AGM_Cape_Cod

We spent 12 days in France from March 15-27. Here are my impressions, itinerary, experiences and what we learned.

First I guess you are curious about the title. Our reservations for the first two nights were in Mougins at Hotel Les Muscadins. The room was beautiful and if the weather had been totally clear would have had a view all the way to the Mediterranean. There was a step down into the room leaving a small stoop which my husband managed to ram his bare foot against breaking two toes. Why do these things always happen the first day not the last? Anyway he is a stoic and refused to see a doctor or apply ice. (He finally did later and he was lucky I travel with those chemical ice packs.) I wasn’t very sympathetic since I thought he had only stubbed the toes above the incision from the surgery he had in December. He was a trooper though and managed to make it through all the walking a trip like this entails with only two days of grumpiness-one which he said I caused. Looking back there were a lot of things we didn’t see because of the amount of walking it involved. Well, we will just have to go back again.

AGM_Cape_Cod

Itinerary
Mougins: The first two nights we stayed at the aforementioned Hotel Les Muscadins. (http://www.lemascandille.com/lemuscadins.html) It was a lovely place. Buffet breakfast included which we had the first morning on the terrace in the sun.
We visited the photography museum. The photos of Picasso were great especially the one with him sitting on the floor with his children coloring. Also loved the small winding streets and there is a great kitchenware shop. I resisted temptation.
Nice: Just went in to see the Flower Market on Cours Saleya. Parked near the harbor and walked back along the Quai des Etats-Unis. It was a small market probably since it was so early in the season but they had some gorgeous flowers. I bought some anemones for the room and some candies-candied ginger and orange rind-for my father.
Vence: I really wanted to see this perched village. It was really nice but I was glad we were in Vence in the off season. The town is so small it must be wall to wall people in the high season. Unfortunately there was a funeral in the Chapelle du Rosaire so we couldn’t see the Matisse windows.
St-Paul-de-Vence: for the Fondation Maeght which was gorgeous especially after the school trip vacated the premises. We parked at the first sign for parking for the Fondation that we came to which turned out to be ancillary parking. Poor Tomas had to trudge up the hill on those two broken toes.
Cassis-We stopped here on our way from Mougins to St Remy. We took a 7 calanque tour on a boat named Moby Dick. The water was so clear, much clearer than I would ever imagine the Mediterranean would be. I regret that my French wasn’t up to the commentary the captain was giving but I wouldn’t have missed it for that reason. I wished we could get a tour of the ruins that the Michelin family converted into a home overlooking Cassis.

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St Remy de Provence- We returned to the Mas des Carassins where we stayed on our trip last year. We got a warm welcome and an upgrade to the same mini suite we stayed in the prior year. My parents met up with us here to celebrate my father’s 85th birthday. We stayed here for 5 nights.
L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue (Sunday morning)-We had a nice picnic from what we picked up in the market along side the Sorgue.
Abbaye de Senanque beyond Gordes. This is the Abbaye from all those photographs with the lavender fields in front of it. The road from Gordes to the Abbaye was one car wide with a hill up on the right and a drop off on the left. Tomas was looking at the view and saying ‘will you look at that?’ and I was saying ‘don’t look at that-look at the road!!!!’ Definitely a white knuckle ride down! When you meet another car coming towards you one of you has to back up to the cutouts in the cliff for that purpose. There were only tours in French and the next one wouldn’t start for another half an hour so we just wandered around outside.
Roussillon-What a beautiful place! The ochre colored cliffs are amazing. We didn’t go up the path to see the mines but walked up into the town for the views.
Arles- The only place on this trip we didn’t care for. I don’t know if it was that the day was grey, that Tomas’ mood was grey but we left feeling unimpressed.
Dentelles- We spent a day winding in and out of these little villages-Le Barroux, Malaucene, Vaison-la-Romaine (we didn’t even get out of the car-there is so much to see here that we decided it needed a day by itself on a future trip), Gigondas, Beaume-de-Venise.

AGM_Cape_Cod

Paris- We stayed at the Hotel Madison for the last 4 nights. We had a room facing the Eglise. It is a lovely place with a great location near the Metro.
Rodin Museum- The grounds were beautiful-just coming into bloom. I always like to see the houses and to imagine what it was like as a home.
Musee D’Orsay- They have finished the entrance which is on the end of the building near the Metro. Door C is for the museum pass but there was a short line there due to the bag inspections. If the Neo-Impressionist exhibit is still there when you go you will need to pay another fee for that. Definitely pay the 1 or 2 Euros for the exhibit. It was wonderful especially at the end where they had some paintings from non-Impressionists trying to be Impressionists ie Modrian. Go to Caisse 6 before you enter the museum.
Musee Marmottan-One of our favorites for the Monets and the room to see them without tour groups moving between you and the painting you are viewing. Also in a house which feeds my imagination about how they lived. Notice I am only curious about rich people.

AGM_Cape_Cod

Impressions, Experiences & What We Learned

We only skimmed the surface of most places we visited. We try to fit too much in too short a period. I hope that when we retire we have the means to take longer trips. Or even better we win the lottery and have all the time we need.
I really need to work on my French. We miss so much by not speaking the language. While we were in the Neo-Impressionist exhibit there were several tours discussing the paintings. It is hard to eavesdrop on a conversation in French. We can manage to find where we need to go and get what we want but that is about all.
Flights from Boston are always packed. We flew AirFrance and they were nice enough to check our bags all the way through to Nice even though we had booked the two flights separately. That was a big help since we had to change terminals for the second flight. The interesting thing was that we didn’t go through passport control until we reached the second terminal. We suffered in coach on the way over with the woman in front of me pushing her seat back to its farthest extent all night long. The payoff was that we got upgraded to Business Class for the flight back. That was the second time we have gotten upgraded. Lucky us!
We rented a car through Auto Europe in Nice. We thought about upgrading it to a convertible when we got out into 70 degree sunny weather but resisted. That was a good thing since we scrapped the side of the car which cost us $896. Now I wasn’t worried because we charged the car on my Amex card and there is insurance coverage with that. BUT I hadn’t realized that since I charged the rental on my Amex Green card in Dec and paid for the damage with the upgraded Amex Gold card the insurance was invalid. My husband argued our case before the supervisor and promised we would never do such a thing again (especially since I am closing out our Amex Green account) and they are considering the claim. I mention this as a lesson to you.
My husband spent a lot of time before we left getting our technology set up. I have a Dell Axim with WiFi that he made sure could access the Internet. Of course it didn’t. While we were waiting for our flight to Nice we bought a WiFi Orange card. It didn’t let us access the internet. Tomas spoke to as many people as he could about the problem. The final verdict came from the Orange people who admitted that their product did not support PDAs. It was a great idea but for the future.
The other piece of technology we both spent a lot of time preparing was the iPod. We use it in the car here and took the setup with us to use in the rental car. It is always the littlest things that trip you up. The way the system works is you set the radio to a station without a signal and then you transmit from the iPod to that frequency and it plays on the radio. The Renault radio we had could not be tuned to a blank station. We stopped into a Renault dealership to ask and I can imagine the discussion after we left. “Those crazy Americans-why would you want to tune to a blank frequency?” Anyway the iPod was good for the flights.

indytravel

Welcome back AGM!

Sorry to hear about the toe incident. Glad you were able to make the best of it and still have a great time.

Thanks for posting a trip report. That's an area of France I still need to see.

AGM_Cape_Cod

One last thing I have learned-if you see something you want, buy it! I never regret what I buy as much as I do what I didn't. This trip we went to the market at L'Isle-sur-la-Sorgue to get the little watercolors I passed up last year. Next year I will go to buy the jacket I didn't this year. Also I should have bought the morels for 9 Euros and taken a chance on getting them through customs. Since they just waved us on at Logan I would be home trying to recreate some of the fabulous dishes we had with them. I will post about our restaurant adventures tomorrow.

mclaurie

Had some vicarious pleasure reading your report. Surprised to hear Vence was so crowded and you thought it small. Did you mean St. Paul?

I've recently started making a chicken dish with morells. I buy them dried and they get soaked in hot water for a half hour. Taste great.

ira

Hi AGM,

Thanks for sharing.

>...he is a stoic and refused to see a doctor or apply ice.<

It's a guy thing.

>I hadn’t realized that since I charged the rental on my Amex Green card in Dec and paid for the damage with the upgraded Amex Gold card the insurance was invalid. My husband argued our case before the supervisor and promised we would never do such a thing again and they are considering the claim. <

Please let us know how it works out. I am rather bothered that AMEX would quibble over which account you used for what.

marcy_

Hi AGM!
It sounds like a great trip, except for the broken toes!

What did you think of the Madison as compared to the Relais St. Germain?

I think I may still like the Relais St, Germain better, especially since the Madison keeps getting more and more expensive. I'm curious about your impression.

A question on the morels: how much could you get for 9€ ? They're SO expensive here-- if they're a lot cheaper there I'd be tempted to try bringing them back, too.

Underhill

Glad to hear you too liked the Madison. We seem to have similar taste in hotels--and a lot of other things, too. One of my major travel rules for years has been "If you see it and want it, buy it, because you're unlikely ever to see it again." The rule grew from the time I saw an exquisite cameo brooch in Rome and my husband thought we would see better ones.

Too bad about your husband's toes--I just stubbed one badly (the last time I wore sandals!) visiting a friend in England, but I did learn from the experience that "plaster" is English for bandaid.

Your trip sounds marvelous. And I do hope that AmEx comes through with the repair costs for the car.

elle

Sorry to hear about the toe and the car, but otherwise your trip sounds delightful.

I often feel that we pack a bit too much in as well, but in some ways, I think the skimming helps us determine which places we'd like to go back to and spend more time in (and fantasize about real estate . . . ).

You hit some of our favs--Roussillon, Beaumes de Venise, Vaison--but we have never been south of the Luberon to places like Cassis. And certainly not to Nice. Next trip, maybe. Thanks again.

AGM_Cape_Cod

Thanks for the comments.
Indytravel-loved your Alsatian trip report. How do you remember so much detail? I am surprised you haven't been to Provence yet. The weather at the end of March has been wonderful for us, especially after the winter we just had.
mclaurie-Vence wasn't crowded but the roads in the old town were narrow and I could imagine them wall to wall people. We loved it though.
Ira- I know it is a guy thing. Looking back we should have bought him some sandals so that his toes wouldn't have any pressure on them. They are slowly getting better. Also I wasn't happy with the first response I got from Amex which was an unequivocal no to the claim. We will see how it works out.
Marcy/Underhill- we liked the Madison but prefer the Relais St Germain. I heard the RSG got purchased by a chef so who knows what will happen with it. I thought the Madison was expensive for what it was and while the breakfast buffet was nice, the pastries were awful.
Morels!-If I had known then what I know now about morels there would have been some in my bags. Anyway the fresh ones were 9 Euros for 100 grams. I am not sure how that would have come out. We didn't make it to one of my favorite shops in Paris-G Detou which is a restaurant supply shop. If I had I would have bought dried morels as the next best thing. I will have to do some searching locally (actually it will have to be in Boston).

AGM_Cape_Cod

Restaurants

Maybe this is the time to tell you we spend outrageous amounts for our meals. I am a former chef who likes to see what the creative people are doing. I try to moderate our spending but this is what we like to do. We don’t usually get prixe fixe menus because we like to have the widest range of choice. There is a lot of negotiation since we split almost everything. Also I have to admit I thought the prices on menus were higher this year than last year over and above the difference for the depressed dollar. I keep saying to myself that I will try more moderate restaurants but then I read about one that sounds fabulous and off I go. Another thing that drives up the cost for us is that we try to get half bottles of wines and nice wines at that. I think that the half bottles cost more than half of a full bottle. Also my husband has a fondness for Armagnac-vintage if possible- that he indulges whenever he can. I won’t tell you how much we have spent on a glass of Armagnac but we might be able to pay the mortgage off if he resisted.

Provencal Restaurants
Mougins:
Le Mas Canille- (http://www.restaurantcandille.com/index.html) This Michelin one star is in the sister hotel to Les Muscadins so we went there the first night. After Tomas’ little incident with the foot I didn’t want to wander about looking for a restaurant and I had looked at the website before we left home and thought it looked interesting. It was very interesting. The staff at the hotel said it was a ten minute walk but we took the car. Lucky for us since it was a ten minute walk from the front gates of the property. It was an expensive meal but if you want to see how the other half lives you might try going for drinks on their patio in the summer. We had drinks (the bartender had concocted a champagne cocktail with fresh mint and lime juice that was yummy) before the fireplace while we considered the menu. We are very good at saying bon jour and bon soir so at first blush the staff thinks we speak the language. So when they were presenting the menu they realized we didn’t speak French and tried to hold on to the menu while offering an English menu. No dice I want the French menu. How am I going to learn if I don’t try. We had the Red mullet "crème brûlée" with local artichokes barigoule style (30&euro and Our special tatin of foie gras with Armagnac sauce (36&euro for entrees. With that we had a half bottle of local white wine which we can’t remember the name of but the bill says “Rasque Blanc de Blancs” (20&euro. Our main courses were Scallops à la plancha, asparagus tagliatelle with morel infusion (fabulous!) (53&euro and Duck twice served: breast of duck in a pitchoulines olives crust, thigh "grattons" style with rocket leaves salad and "mendiants" (46&euro with a half bottle of our favorite Chateau Romanin red (30&euro. We both had cheese courses followed by desserts (16€ each) which were a Tatin of apples poached in Calvados, creamy chocolate, red fruit reduction with, spices and an Araguani chocolate fondant, panfried mangoes with rosemary caramel, lemon sorbet (16€ each). We then returned to the bar and Tomas discovered that they had a bottle of 1958 Armagnac. He thought that would soothe his toes.
Restaurant A la Table d’Edmond in Mougins Village. The hotel recommended this place and it was very nice. We started with Salmon & Escrevisses which was thinly sliced raw salmon marinated with chervil and cucumbers and garnished with escrevisses and Ravioli a la Provencal which was just cheese raviolis with a light tomato sauce (12€ each). We had a half bottle of Domaine Ott Rose (29 &euro to start. Then we had Filet of Veal and a rack of lamb (28 & 26€ respectively). They were both very good but they both had the same sauce and vegetables-mashed pototoes and assorted veggies. It was a little strange. With the plats we had a Domaine Tempier red (26 &euro. Dessert was a wonderful gratin of red fruits (10 &euro. This was a nice little place with an enclosed patio which I imagine in the summer is open to the fresh air.

AGM_Cape_Cod

Provencal Restaurants cont'd.
Vence- Lunch
Pechuer de Soleil- This pizza place we found in the Michelin guide. It was great. We sat in the courtyard across the street in the sun while we ate. We felt bad for the waitress who had to run back and forth across the road. There are 600 pizzas listed on the menu. I forgot to bring my menu book so I stuck to things I knew fortunately avoiding the Corsican pig liver sausage pizza and the gizzard pizza. Those were the two things I wanted to look up. We split a pizza, a salad and a half bottle of red wine. I think it came to about 30€.

St Remy
La Source-dinner with my parents. My folks had the Escargot to start and they were delicious. None of the rubbery texture you can get here. (On the road from St Remy to Avignon there is a snail farm. Maybe these were from that local source.) I had an asparagus appetizer which came on a pastry almost as thin as filo but not the same texture with an herb sauce. Tomas had the foie gras with a myrtille sauce. My parents and I had lamb with caponata which was served on a pastry that was a cross between pita bread and pie crust. Very good. Tomas had filet of beef with Chateauneuf sauce. We had a full bottle of Chateau Romanin red. For dessert my parents had the Crème Brulee flavored with anise. I had Sable aux Frais and Tomas had a Colonel which was lemon sorbet with Vodka. I don’t have a menu for the prices but the total was 185€.
Sette E Mezza-lunch-a pizzeria that Pierre from the Mas recommended. It was a weird situation since we wanted to sit in the courtyard where other people were eating. The waitress said that belonged to the other restaurant but she was working at both. I think she didn’t want to walk across the street to serve us. Anyway we managed to talk her into putting two tables together so we could sit next to the open window. My parents and I got the full pizza and Tomas was smart and only got a half. We tried the fromage, poiviron & olives, fromage & chorizo, and onion, anchovy, caper and olive pizza. We also got a salad and a 50 ml carafe of wine. The pizza was good but I think the one in Vence was better. The total was 70 €.

Grain de Sel- dinner, does not take credit cards. We started with a cassolette de Saint Jacque with petit legumes (I love these soups, so much flavor!) and a MilleFeuille of courgette, chevre and Caviar de tomate sechee. Then we had a Filet of Beef with sel guarande (sp?) and a Filet of Veal with Morels. With that we split a 50cl of Chateau Romanin red. We didn’t have dessert since we realized at this point it was cash only which we did not have. Tomas ran out to the ATM across the street which was out of service. They were very nice and took the name of our hotel and were going to call and have the hotel put the charge on our bill. As we were driving back to the hotel we passed another ATM and stopped. It worked!!! We went back and paid our bill. It was 104€ with two kirs and a bottle of Vittel.

Alain Assaud Le Marceau-dinner We weren’t so sure how we felt about this restaurant until desserts came. They blew us away!! So save room! We started with Soupe de Poisson w/ Rouille (my mother has been after me for years to teach her how to make this-I will definitely make time to do that soon.) and Foie Gras terrine. Our main courses were Lamb with anchovies (which came with the dreaded spinach and was too salty) and Pot au Feu de Cuisse de Canarde which was wonderful. We had a half bottle of white and red but I didn’t write down what they were. For dessert we had Tarte au Citron Meringue and Pommes au Caramel. My husband is Very picky about lemon desserts and this one he said was as good as mine. It was very lemony but very light-ethereal is the word for it. The Pommes were thin slices sautéed and served with a wonderful caramel sauce with little chewy bits of caramel sprinkled on top. I can’t find the credit card receipt but it was about 127€.

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Maillane-
L’Oustalet Maianen-dinner. This was my father’s birthday dinner. After much discussion both on the board here and with the hotel this is where we ended up and we were very happy with our choice. While we looked at the menu we nibbled on little cream puffs filled with a fresh cheese, toasts with tapenade, a skewer with feta cheese, a tomato and parsley and little cheese rounds. We had one little mix up which was that my mother just wanted a simple salad for her entrée even though there wasn’t one as a choice on the menu. The waiter said fine it can be done. Then he came back and asked if tomatoes would be ok. She assumed tomatoes on the greens but it turned out to be slices of out of season tomatoes. She ate one or two and pushed it away. Then without being asked the waiter brought her the confit d’legume which accompanied another entrée. She was very happy with that. My father and I had the foie gras terrine with onion confit (I have to find a recipe for this stuff!) and Tomas had a fabulous veloute de chou vert with cappuccino de morels. For a cabbage soup it was surprisingly good. For main course my mother and I had Riz de Veau with morels and asparagus, Tomas has rack of lamb and my father had taureau (bull). We split a cheese plate which had a dry chevre, a fresh local chevre, morbier, a munster with cumin seeds and brie. For dessert we had a millefeuille with orange cream and olive oil ice cream (very good) and tartlet de praline. Then they brought us little shot glasses with chocolate pot de crème with menthe whipped cream and tuille cookies. We had a 50 cl of Cotes du Ventoux and a 50 cl of Chateau Romanin. The total was 181€- the menus at 36€ each. The one thing my husband and I appreciated is that the waiter spoke English but since we were attempting to speak French he would only speak English for as much as it took to overcome any problems. Then he would revert to French. My parents really enjoyed dinner and they even let us treat them for a change. Actually my father was thrilled we wanted to pay for them. The one drawback was that there was a large party at the next table who were really noisy. At one point one of the guests at that table stopped by our table to chat, fully explaining how she blew her knee out while skiing and how it was affecting her life. She was the co owner of the restaurant (Bistrot d’Eygalieres) where we had been planning to have my father’s birthday but they were not opened that night. Under normal conditions Tomas and I would have tried it since it is supposed to be really good but she just put us off. After she finally left we looked at each other and wondered who had given her the opening to come and chat.

Arles-lunch We had asked at the hotel for a recommendation for a restaurant in Arles but the place was now a tacky tourist t-shirt shop. So we tried one of the places in the Michelin guide-only to be told that we were too late at 1:45. We found a small restaurant down a street off of rue la Calade called Restaurant L’Amandier which was very good. I got the 13 € menu with Soupe de Poisson w/ Rouille, Poulet au Piperade with rice and my favorite Crème Caramel. Tomas just had a Salade au Chevre Chaud (which was 13 &euro and we split a Pichette of house rose.

4totravel

"Thanks for the comments.
Indytravel-loved your Alsatian trip report. How do you remember so much detail?"

I laughed after I read your meal report...Your details on your meals is fabulous...sounds like you had a great trip.
How long are you on the one lane road to the Abbey? Did you have to do any backing up??

hopingtotravel

I can sympathize with the broken toe--having broken an ankle in Mexican. You're right; why do these things always happen at the beginning of the trip?
Be sure to let us all know how the car incident works out. They actually made you pay on the spot before settling out the insurance?
I too am wondering about the road to Senanque. I hadn't ready anything unusual about it. Any more details?

cigalechanta

Welcome back Abby. You've made me anxious for my return. I'll be going back to St-Paul-de-Vence and the Maeght
and Maillane. You made me so happy appreciating an area I love.
Domaine Tempier! A favorite of mine. I have the cookbook, "Lulu's Provencal Table." Her Tempier makes the besr Rosé.
I hope your darling is not in too much pain now how lucky he is to have a wife who travels with her ice packs

AGM_Cape_Cod

4totravel-I guess you can see where my interest lie-in my stomach. Also I take notes about the meals, collect menus and have my receipts to refer to while writing.
The road to Senanque wasn't that long-about 1/2 mile. It will accomodate a tour bus but I was happy we didn't meet one coming or going. We had to back up once.
The toes are healing nicely.
The car rental place at the Nice-Cote D'Azur airport required a 1,000 Euro deposit before we took the car. They must know about those planters. We were not expecting to put a deposit down so I hadn't even brought my Amex Green card with me. We rented through Auto Euro/Eurocar last year in Avignon without having to pay a deposit. They took the payment from that deposit.