclosed during one of the church expansions in the 14th century, but it was originally outside. The baptism font is a small 8-sided hole that allowed for total immersion, which was the Roman practice.

Other parts of the church date to various times. Some of it was built in the 12th century, then there was the enclosure of the baptistery in the 14th century, some more in the 15th century, and then other parts in the 18th century. It's really quite large and impressive, with some pretty old frescos and a massive organ, which was being played while we were there. There's supposed to be a classical music concert there on Thursday night, so we'll try to go if we can figure out tickets.

Dinner tonight was simple. We picked up a couple of great ham and cheese sandwiches from a local store in Aix along with a couple of cheeses and a baguette, and ate them with a couple of bottles of wine from the trip. We watched the move A Good Year again, since we've now been to pretty much all the spots featured in the movie.

The photos of the day are here. Once again, a lot of old church photos.

Monday, June 2, 2014 - Day 11

Today is our 30th anniversary. Wow, it doesn't seem that long at all. It went by in a heartbeat.

Today's first stop was the Musee de La Lavande (Lavender Museum). We're a little too early to see the huge fields of pretty purple lavender that dominate certain areas of Provence because they don't bloom until June. The museum was interesting though. There was a 10-15 minute film about the growing and production, along with some history of the industry. The museum was dominated by the types of stills that have been used over time to distill the oil from the flowers, which was something I didn't know about. I did start to glaze over after about the sixth type of still, and from that point buzzed past them.

There was a small part of the exhibit dedicated to the production of lavender honey. There are bee keepers in the area of lavender fields that specifically make honey from the lavender flowers, which has a distinctive taste. It was funny to listen to the audio guide, as the lady described the interaction between the bee keeper and the lavender farmer in the summer:

• Bee keeper: "You must wait another fortnight (two weeks for anyone reading this under the age of 40) while the bees make more honey".
• Lavender farmer: "No, the flowers are at their peak and are ready to be harvested".

I suspect the farmer's real response was much shorter, something like just two words. But that could just be me.

Moving on from the lavender museum, we made our way to the town of Chateauneuf-du-Pape (CdP) for a wine and chocolate attraction Jan had read about. CdP is one of the top wine areas of the world, but unfortunately we would do no tasting today as we had acquired more than enough wine to get us through the week, and these wines need time to cellar. The chocolate attraction turned out to be a store where they made their own chocolate. So while it wasn't much of an "attraction", we did manage to do a little damage in the store with their tasty products.

While in the area, we went to the ruins of the pope's chateau, which is the reason the town exists. There is little left to the building that was the pope's weekend/summer retreat when the papacy was in Avignon. It's interesting that the papal palace in Avignon is in excellent condition while this building is practically gone, and both were built at the same time. The building at CdP is at the top of the hill so therefore subjected to all the wind and elements of the area, which is not the case in Avignon. Also, when the papacy returned to Rome in the 1400s, the church continued to own and use the building in Avignon, while I believe they abandoned the building in CdP. More research is needed.

The ruins themselves are still pretty interesting from the architecture that is evident. I took a lot of photos, which you'll see later. It's interesting that when we were last here in 2003, the ruin was pretty much on its own on top of the hill with nothing around it. Now there are grape vines planted by it, someone has put up a restaurant, and there's a tasting room for one of the wineries in the area.

We then headed over to the Pont Du Gard near the city of Nimes. The Pont Du Gard is the tallest aqueduct ever built by the Romans almost 2000 years ago, and it was done in 5 years. It spans over the Gardon river and is as high as it is in order to get up to the tops of the hills surrounding the river to continue to carry the water from a nearby spring to the town of Nimes. It's 360 meters long and 50 meters high. When up close, it appears that this too, like the Pont Julien from last week, was built without mortar, having the precisely shaped stones fitted together in order to keep everything in place. During the summer you can get up to the very top level which is where the water was carried, but that was closed. Still, a very cool monument.

Our anniversary dinner at home tonight consisted of some monster prawns we bought from the fish man at the farmers market. This, a fresh salad from the market along with some local white wine was all we needed. Oh, and some of the chocolate from earlier today.

Some frustrations about France came out today for both of us. I'm sure it's cultural differences, but it makes you wonder why a people would make certain things difficult for themselves (at least for the first two things). So bear with me while I rant for a few minutes. Three topics:

1. Convenience stores - They are practically non-existent. The only small stores that exist are little specialty shops (bread, pastry, meat, etc.), so if you want a couple of different things, you have to go to multiple places. The only places that sell everything in one place are mega mart food stores that take forever to get out of because there are only three checkout lines open during rush hour. So when you're driving along and decide you want a coke and some chips, forget it. The handful of town convenience stores that exist along the small roadways that dominate the countryside can't be parked at because the roads were designed 1000 years ago for horse-drawn carts. In this quest yesterday we encountered one of the few McDonalds in the area and were going to stop for some coke and fries, and they're out of regular coke. WTF? You're McDonalds and you ran out of regular coke??? Who runs this place, and gives a crap?
2. Random store closures - There is some kind of habit in this country that stores are open only for very specific hours on very specific days, and they're likely not posted anywhere. This is different from the fact that every business in the country except restaurants closes between 12 and 2 for lunch. We went through whole towns where every business was closed. The most fun are the myriad of stores we ran into that had signs out front stating "Ouvert 24h" (open 24 hours) that were closed. I guess the sign really means "we're open 24 hours except for the times we decide to close for any reason that suits us".
3. U.S. Credit Cards - Ok, this may sound like an ugly American thing. Not a one of the automatic payment machines in this country take U.S. credit cards because we don't use the security chip in our cards. I realize a bunch of other countries have gone to this technology, but can't the machines be designed to take both? We are the biggest economy in the world (sorry, that's ugly American). Then it takes forever to find the one guy in the business who knows how to use the machine they have that take swipe cards to read the magnetic strip on the back of the card. Nothing can be done fast.

Ok, I'm better now. Thanks.

You can find today's photos here.

Sunday, June 1, 2014 - Day 10

This morning we went to the giant town market. We found a vendor selling great table clothes and bought one that would work great in the dining room. Everything is metric here but I had converted all the standard table cloth sizes here to inches and we're able to get the right size.

Two vendors down from the first guy was a lady with dozens of large decorator fabrics on bolts. She had a couple of patterns and colors that were also going to be great for the dining room. We picked up enough fabric for Jan to make table cloths from them as well. So we've gotten four Provence table cloths on the trip, which will work great in the kitchen and dining room.

We went to Gordes this afternoon to check out the sites and to also see the café that was featured in the movie A Good Year. Gordes is a small town that was on the verge of extinction until artists discovered it. Now it's still a small community but very revitalized as a tourist destination and a place for Parisians to build luxury summer homes.

The café we found fairly quickly. It's actually a hotel, the Hotel Renaissance, however it's just depicted as a café in the movie. It's a cool plaza right by a fountain.

The castle in Gordes dates back to 1031, but was rebuilt to an extent in the 16th century. There's a cool fireplace that dates to that time that takes up one whole wall of a room. Unfortunately, this is about all that's open to the public.

We spent some time in the Church of St. Fermin. It's a Renaissance era church that still retains much of it's Rococo style fresco wall decorations. However, the walls are in a serious need for restoration, but this little town doesn't really have the funding to do so. But what is there is pretty fabulous looking and typical of the great fresco painting of the 15th and 16th century.

You'll find today's photos here. I hope you like photos of church frescos, because there are a lot of them.

Saturday, May 31, 2014 - Day 9

Slept in and got a late start today. I spent a bit of time feeding Madame Canard. I was sitting on the porch trying to update my journal when she flew up from the river to the back yard, walked up the stairs to the porch and came right up to me and started yapping. I interpreted her "duck speak" for "I'm hungry. Get me something". So I spent some time feeding her yesterday's croissant, which she devoured. I did manage to video a couple of minutes of it, so if I'm able to get that uploaded, you'll be able to view it here.

We headed to the town of Menerbes. This town was the stronghold for the Protestants during the 16th century "Religious wars" with the Catholics. There are some building used for defenses still in existence, which we didn't get to see because of time constraints, but we'll try to get back here next week. We did walk the town a bit and got a shot of the "main drag", as it is, of the town.

We did make a stop at the Musee Du Tire Bouchon, otherwise known as the corkscrew museum. "tire bouchon" translates to "cork pull". It's inside the winery Domaine de la Citadelle. We couldn't take photos unfortunately. The guy's collection is really extensive, being literally thousands of corkscrews. They date back hundreds of years. Many are very decorative and probably meant more "for show" than "for go".  The most cool for me were three that were a combination of pistol, small saber, and corkscrew. I don't quite understand the basis for putting those three things together into one unit, but they were clearly professionally made and very well done.

As the purpose of the trip is to celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary, we of course would have a special dinner planned. Since our real anniversary is on Monday, we decided to do our big dinner tonight. We went to Le Vivier (The Pool), the only Michelin starred place close by. It's run by a British couple that migrated here a few years ago after running restaurants in London. I think the name comes from the location, which is right where one of the rivers segments into two and goes through a couple of very small water falls. You can look out at this from the terrace, which is where we had our aperitif.

Dinner was their seven course "Menu Gourmand" and overall was nice, with the selected wine pairings. They did some unique things, such as the lobster meat in a crispy cannelloni enclosed with pureed avocado. The fish course featured mullet and octopus with a salty butter sauce and an excellent corn puree. The meat course was veal sweetbreads, which Jan tried for the first time and didn't mind them, although I think they won't be either of our first choice in the future. Dessert should always be great as the last course and this was, being a pairing of a chocolate lava cake and a chocolate frozen "lollipop". It was a nice setting and a great evening.

You'll find a handful of photos here.

Friday, May 30, 2014 - Day 8

Mich and Jim left early this morning to head out to Lake Como for the rest of their trip. Their visit was fun but quick. I wish it could have lasted longer.

We headed off today to Avignon to see a little museum and to try to find a couple of cigar shops I had heard were there. But we started with lunch at a little creperie in the town square. There was a sea of tables in the square and it turns out that they're owned by about 10 different restaurants. The trick is to figure out which tables belong to the restaurant that you want to dine with. After two false starts, we found a table for the creperie. Their food was very good, with me ordering a crepe with salmon, egg and cheese while Jan selected her usual veggie crepe. Their ice cream was fabulous too!

We finally found the Musee Angledon after walking through about half the town and Jan asking someone for directions. It's a small museum featuring the collection of one person, basically displayed in an old house. The collection consists of artwork, furniture, and other collectibles from different eras. One room was made up as a 16th century castle dining room because all the furnishings and artwork were from that era.

The primary reason we sought out this museum was because we saw a poster advertising a special exhibit of Toulouse-Latrec art. This turned out to be the collection of another single individual. It consisted primarily of first generation lithographs, which is how much of Latrec's artwork got distributed. Some were signed and numbered limited editions. There was one original work painted in oil in the collection. It was an interesting museum but we got through it pretty quickly, especially since I couldn't read the descriptions on the walls.

I couldn't find either cigar stores I had heard about in Avignon. I found the place they were supposed to be, but they were no longer there. I satisfied myself with buying a couple of single smokes from the local store in La Sorgue.

After some reading and wine (and a cigar for me) in the back yard, we went into town for dinner. We chose a little hotel and restaurant call Les Terrasses, right along the Bassin. The food was decent. I had a couple of unusual things. My salad had a bunch of baby squid that were very tasty. For my main course, I had beef tartare, raw egg and all. But dessert was back at home, for some good old fashioned chocolate.

You can find a few pictures from today here. Hopefully the evening photos of the Bassin lit up by the restaurants comes through ok.

Thursday, May 29, 2014 - Day 7

We had a full and fun day with Michele and Jim. It was great that they could join us, even if it was for only a day. We started with a turn through the town farmers market, which is held on Sunday and Thursday. This one is much smaller than the Sunday version, but still pretty extensive by the standards of the other markets around here.

We picked up a lot of stuff for dinner tonight. Mich was making a ratatouille, so we got eggplant, zucchini, fennel, tomatoes, etc. We also got some great lettuce, asparagus and hericot verte for making a salad. There was a butcher selling prepared pork products so we grabbed a piece of roast pork loin and a pork terrine en croute. Cheese of course was necessary, as apparently were some pashminas that one vendor was selling. Oh, we got some great sunflowers as well, which is so typically Provence. Then it was back to the house for breakfast.

Our journey started with a trip to the Pont Julien, which is a Roman-era bridge that is still in existence and operational for foot traffic. The wonder of the Roman engineering is that it was built before the invention of mortar, so the blocks in the archways are all held together by the precise shapes of the stones that lock in together. The river below it is barely a trickle, but apparently 2000 years ago it could be quite substantial because the archways are very high.

We then cruised through the small hillside town of Bonnieux on the way to another little hillside town of Lacoste. While little Lacoste is better known for the clothing brand (there's a good bit of Pierre Cardin presence in the town), it's originally the home town of the Marquis de Sade hundreds of years ago. His castle is mostly in ruins except for the lower level, which is now owned by Pierre Cardin and is being restored.

We walked up some very steep and hundreds-of-years-old streets and walkways to get to the top where the Sade castle was. It's was actually somewhat treacherous as the stones were all very slippery and ragged, definitely medieval (perhaps Sadistic?). When we got to the top, it turned out that the castle isn't open to the public! Apparently Pierre Cardin owns it to restore as a residence and not a museum. On top of that, it also turns out that a road ran from the backside of it so we could have actually driven up there instead of climbing up like a Sherpa. Well, the views were good and we got some great exercise that justified a nice lunch.

For lunch we intentionally chose the Café de France in Lacoste because it looks out over the valley at the neighboring town of Bonnieux. The views are great when sitting in the outdoor tables. I have to assume the indoor tables in these restaurants only get used a few months out of the year.

After lunch we drove to the Chateau La Canorgue to taste and buy some wines. This winery is the one featured in the movie A Good Year with Russell Crowe. You can't get up to the house that was the central piece of the movie, because the owners still live there. However, you're very close to it and can see it easily from the parts of the vineyard they let you walk through. It was fun to talk to the owner (through very broken English) about the experience. Apparently Ridley Scott (the director) and Pete Maile (the writer of the original book) had been customers of their wines for quite some time before deciding to make the movie, so they immediately contacted the owner of Canorgue when they decided to make the movie. It was cool to see the site.

On the way back home we drove through the town of Rousillon, where some of the best ochre in the world is mined. The red soil is everywhere and is apparently considered the best variation of ochre in the world.

Dinner home was great, with bottles of Canorgue wine open and the farmers market ingredients brought to bear. Jan had made some gazpacho soup the day before, which was excellent. We followed it with the salad, and then finally the great ratatouille that Mich had made. Dessert was simple, with a variety of fruits that we had bought that day.

Today's photos are here.

Wednesday, May 28, 2014 - Day 6

Today was a pretty quiet day. We're prepping for Michele and Jim's arrival tonight for their short visit with us as they vacation in France and Italy.

We walked around town this afternoon to pick up a few things. We started with some lunch at a little creperie that had some great stuff. Jan had a crepe stuffed with veggies, dominated by leeks. It tasted great. I had what can best be described as a variety plate. It had four small crepes, one each filled with duck, goat cheese and tomato, ratatouille, and pork. They like to use buckwheat for the crepes here and it results in a dark crepe that looks unusual.

We were looking for some pastries, so we headed to a patisserie we had visited a few days ago. It's run by a woman from New York who had great products. But today it was closed, as was a lot of stores around town. The town is most crowded Thursday through Monday, and some stores stay closed on Tuesday and Wednesday. So we ended up a at new patisserie that was excellent, and got a great variety of pastries.

We've been on the lookout for stores selling fabric so we might find something for tablecloths, This afternoon we found a lady with a variety of fabrics, including some great Provence-looking patterns. We were able to get something perfect for the kitchen island. It's blue based with the typical France pattern with vines and grape leaves. Now we need something for the dining room.

We then ran into a store that sells artisanal cookies and crystalized fruits. They were so attractively displayed that they required a photograph. We of course picked up some items for having with coffee.

Michele and Jim arrived in the early evening. We served a few wines along with Jan's carrot soup and a salad made up of ingredients from the farmers market. It's great to have them here. We'll have a great time tomorrow.

A few photos from today are located here.

Tuesday, May 27, 2014 - Day 5

We went off to Vaison La Romaine late this morning to visit the market and to do a bit of sightseeing. We got there late and most of the vendors were just starting to pack up. However, we still got some nice produce including some really cool looking baby eggplant that will be cool roasted whole. Most of the vegetable vendors have eggplant, but this was the first baby eggplant. I've also seen baby artichokes that I'll have to give a try.

Since we arrived in France I've been searching for a Croque Madame sandwich for lunch to no avail. It's odd because every brasserie in Paris has these, but not down here. This sandwich is basically a grilled ham and cheese with a bit of béchamel sauce on top, like a Croque Monseuir, but it has a fried egg on top. Well anyway, I found a brasserie in Vaison La Romaine that had them on the menu, so that's where we had lunch. Jan had her first steak frites off the trip. A pleasant bottle of the local Ventoux wine for 12 euros topped everything off. Oh, except that we had to stop afterwards so Jan could get a crepe with chocolate sauce.

Since we were in this area, I wanted to visit the winery Domaine Escaravailles. I have some of their wines in the cellar and they're always great. We let them know this as we started the tasting, and they were very receptive to opening some of the excellent 2009 and 2010 vintages to taste instead of the current vintages that they normally have for the tasting. I didn't know they make a white wine, which was very pleasant. We ended up buying two bottles each of three wines, including the white.

They offered to take us through the winery, which we gladly took them up on. It was a short tour as it's a small producer, but we got to see the vinification area, which also included the barrel cellar for the Syrah they produce.

On the way to La Romaine we had seen a castle in the distance at the town of Le Barroux along with a sign about an abbey, so we decided to stop there on the way back. It turned out to be a great stop and one of those things that you miss if you fill your schedule with things.

We first stopped at the Abbey St. Madelaine. It's been there for centuries and is run by a small cloister of Trappist monks. We stopped at the gift shop first and Jan spoke with one of the monks running the shop while I grabbed a bunch of products that the monks make like olive oil and different breads and jams. Since we were there late in the day, the monks invited us to go to the church for Vespers, which was going to start within 20 minutes. That's an offer that can't be turned down!

As we started to walk up to the church, the bells started to ring announcing Vespers, which were going to start in 15 minutes. They subsequently rang at 5 minutes before and then at the appointed hour while the monks filed in, which is an interesting site to see. You'll find a short video of the bell ringing here.

The Vespers service was really pretty amazing. It's chanted in Latin and sounds cool and a bit creepy at the same time. But what I found really amazing was the age of the monks. I expected a bunch of really old guys similar to the ageing of the Catholic clergy in the US. Instead this group ranged in age from about 30 to mid-50s. It's interesting to see so many younger people entering the church. Many had the weird hair halo cut on their head while others didn't, so this must be a symbol of stature. The whole thing was pretty cool.

We then stopped at the castle we had seen earlier in the day. It dates back to the 12th century and was for the lord of the area. It had closed by the time we got there but we could still walk around the area and got some photos. It was interesting that the castle had been restored once but then got heavily damaged by the Germans when they occupied it in WW2. However, the German government now has offered to help pay for the new restorations.

Another simple dinner at home, with the monk's bread with some cheese and salami from the market. Oh, and a bottle of red wine too! We've eaten at home more on this trip than we have in the last couple of months at home.

Here are some photos from the day, consisting of Domaine Escaravailles, the abbey and the castle.

Monday, May 26, 2014 - Day 4

Did a more feeding of "Madame Canard" this morning using the baguette remains from last night's dinner. These ducks just come right up to you, they're so used to people. This evening I was having a cigar on the patio (a great Cuban Partagas Series D number 4), and Madame Canard just came up to within a couple of feet from me and looked up like she was saying "I'm hungry, what have you got?" She likes bread, and Pringles potato chips. It's funny listening to a duck crunching on chips. At least she didn't ask for dip.

We visited Les Baux Des Provence today, one of our favorite places in Provence. It's a medieval village at the top of a hill, originally anchored by a castle owned by the Marquis a thousand years ago. Now it's a village filled with shops and restaurants. We did a bit of shopping, picking up a cool little souvenir for Tommy 3. Then we went to a little creperie that looks out over the hillside. The crepe was excellent, with bacon, cheese, mushrooms and onions. They had monster ice cream sundaes too, so we shared one of those.

Les Baux is a great area for olive oil and wine. We visited Mas De Gourggonier, a winery I'm familiar with, to taste their wines and the olive oil they make. They have olive trees on the property in addition to grape vines. They make a number of different wines that you don't see in the US, and they were all excellent, so we picked up a few bottles. Their olive oil was very good as well, so a bottle came away with us.

On the way back home we stopped in Valleron to go to the only evening farmers market in the area. It's primarily a produce market with a couple of cheese makers there as well It's frequented primarily by locals, and there were a bunch of people there waiting to get in when it opened at 6pm. We blew through there in about 20 minutes, buying cherries, asparagus, hericot verte, carrots, fresh from the farm eggs, a couple of little melons, and a couple of pieces of goat cheese, all of it produced locally to Valleron. The markets here are great.

This evening's dinner was stuff we had procured from the farmers market, along with a couple (yes, a couple) of bottles of red wine. The 2000 Mas de Gourgonnier Reserve was excellent. We also opened a 2010 Chateau Le Nerthe Chateauneuf-du-Pape, which was also really nice but was way too young.

A small number of photos from today, which you can see here.

Sunday, May 25, 2014 - Day 3

This morning we went to the huge farmers market in town. It's gigantic, stretching across probably 20 blocks of the town and some side streets. It's more like a flea market than a farmers market, as there are many more booths with clothes, ceramics, jewelry, etc than food booths. But there were definitely plenty with food.

The food vendors were pretty incredible. The vegetables and fruits were extensive, although I was surprised that there were no mushroom vendors. We still were able to get some great veggies for a big salad.

There were many cheese vendors and cured meat vendors. We picked up a nice salami made with chanterelle mushrooms. Then at one of the cheese vendors we got a chunk of local hard cheese from Noyes. These two will be great together.

Our last stop was a shop that sells local olive oils and olives. We got a great oil made with black olives from Noyes and another from Les Baux des Provence. They were more fruity and distinctive than anything I've had in the states.

We stopped at home to drop off our bounty before heading out to lunch. We opened up the house doors as is the custom here to let the air in. While we were doing stuff in the kitchen, Jan noticed that one of the ducks had come from the rive and walked into the house! This was the mother duck who must have been hungry from sitting on her nest. We shooed her out and gave her some bread, and then closed the doors. She kept trying to get in, walking around the back porch from door to door. These things must get fed a lot around here, that they've become this domesticated.

We went to the town of Bonnieux for lunch. It's built on the mountainside and looks across the valley to the town of Gordes. I don't know what causes the building of a town on the side of a hill, but usually there's a medieval castle connected with it. I didn't see one of those here. It's quite impressive how steep the streets and walkways are here.

We stopped at a winery outside of Bonnieux called Les Eydins. We had a bottle of their wine with lunch and it was excellent. It was unusual for the winery to be open on a Sunday, but it was. We got two bottles of red, two of an excellent white, and two of a great sweet white.

We spent the late afternoon sitting in the back yard, with Jan feeding the ducks potato chips. After she stopped, they came up and walked around the back yard, looking for some food. They eventually went away, but they're not too afraid of people anymore.

We used our farmers market bounty for a great salad for dinner. It went well with a Les Eydins white.

I just noticed that my travel adapter is overheating and starting to smell. That's not a good sign. If I can't find another one, this blog will end in a hurry as I'm going to run out of power quickly.

Here's the photos of the day.

Saturday, May 24, 2014 - Day 2

Barely got out of bed in time to check out by noon and haul down to the rental house in time to meet the owners by 4pm to take possession of the house. It turns out that the French have speed cameras all over the expressways here. That could prove to be a problem based on today's attempt to make up time. Maybe they'll forget about it when the figure out it's a rental car rented by an American. Yeah, sure. Cie la vie! (I think that's spelled right).

I'll do photos tomorrow, but today was spent just taking everything in.

We're now settled in L'Isle-Sur-La-Sorgue, in south central France in the middle of Provence. The house is very charming and exactly as described on the website I rented it from. It's backed up to one of the rivers that run through la Sorgue. There are ducks all around, including one that is nesting in a bush in the back yard with what the owner says are 10 eggs the little duck is nursing.  It has a great back yard for sitting, drinking the local wines and eating the local cuisine. We'll hit our first farmer's market tomorrow.

The owners were great folks, probably late-50s. Between their slight understanding of English and Jan's understanding of French, we got through the walkthrough ok and familiarized with the functions of the house. Whenever there was a lull when we were each trying to understand each other, the wife would offer us some fresh strawberries. We got through it all well.

We walked around the town to get our bearings. We're 5 minutes walk to the center of town, which is chock full of antique shops. The town is apparently packed on weekends with tourists visiting the shops, and today was no different. We didn't go into any today. We'll save that for later.

We happened on a small wine and cheese shop on a small street and had to buy a few things and a bit of wine. We'll have those things tomorrow as we didn't want to spoil our dinner. More on those later.

There are many bistros in town, seemingly all right next to one another. We settled on one called Le Bouchon and ate outside along the river. BTW, you'll hear a lot about things being "by the river". There are five rivers that run through and converge in town, which is why it's called "L'Isle", because the center of town is essentially an island between all the rivers.

Dinner was excellent. I had a perfectly cooked confit of duck, the leg and thigh. The salad was interesting, goat cheese wrapped in bacon served over a typical Provencal salad of greens with a mustard vinaigrette. Jan had a grilled steak for her main, previewed by a salad of grilled asparagus with a small salad dressed with local olive oil.

The big local market is tomorrow, so we'll have photos then.

Friday, May 23, 2014 - Day 1

Wow, what a long day. We were up a total of 32 hours straight, with me only sleeping about 20 minutes on the plane. Quite the lovely plane ride it was too, with a little kid about 20 feet away crying constantly. Apparently noise canceling headphones haven't quite figured out how to mask that particular octave.

We grabbed our car at DeGaulle airport and started towards Provence. It took about an hour to get from the airport to the other side of Paris because of bumper-to-bumper traffic, so that added time to the trip that wasn't planned. So we hit our planned destination closer to 4pm.

We stopped halfway to Provence since we don't get the house until tomorrow. We're staying at the Chateau de Chailly, a 16th century castle converted to a hotel in the sleepy little town of Chailly-sur-Armancon, on the northern end of the Burgundy region. The castle is incredibly cool, with huge ceilings and stone floors and walls. There's a great looking golf course attached, but unfortunately we don't have time to play.

We had a brief repast of local soft rind cheese and a glass of white Burgundy. The cheeses here are incredible. Being made with raw milk, the flavors are amazing and far exceed what can be done with pasteurized milk. It's also great to have local cheese with local wine, as the flavors just somehow blend together after being developed over the centuries.

In searching for a dinner spot, we ended up in an even sleepier town of Mont Saint Jean. Our original target restaurant was closed for a few days, but we found this really cool place called Chateau Les Roches. It's a B&B in an old house. The restaurant turned out to be great. It's very tiny, with seating for 12 only. But the food was great, and very well executed. The wine list was small given the great wines in the area, but we found a great red Burgundy, 2009 Pommard Premier Cru "Les Pezerolles" by Domaine A-F Gros.

Not many photos today. The slide show is here. If you move your mouse on the screen while viewing it, you'll see the description of the photo. Now, it's off to bed!