Joe and Lynn Just the sort of report I have been looking for. My husband and I are heading off to Uzes for a week and Paris for a week. Could you advise if its best to get the train to Avignon or Nimes if we want to pick up a car and drive to Uzes?
Thanks for a great story.

LynM
>could you advise if it's best to get the train to Avignon or Nimes<

Having done both, it seemed much easier going through Avignon. It's a new station with easy access to all the rental car companies. The cars are on a surface lot and it is easy to get in an out of town.

Travel time from Nimes to Uzes is probably similar but it is a much older station and the rental car situation can be much more confusing. The cars are parked in an underground lot and as you depart the station you can get lost quite more easily.

JoeG

Welcome home, Joe
Somehow I missed seeing your trip report until just now.

The title of your thread is perfect!
I've poked around a few of the same places ,in Provence , that you and Lynn did.


< We made a fire, put on some music, opened a bottle of wine and had a very enjoyable little meal. >
Oh, I like your style.:-)


Looking forward to your wine & tripe brekkie chapter .
Judy

Ummmmmmm, Yummmmmm.

LynM, just another vote for Avignon TGV as a gateway. As JoeG points out, it's very easy to get your rented car in and out of the TGV station.

When you leave the station, drive north a short distance to the Rocade Charles de Gaulle (a ring road around Avignon). Head left on the Rocade and watch for signs for Nîmes ... follow those up onto the Pont d'Europe, which will take you west across the Rhône. Once you're on the bridge, you're on the N100.

The N100 will take you to Remoulins, where you'll see signs for Pont du Gard and Uzès. The driving time from Avignon TGV to Uzès is about 40 minutes.

Anselm

Anslem and Joe
Really appreciate your responses

Lyn

Thursday morning we wanted to go the Maussane market with Patricia. Before going to the market, she took us to her favorite cafe in town for coffee. Soon we realized this must be a weekly ritual as she was joined by several colorful artist friends. Apparently all the locals know Patricia. Wherever we went people would stop and warmly greet her.

The cafe was more of what we would call a small local bar. Given the time of day, it was quite lively and filled with all the local characters. It seemed like Lynn and I were the only two people not smoking.

At a table next to us there was a group of five or six men, all smoking and drinking wine. They were being served a huge platter of what we were told was tripe. I must admit that it smelled pretty good. I had my camera with me and wanted to take a picture of this scene it the worst way. I don't think that I will have too much difficulty recalling this image in my mind. What a slice of life!

We finished our coffee and headed to the market. Small in size but well represented, it seemed to have all the vendors we wanted at then some. Lynn bought a couple of pictures(I want to say decoupage?), a tiny little container of saffron, and a huge container of paella. They also had the pizza wagon. I remember when we stayed in Arles last time, at dusk these would suddenly pop up all over town. These are medium size trucks with fully equipped fold out pizza kitchens in the back.

We headed back to the Forge and I made a delicious omelette full of the cheeses, tomatoes, shallots, ham etc. that we had accumulated in the fridge. Having a kitchen can be a blessing and a curse. Without one, you are forced to go out for all your meals and we missed out on a few local restaurants that we wanted to try. However, we loved it. It was so fun to buy all the local stuff and come back and enjoy it.

Lynn decided that we needed to go back to Joel Durand's Chocolate Shop and so we did. On the way back I decided that we needed to go back to Mas des Barres and pick up a couple more liters of olive oil. We stopped in town a picked up a few more delicacies at our favorite local bakery.

When we returned to the Forge, we sadly began packing for our Friday morning departure.

We had accumulated so much food that we decided to eat-in for dinner again and finish everything including the small vat of Paella that Lynn bought at the market. The Paella always looks so tempting when you see it cooking. I'm glad we tried it, but a better choice may have been the pizza wagon.

We made a another fire, polished off our wine and spent the rest of the evening finishing the books that we were reading.

Next.... On to Paris

JoeG

This has been so much fun reading your experiences. I'm going to Provence forthe first time next month and have made accommodations, but I really want to go back now and stay somewhere with a kitchen and go to the Markets and cook. Are you really an incognito public relations for Provence?

You have me reading on loving every delightful little morsel. What a wonderful description. It sounds so laid-back and lovely. How many times have you visited Provence to have everything so relaxed sounding but so productive? We are leaving in 6 weeks I can hardly wait. You two will inspire me !

nancyz and jazzyred,

Thank you for your kind remarks. So much of what we learned came right here on Fodors.

There is such a wealth of high caliber, current information on this forum.

JoeG

Hi Joe

You were going to tell us more about the escargots in garlic butter(hope i didn't read over it) I have started writing menu ideas for the days we don't eat out from some of your ideas. We arrive on a Friday so we can go to the markets on the Saturday. We will have a week in Paris after Uzes so any left overs that are transportable will be taken with us.
When does anybody get any work done or sleep reading Fodors?

Lyn

Lyn, I've been thinking the same thing ...about the work and sleep! This is highly addictive!

Lyn, I regret hijacking Joe's thread again, but I just wanted to mention that you'll find wonderful food in Uzès. On market days, you can buy fresh fruit, vegetables, fish, meat, and cheese in Place aux Herbes. There are several colourful regulars there. The "brébis boys," as my wife calls them, sell cheese from the Camargue. They are cheeky--one of them was selling cheese to my sister-in-law a couple of years ago and said it was "jeune at douce, comme vous." Also look for the man who nets live fish from a tank ... he taps them on the head with a wooden stick and cleans them before your eyes.

We've tried all the butchers in town and have settled on the Boucherie Martinelli on rue de la République as our favourite. They sell wonderful roast chickens and cooked hams, perfect for light meals or picnics. If you're looking for wine, drop by La Cave du Suisse d'Alger, also on rue de la République. They have a good selection of wine from Languedoc and Provence.

If you need any grocery store items, there is a Casino on the boulevard around the town, but the Carrefour on D981 just south of Uzès offers far geater choice, including beer and inexpensive wine.

Anselm

Hi Anslem

Thank you for your great information. This is our first adventure in Europe so your knowledge is invaluable to us.
Lyn

What happened in Paris, Joe?

Joe -- we try to do this once or twice each year and and have the luxury of not planning a whole lot, instead just walking around and finding things serendipitously. We try to rent flats, but sometimes that can be difficult for just a few days. We were lucky this year and got a terrific one bedroom in the 7th. We did get tickets to a marvellous concert (string octet and horns) on the first level of the Eiffel Tower one evening, did some gallery hopping in the Marais, went to an antiques fair in Bercy, did a little shopping, had several wonderful dinners with our plunder from Rue Cler, and went to Pere Lachaise for an afternoon (my husband had never been there). I am so looking forward to Provence in October (we're staying in St. Roman de Malegarde), especially after your wonderful reports! Hope your stay in Paris was wonderful, as well.
KT

ira, I didn't forget about Paris.

We loaded up the Peugot, said our good-byes to Patricia and Alan (and Coco, et al)and vowed to return. As we were driving through the gates of Moulin de Greoux, I saw the pool in the rear view mirror and said to Lynn, "We are definately coming back when it is warm."

On our first trip to Provence, we left Arles for an early TGV departure from Nimes to CDG. We made our flight home with very little margin for error. This time I remembered that there is a Sheraton Hotel at CDG right up the escaltor from the the train station. Our Air France check-in is only a couple hundred yard from the hotel lobby. I decided that it would be very convenient to stay at the Sheraton, venture into Paris for an afternoon of shopping and dinner. Saturday morning we could, sleep in (breakfast in bed)and leisurely get ready gor our afternoon flight. and so this is what we did.

We asked Patricia if she could make a dinner recommendation for us in Paris. Without hesitating she said "La Romantica!" She explained that it was actually an Italian restaurant outside la Periphique in Clichy. We kind of had our minds set on something more in the heart of Paris. Plus Italian in Paris??? But I learned one thing - Patricia knows what she is talking about! Especially when it comes to food.

We arrived at the TGV station in Avignon with time to spare. Plus our train was "retarted" by 45 minutes. We were delighted that they were running at all since there was some sort of general strike the day before.

The train ride to Paris was delightful as usual. Very quiet, smooth and relaxing. The scenery is picture perfect. Mostly farms, olive groves some vinyards, gently rolling hills with quaint little villages sprinkled in between. Plus I got these fares at Prem rate for only 20E each. What a bargain.

We arrived at CDG @ 1:30PM and just as I anticipated, it was great sliding right into the Sheraton. Now I know there are others that would say, "why don't you stay in Paris?" or "who wants to stay at an airport?" but given the short time frame, this worked out really well for us.

The room was well appointed and totally soundproof. Planes were taking off every two minutes and I swear you could not hear a sound.

We dropped off our luggage, freshened up and checked with the concierge regarding tranportation into Paris and potential shopping destinations.

By this point, mostly out of frustration, Lynn dropped all pretense of trying to speak French. She would just go up to the concierge or clerks in the store and blurt out Anglais! Anglais! Or worse yet, she would speak broken English with a weird French accent. Like somehow they would understand this better than well spoken English. Even more strange, everyone that she spoke to truly felt sorry for her. The clerks became her new best buddies. I could only stand back and watch in disbelief. My only explanation is that Lynn does not have an insincere bone in her body and her good nature must have shone through and overcame the language barier.

Anyway, the concierge was most helpful. We told him that we had an 8:00PM reservation at LaRomantica. Since it was now 2:30PM, he suggested that we take the Roissybus right in front of the terminal to the Opera House where there were plenty of shops (Galeries LaFayette). The stores were open until 7:30 and we could taxi to the restaurant.

The problem was that I had no idea what he was saying, Wussypuss? Wozzybus? We kept walking through the terminal until we saw it. Oh - Roissybus

The fare was @8 euros each. We were finally venturing into Paris. It was Friday afternoon and traffic exiting the city was incredible. Fortunately we were going in the right direction.

We arrived at the opera house and lynn had no problem analyzing the shopping situation. I don't know if it was typical but the stores were packed with people in a total shopping frenzy. The buzz was electric and Lynn seemed to feed on this. There was some type of 30 or 40% off sale. Lynn went crazy! She looked like a kid in a candy store. I just found a comfortable spot to plunk myself down and people watch. Periodically she would come back and say, "look at these ear rings I bought, look at this purse, etc. etc."

Finally it was time to leave and we went outside. We were totally blown away by all the sights and sounds of Paris. Lynn had been here briefly in college and "sort of remembers the Louvre." After walking around for a while we got in a queue for a taxi and realized there were probably 20 people ahead of us.Fortunately the line moved rather quickly, still we were freezing by the time we got to the front of the line. The driver had a little trouble finding the restaurant and dropped us off about a half block away. Alan had told us that there was a sign LaRomantica and a doorway at the sidewalk. Once inside you walked through a long corridor that opens up to a courtyard. On the left is La Romantica. Once back inside we noticed a warm fire blazing in the fireplace and received an equally warm greeting from the host.

We were seated at a cozy table and since it was Lynn's birthday we ordered a glass of Champagne for an aperitif. This actually was an Italian sparkling chardonnay that was unbelievably smooth and tasty. We decided to get a bottle.

I had a scampi first course and Lynn had sauteed artichoke hearts with a mushroom cream sauce. Awesome. For a main course I had a Sea Bass with some type of black risoto that looked like caviar. Lynn opted for a house specialty (recommended by Alan). they brought out a fifty pound parnesan cheese wheel on a carte. it was slightly hollowed out in the middle. Our server poured in a generous amount of cognac and ignited it. Whoosh! What a spectacle. After the flamesw dies out he scraped up pieces of the softend cheese and went back to the kitchen. Moments later he came back with homemade pasta and cream sauce and mixed everything together in the cheese wheel, returned the mixture to the pan, plated it and served the birthday gal. Stupendous!

For desssert, I ordered the winner. it was the nightly special. Aparfait served with raspberry puree, fresh rspberries and pistachio nuts. the texture of the parfait was so light and creamy. Mixed with the puree, fruit and nuts - too die for!!!!.

We polished off the champagne (okay sparkling wine), finished with a cup of coffee and our taxi was ready to whisk us back to the Sheraton.

We had only gone a few blocks and I realized that I had left my shoulder back with digital camera, etc at the restaurant. Lynn shouted to the driver, "GO BACK! GO BACk" He apparently didn't understand so she yelled "LA ROMANTICA! LA ROMANTICA". By now he figured out that we had forgotten something and turned around. Unfortunately the restaurant is on a one way street and it took him several tries to find his way back. When we finally returned I opened the door to get out and was immediately greeted by the maitre d' who handed me the bag. "Bon soir, Monsieur, he said, Merci beaucoup. I replied. We returned to the hotel without further incident.

Back at the hotel we decided to linger at the bar for a nightcap. In the morning we did order room service and had a delightful and relaxing morning before departing.

Once through security we realized that we were still flush with euros and well, we went nuts at the duty free shops. Fortunately, I had enough room in my back pack to carryon all the wine, chocolate, fragrances and yes another purse that we managed to buy before boarding the Air France flight home. Before returning to reality we also vowed to return to Paris for a real visit.

JoeG

Sorry,
I spent a fair amount of time correcting spelling and grammar mistakes and adding a few tidbits but it ended up posting the unedited version.
JoeG

It was incredible. I haven't enjoyed a trip report as much as yours. Thanks for sharing. You made staying at a CDG hotel romantic - what a feat! Congrats on a great trip to you and Lynn and hope you will be able to return soon.

&gt;&gt;<i>Or worse yet, she would speak broken English with a weird French accent.</i>

My husband does this too. One time I actually heard him say, &quot;Me take zee photo, no?&quot;

Great report of a memorable trip. . .