Stu's Lavender or Luberon Route?
Jul 27th, 2006, 10:16 AM
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Stu's Lavender or Luberon Route?
If you could only do one of these during September, which one would you pick and why, please? They are both super-tempting, but I just don't think there will be enough time...
Jul 27th, 2006, 11:15 AM
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What are YOUR sightseeing priorities? Do you want to see mountains and lavender with some small picturesque out-of-the-way hilltowns thrown in or do you want to see major hilltowns with more tourists, shopping, dining? How many days do you have?
Jul 28th, 2006, 07:30 AM
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If the lavender were in bloom, it would probably be a no-brainer. But since this will be in Sept, I think it's more of a toss-up? I have about 2 1/2 days in the area, as I'll arrive at my Isle-sur-la-Sorgue hotel around noon on Wed (having spent a few days around St. Remy & west).
Priorities: the two of us are seasoned travelers and are up for anything, but in addition to great sight-seeing, I'm in the food & wine industry, so delicious meals at any level and shopping for anything culinary (wine, food/chocolate, kitchen items) are important.
I'm having a tough time figuring out a good plan. Maybe???:
Wed pm - picnic in Isle, then see Gordes/bories & Abbaye de Senanque in the afternoon (that enough?)
Thursday - the rest of Stu's Luberon route?? (or the Lavender route minus the lavender, if people think that's a higher priority route)
Friday - Wine-tasting (Chateauneuf-du-pape, Beaumes-de-venise) & the Dentelles/Vaison/Seguret
Thanks for all assistance! It's tough coming up with a good balance for such a short time!
Priorities: the two of us are seasoned travelers and are up for anything, but in addition to great sight-seeing, I'm in the food & wine industry, so delicious meals at any level and shopping for anything culinary (wine, food/chocolate, kitchen items) are important.
I'm having a tough time figuring out a good plan. Maybe???:
Wed pm - picnic in Isle, then see Gordes/bories & Abbaye de Senanque in the afternoon (that enough?)
Thursday - the rest of Stu's Luberon route?? (or the Lavender route minus the lavender, if people think that's a higher priority route)
Friday - Wine-tasting (Chateauneuf-du-pape, Beaumes-de-venise) & the Dentelles/Vaison/Seguret
Thanks for all assistance! It's tough coming up with a good balance for such a short time!
Jul 31st, 2006, 12:30 PM
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I'm not an expert (I was there in June), but here are my 2 cents: In view of the amount of time you have and your priorites - food, shopping - I would skip the lavender route. It is really a lot of driving. If you are doing Gordes and the abbey, that is plenty especially if the lavender isn't blooming.
Chateauneuf-du-pape & the Dentelles/Vaison/Seguret all in one day is too much. You need to get started early on the Dentelles/Vaison/Seguret route if you want to stop along the way (you know Gigondas is on that route - nice restaurant there). Since you want to shop, Vaison might be a good place since it is a larger city (you know this is where Patricia Wells cooking school is). I recommend you get Patricia Wells Provence cookbook. She has store recommendations, etc. in it tht might be of interest to you. We did not stop in Vaison but blasted through because it was too hot.
Carpentras is just a little north of Isle and has a very large market plus it is an interesting city to explore. Not sure what day of the week the market is on. I believe Stu lists it somewhere because we followed his parking directions. We did the market in Carpentras in the a.m., bought picnic stuff, went on to Chateauneuf and picniced at the castle (it was really hot and not much shade). There is a nice little restaurant there as well just above the tasting room. We did some tasting but didn't buy anything. Beaucastle (sp?) is north of there and a lovely drive so you could do that in the afternoon??? I don't know. We didn't stop but Stu says you need reservations.
I need to get off this computer but can give you some St. Remy restaurant recommendations if you like later. I am going to send you an invitation to our pictures and that might help you.
Hope this tops your thread and catches someone elses attention who can give you more info.
Chateauneuf-du-pape & the Dentelles/Vaison/Seguret all in one day is too much. You need to get started early on the Dentelles/Vaison/Seguret route if you want to stop along the way (you know Gigondas is on that route - nice restaurant there). Since you want to shop, Vaison might be a good place since it is a larger city (you know this is where Patricia Wells cooking school is). I recommend you get Patricia Wells Provence cookbook. She has store recommendations, etc. in it tht might be of interest to you. We did not stop in Vaison but blasted through because it was too hot.
Carpentras is just a little north of Isle and has a very large market plus it is an interesting city to explore. Not sure what day of the week the market is on. I believe Stu lists it somewhere because we followed his parking directions. We did the market in Carpentras in the a.m., bought picnic stuff, went on to Chateauneuf and picniced at the castle (it was really hot and not much shade). There is a nice little restaurant there as well just above the tasting room. We did some tasting but didn't buy anything. Beaucastle (sp?) is north of there and a lovely drive so you could do that in the afternoon??? I don't know. We didn't stop but Stu says you need reservations.
I need to get off this computer but can give you some St. Remy restaurant recommendations if you like later. I am going to send you an invitation to our pictures and that might help you.
Hope this tops your thread and catches someone elses attention who can give you more info.
Jul 31st, 2006, 07:31 PM
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I don't want to hijack this thread, but we will also be there at the end of Sept. and seem to have similar interests as ejb5, so I wanted to bring this thread back up to the top.
We will be staying just outside of St Remy for a week and I would be very interested in Ronda's restaurant recs.
It's always hard to figure out how much can be seen in a day and still feel like you're on vacation!
We will be staying just outside of St Remy for a week and I would be very interested in Ronda's restaurant recs.
It's always hard to figure out how much can be seen in a day and still feel like you're on vacation!
Aug 1st, 2006, 07:16 AM
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Hi Ronna,
Thank you for responding. I'm not sure I understand why les Dentelles and Ch-du-Pape aren't feasible in the same day - could you please explain?
My hotel is in Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, and I would have figured going around the loop (not sure if clockwise or counter makes more sense based on timing around lunchtime closings) and then Ch-du-Pape at the end of the day would have been reasonable. Would you please elaborate?
(Also, what is the restaurant in Gigondas you are recommending, and what are the hours for tasting rooms, please?)
Thanks again for your help!
Thank you for responding. I'm not sure I understand why les Dentelles and Ch-du-Pape aren't feasible in the same day - could you please explain?
My hotel is in Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, and I would have figured going around the loop (not sure if clockwise or counter makes more sense based on timing around lunchtime closings) and then Ch-du-Pape at the end of the day would have been reasonable. Would you please elaborate?
(Also, what is the restaurant in Gigondas you are recommending, and what are the hours for tasting rooms, please?)
Thanks again for your help!
Aug 1st, 2006, 03:33 PM
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Well, I hit post instead of edit. I was going to add, if you want to do both the Cotes du Rhone route and Chateau Neuf in one day, you might want to only do part of the Cotes du Rhone route - say the west side with Gigondas - and then head over to Chateau Neuf. Just a thought.
Aug 1st, 2006, 03:41 PM
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OK, that last post goes after this one. I don't know what happened; perhaps I hit delete instead of post or edit, but this response disappeared. Luckily I had copied it just in case. So here it is:
First of all, are we talking about the same route. I used the one outlined in the Rick Steves Provence book which goes to Beaumes-de-Venise, Gigondas, Sablet, Seguret, Vaison la Romaine, Le Crestet, Malaucene, Suzette, and Lafare.
You will have to get there from Isle, drive the route, stop and see the towns, get lost, etc. on narrow roads. This route takes all day (imho) IF YOU STOP to eat lunch, taste wine, photograph, shop. If you just want to drive as fast as you can and blast past everything, yes, you could probably do it in 4 hours and head over to Chateaneuf to again drive like crazy. Just depends on what YOU want to do. And don't forget, many shops and wineries are closed between 12:00 and 2:00 p.m.
And things do go wrong. We had intended to eat dinner in Gigondas only to arrive and find the city roped off due to the impending arrival of a 10 k race and spaghetti feed in the square. We had to traverse a narrow back road (I closed my eyes) and park in the church parking lot at the top of the hill (by the cemetary). After tasting we decided we had better get the heck out of town before all the people arrived and we couldn't or had to do that road in the dark.
The name of the restaurant Stu and the Michelin Guide recommends and we would have liked to have eaten in is: L'Oustalet http://www.gabriel-meffre.fr/oustale...e.fr/oustalet/
Do you have the Rick Steves Provence book? He really does have the kind of information you are seeking (hours, driving times). There is a tasting room in the center of Gigondas called Le Caveau de Gigondas "10:00-12:00 & 14:00 - 18:30, 2 doors down from the TI"
It took us longer to get everywhere. Just consider kilometers to be miles and calculate your driving time accordingly. Stu is very familiar with Provence and it might not take him long to get from place to place but it probably always took us twice as long as we thought it would.
abqdeb: If you put St. Remy Restaurants in the search box above you will come up with threads containing many restaurant rec's for St. Remy. Patricia (who lives there) posted her list more than once. Here is a link to my thread about St. Remy Restaurants:
http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=34816304
My favorite was Jardin de Frederique. The service was wonderful and attentive, the food delicious and well prepared. We had the best filet mignon which we were hesitant to order because, in general, French beef is not that tender.
Our least favorite restaurant was Le Bistrot Decouverte. The food was ok but it was on a very busy corner (traffic) which we did not care for.
First of all, are we talking about the same route. I used the one outlined in the Rick Steves Provence book which goes to Beaumes-de-Venise, Gigondas, Sablet, Seguret, Vaison la Romaine, Le Crestet, Malaucene, Suzette, and Lafare.
You will have to get there from Isle, drive the route, stop and see the towns, get lost, etc. on narrow roads. This route takes all day (imho) IF YOU STOP to eat lunch, taste wine, photograph, shop. If you just want to drive as fast as you can and blast past everything, yes, you could probably do it in 4 hours and head over to Chateaneuf to again drive like crazy. Just depends on what YOU want to do. And don't forget, many shops and wineries are closed between 12:00 and 2:00 p.m.
And things do go wrong. We had intended to eat dinner in Gigondas only to arrive and find the city roped off due to the impending arrival of a 10 k race and spaghetti feed in the square. We had to traverse a narrow back road (I closed my eyes) and park in the church parking lot at the top of the hill (by the cemetary). After tasting we decided we had better get the heck out of town before all the people arrived and we couldn't or had to do that road in the dark.
The name of the restaurant Stu and the Michelin Guide recommends and we would have liked to have eaten in is: L'Oustalet http://www.gabriel-meffre.fr/oustale...e.fr/oustalet/
Do you have the Rick Steves Provence book? He really does have the kind of information you are seeking (hours, driving times). There is a tasting room in the center of Gigondas called Le Caveau de Gigondas "10:00-12:00 & 14:00 - 18:30, 2 doors down from the TI"
It took us longer to get everywhere. Just consider kilometers to be miles and calculate your driving time accordingly. Stu is very familiar with Provence and it might not take him long to get from place to place but it probably always took us twice as long as we thought it would.
abqdeb: If you put St. Remy Restaurants in the search box above you will come up with threads containing many restaurant rec's for St. Remy. Patricia (who lives there) posted her list more than once. Here is a link to my thread about St. Remy Restaurants:
http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=34816304
My favorite was Jardin de Frederique. The service was wonderful and attentive, the food delicious and well prepared. We had the best filet mignon which we were hesitant to order because, in general, French beef is not that tender.
Our least favorite restaurant was Le Bistrot Decouverte. The food was ok but it was on a very busy corner (traffic) which we did not care for.
Aug 2nd, 2006, 05:11 AM
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Hi Ronda,
No, I do not have Rick Steve's book - the route I was going to do was some of what you mentioned (Beaumes-de-Venise, Gigondas, Sablet, Seguret, Vaison la Romaine, Le Crestet) except that I didn't think I would stop in Malaucene and don't know anything about Suzette or Lafare. (Any reason to turn those into higher priorities?)
>And don't forget, many shops and >wineries are closed between 12:00 and >2:00 p.m.
If we just do a picnic lunch, how/where would you suggest best spending this time due to closures?
>if you want to do both the Cotes du >Rhone route and Chateau Neuf in one >day, you might want to only do part of >the Cotes du Rhone route - say the >west side with Gigondas
Sounds like a plan - in this instance, what schedule would you advise, please?
You're being a super help! Thank you!!!
No, I do not have Rick Steve's book - the route I was going to do was some of what you mentioned (Beaumes-de-Venise, Gigondas, Sablet, Seguret, Vaison la Romaine, Le Crestet) except that I didn't think I would stop in Malaucene and don't know anything about Suzette or Lafare. (Any reason to turn those into higher priorities?)
>And don't forget, many shops and >wineries are closed between 12:00 and >2:00 p.m.
If we just do a picnic lunch, how/where would you suggest best spending this time due to closures?
>if you want to do both the Cotes du >Rhone route and Chateau Neuf in one >day, you might want to only do part of >the Cotes du Rhone route - say the >west side with Gigondas
Sounds like a plan - in this instance, what schedule would you advise, please?
You're being a super help! Thank you!!!
Aug 2nd, 2006, 04:20 PM
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Well, I wish Stu was around to answer your questions.
I listed some of those towns so you could find the route on the map. If you don't want to buy the RS Provence book, see if you can check it out at the library. He gives lots of info on those towns and info on things to see and do. No use me rewriting the book.
As to which route would I advise???Have you got a good Michelin map? I used the 332 but there is another Provence map that covers the entire area (Provence 113 Zoom). You mention Beaumes de Venise - is that a sightseeing priority? I don't remember stopping there so couldn't tell you what there is to see.
I'm sorry but I have houseguests right now so I don't have too much time.
From Isle looks like you would need to go north on the D 938 through Pernes and Carpentras, take the D7 up to the Cotes du Rhone area. If you went to Beaumes-de-Venise, up through Vacqueyras, stopping in Gigondas then you could either cut over on the D8 to D977, D960 and over the N7 to Beaucastel and down to Chateanuef OR
If you went further up toward Vaison looks like you could take the D977 down to the D960. I am not familiar with the D 977 at all...just looking at the map. We took the D 950 from Carpentras, over the N7, to Beaucastel and down to Chateauneuf.
Once you cross over the N7 you will be in the middle of grape vines and very pretty.
Later,
Ronda
I listed some of those towns so you could find the route on the map. If you don't want to buy the RS Provence book, see if you can check it out at the library. He gives lots of info on those towns and info on things to see and do. No use me rewriting the book.
As to which route would I advise???Have you got a good Michelin map? I used the 332 but there is another Provence map that covers the entire area (Provence 113 Zoom). You mention Beaumes de Venise - is that a sightseeing priority? I don't remember stopping there so couldn't tell you what there is to see.
I'm sorry but I have houseguests right now so I don't have too much time.
From Isle looks like you would need to go north on the D 938 through Pernes and Carpentras, take the D7 up to the Cotes du Rhone area. If you went to Beaumes-de-Venise, up through Vacqueyras, stopping in Gigondas then you could either cut over on the D8 to D977, D960 and over the N7 to Beaucastel and down to Chateanuef OR
If you went further up toward Vaison looks like you could take the D977 down to the D960. I am not familiar with the D 977 at all...just looking at the map. We took the D 950 from Carpentras, over the N7, to Beaucastel and down to Chateauneuf.
Once you cross over the N7 you will be in the middle of grape vines and very pretty.
Later,
Ronda
