How to get lost in rural France, or a Paris, Burgundy, Provence, and the Perigord Trip Report.
Nov 20th, 2006 | 09:16 PM
#62
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Joined: Feb 2004
Posts: 541
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Day 10
Monday, September 25, 2006:
16kms to St. Remy
(Check out the accompanying photos from this trip at http://tinyurl.com/w5rlb)
We got a slightly later start to the day than usual – we had to drive Brendan back into town, after the adventures of the previous night. It took forever to get going – we waited as he sent some emails, smoked some little cigars, and chatted up a Norwegian couple who looked as if they might be interested in buying his new cookbook (he and Michel had written a new cookbook which hadn’t yet been published – despite this he’d already managed to sell approximately 7000 copies).
Finally we were off! Our first mission of the day (after the requisite coffee) was the little town of Les Baux – just south of St Remy, on the other side of an excitingly narrow and windy road through Les Alpilles. As we were driving through the twists and turns, we realized that we were finally in the Provence that we’d imagined.
The tiny village of Les Baux is perched on a spur of Les Alpilles – houses clinging to the rocks and miniature cobblestone streets running back and forth up the hill. After a brief adventure in parking (still wasn’t 100% on the manual transmission – damn those things roll backwards quickly when trying to parallel park on a steep hill with expensive-looking cars behind you), we made our way up to the ruins of the Les Baux castle.
The castle had an excellent audio tour, although it was a bit difficult to figure out where the next numbered marker was. The castle itself was situated way out on the end of the spur and seemed pretty much impregnable, except for one minor problem which the original builders seem to have overlooked – there is absolutely no water supply at the top. During its history, the castle was attacked and taken several times – all the attackers had to do was cut the castle off in a siege and the defenders would eventually have to give up, or die of thirst. One of the more odious tasks of the peasants who lived there was going on the daily water run (they got to use donkeys to carry the buckets).
It must’ve been something to see before the walls crumbled. A fair bit of the castle was dug out of the rock itself – other than a few remnants of walls, the only thing that is still there are the rooms and caverns that were chipped into the cliffs. As so often happens, just as we were coming to the end of our audio tour, a large tour bus of German teenagers arrived. The German teens (they may have been Austrian, to be fair) immediately began to run around and holler at each other like complete idiots, as teenagers, regardless of culture, are prone to do. Damn kids.
Just down the road from Les Baux, on the way back to St. Remy, is a Provençal olive mill called “Les Castelas.” We stopped for a tasting, expecting perhaps a tour of the mill etc, but just got the quick tasting of the two oils that they had available. Somewhat stupidly, despite really liking the oils, we only bought a single tiny bottle to bring back with us. We’ve actually managed to find a shop here in Vancouver which sells Castelas olive oil, however they charge $60 for a single bottle – a bit pricey, even taking the cost of transportation into account.
We continued on the road back to St. Remy, stopping at the old roman town of Glanum. We found parking and as a bonus, it was free, despite the sign that said €2 for the day. We parked the car and took a quick look around the triumphal arch and mausoleum which were conveniently located just next to the parking lot. After wandering around them for a bit and taking a few photos, we headed off in completely the wrong direction for the Glanum site. After wandering through the olive groves at the Van Gogh museum, we found the entrance and a very large sign explaining that the Glanum site is closed only one day of the week. You get one guess as to which day it is.
We headed back to the car (with a vow to avoid free parking – it never bodes well) and drove through St. Remy and continued north to Avignon. We ended up in the entrance to the train station parking lot, instead of continuing around to the ring road and parking at the Palais du Papes parking lot as we’d planned. As we were already there, we decided just to park the car and walk across town to the palace.
Avignon turned out to be a relatively large town with a population of more than 80,000, most of them homeless as far as we could tell. We found the entrance to the Palais du Papes without major incident, and signed up for the audio tour.
The palace is big. Let me repeat that, it’s BIG. I hadn’t previously realized that for a few hundred years, the papacy of the Catholic Church was actually based in Avignon. The audio tour was interesting, although a bit long. Somewhat surprisingly for a giant stone building, it was incredibly hot inside. Plus, I got in trouble at one point for taking pictures inside one of the halls (evidently photos are permitted, but even non-flash photos are banned inside, with hordes of employees running around to make sure everyone was following the rules).
After the tour, we got on the little tourist train which starts just outside the doors of the palace. I guess some of the Americans on board with us didn’t read the big French sign which explained that it is forbidden to get off the train for any reason during the tour. Five minutes into the tour, the train stopped to wait for a group of pedestrians to cross the path. The Americans took the brief pause as a signal to jump off the train to admire the view. The look of surprise on their faces as the train pulled off without them moments later was priceless.
I think the driver of the little train may have been insane as he took that little train around corners and through alleyways at top speed. The only other thing we wanted to see in Avignon was the remains of St. Benezet Bridge – a bridge that used to stretch from the ramparts of the old town right across the river. After a couple of centuries of floods, only a few of the 21 arches are still standing. Even the bridge had an audio tour, although the most interesting part of the bridge was the excellent view back to Avignon.
Both of us felt quite uncomfortable in town and decided to nix our plan of having dinner in Avignon and decided to go back to St. Remy to eat instead. We picked up Floriane and hit the road. Our plan was to retrace our steps back to St. Remy – how hard could it be? I guess the turns all looked a little different in the dark because we missed our turnoff. Time for plan B – back to the ring road and around until we found a sign for St Remy. This seemed like a good plan on paper. As it turned out, there were no signs for St. Remy. Plan C – look for any other town in the right direction and head there. Unfortunately, in the dark I misread the sign for Ales, reading Arles instead (despite Jamie pointing several times that it said Ales) and took the turnoff. Who puts two towns with almost exactly the same name that close to each other where they can confuse tourists? Ales, unfortunately, was completely the wrong direction. Both of us were a bit frustrated at this point and definitely hungry.
We hit upon Plan D – drive to Isle sur la Sorgue, which we had not only seen a sign for while driving around the Avignon ring road, but knew how to get back to St. Remy from. Plan D seemed to be a good one and before long we were barreling along dark country roads towards Isle sur La Sorgue. After finding the first town, we then aimed the car towards Cavillon – the next town in the chain that would lead us back to our hotel. Ironically, after about an hour and a half of driving we came across a sign that read “St. Remy 16kms” – as Avignon is only 18kms from St. Remy, we were really only 2kms closer to our goal and thus were effectively doing only 2kms/hr.
It was near 9:00pm by the time we finally made it back to St. Remy. We stopped quickly in town for a bite of dinner and headed back to the hotel. As we were getting changed for bed, the wind picked up and before long was howling through the trees outside – I hoped this was the start of the Mistral which had been promised – what could be more Provençal than the Mistral?
Monday, September 25, 2006:
16kms to St. Remy
(Check out the accompanying photos from this trip at http://tinyurl.com/w5rlb)
We got a slightly later start to the day than usual – we had to drive Brendan back into town, after the adventures of the previous night. It took forever to get going – we waited as he sent some emails, smoked some little cigars, and chatted up a Norwegian couple who looked as if they might be interested in buying his new cookbook (he and Michel had written a new cookbook which hadn’t yet been published – despite this he’d already managed to sell approximately 7000 copies).
Finally we were off! Our first mission of the day (after the requisite coffee) was the little town of Les Baux – just south of St Remy, on the other side of an excitingly narrow and windy road through Les Alpilles. As we were driving through the twists and turns, we realized that we were finally in the Provence that we’d imagined.
The tiny village of Les Baux is perched on a spur of Les Alpilles – houses clinging to the rocks and miniature cobblestone streets running back and forth up the hill. After a brief adventure in parking (still wasn’t 100% on the manual transmission – damn those things roll backwards quickly when trying to parallel park on a steep hill with expensive-looking cars behind you), we made our way up to the ruins of the Les Baux castle.
The castle had an excellent audio tour, although it was a bit difficult to figure out where the next numbered marker was. The castle itself was situated way out on the end of the spur and seemed pretty much impregnable, except for one minor problem which the original builders seem to have overlooked – there is absolutely no water supply at the top. During its history, the castle was attacked and taken several times – all the attackers had to do was cut the castle off in a siege and the defenders would eventually have to give up, or die of thirst. One of the more odious tasks of the peasants who lived there was going on the daily water run (they got to use donkeys to carry the buckets).
It must’ve been something to see before the walls crumbled. A fair bit of the castle was dug out of the rock itself – other than a few remnants of walls, the only thing that is still there are the rooms and caverns that were chipped into the cliffs. As so often happens, just as we were coming to the end of our audio tour, a large tour bus of German teenagers arrived. The German teens (they may have been Austrian, to be fair) immediately began to run around and holler at each other like complete idiots, as teenagers, regardless of culture, are prone to do. Damn kids.
Just down the road from Les Baux, on the way back to St. Remy, is a Provençal olive mill called “Les Castelas.” We stopped for a tasting, expecting perhaps a tour of the mill etc, but just got the quick tasting of the two oils that they had available. Somewhat stupidly, despite really liking the oils, we only bought a single tiny bottle to bring back with us. We’ve actually managed to find a shop here in Vancouver which sells Castelas olive oil, however they charge $60 for a single bottle – a bit pricey, even taking the cost of transportation into account.
We continued on the road back to St. Remy, stopping at the old roman town of Glanum. We found parking and as a bonus, it was free, despite the sign that said €2 for the day. We parked the car and took a quick look around the triumphal arch and mausoleum which were conveniently located just next to the parking lot. After wandering around them for a bit and taking a few photos, we headed off in completely the wrong direction for the Glanum site. After wandering through the olive groves at the Van Gogh museum, we found the entrance and a very large sign explaining that the Glanum site is closed only one day of the week. You get one guess as to which day it is.
We headed back to the car (with a vow to avoid free parking – it never bodes well) and drove through St. Remy and continued north to Avignon. We ended up in the entrance to the train station parking lot, instead of continuing around to the ring road and parking at the Palais du Papes parking lot as we’d planned. As we were already there, we decided just to park the car and walk across town to the palace.
Avignon turned out to be a relatively large town with a population of more than 80,000, most of them homeless as far as we could tell. We found the entrance to the Palais du Papes without major incident, and signed up for the audio tour.
The palace is big. Let me repeat that, it’s BIG. I hadn’t previously realized that for a few hundred years, the papacy of the Catholic Church was actually based in Avignon. The audio tour was interesting, although a bit long. Somewhat surprisingly for a giant stone building, it was incredibly hot inside. Plus, I got in trouble at one point for taking pictures inside one of the halls (evidently photos are permitted, but even non-flash photos are banned inside, with hordes of employees running around to make sure everyone was following the rules).
After the tour, we got on the little tourist train which starts just outside the doors of the palace. I guess some of the Americans on board with us didn’t read the big French sign which explained that it is forbidden to get off the train for any reason during the tour. Five minutes into the tour, the train stopped to wait for a group of pedestrians to cross the path. The Americans took the brief pause as a signal to jump off the train to admire the view. The look of surprise on their faces as the train pulled off without them moments later was priceless.
I think the driver of the little train may have been insane as he took that little train around corners and through alleyways at top speed. The only other thing we wanted to see in Avignon was the remains of St. Benezet Bridge – a bridge that used to stretch from the ramparts of the old town right across the river. After a couple of centuries of floods, only a few of the 21 arches are still standing. Even the bridge had an audio tour, although the most interesting part of the bridge was the excellent view back to Avignon.
Both of us felt quite uncomfortable in town and decided to nix our plan of having dinner in Avignon and decided to go back to St. Remy to eat instead. We picked up Floriane and hit the road. Our plan was to retrace our steps back to St. Remy – how hard could it be? I guess the turns all looked a little different in the dark because we missed our turnoff. Time for plan B – back to the ring road and around until we found a sign for St Remy. This seemed like a good plan on paper. As it turned out, there were no signs for St. Remy. Plan C – look for any other town in the right direction and head there. Unfortunately, in the dark I misread the sign for Ales, reading Arles instead (despite Jamie pointing several times that it said Ales) and took the turnoff. Who puts two towns with almost exactly the same name that close to each other where they can confuse tourists? Ales, unfortunately, was completely the wrong direction. Both of us were a bit frustrated at this point and definitely hungry.
We hit upon Plan D – drive to Isle sur la Sorgue, which we had not only seen a sign for while driving around the Avignon ring road, but knew how to get back to St. Remy from. Plan D seemed to be a good one and before long we were barreling along dark country roads towards Isle sur La Sorgue. After finding the first town, we then aimed the car towards Cavillon – the next town in the chain that would lead us back to our hotel. Ironically, after about an hour and a half of driving we came across a sign that read “St. Remy 16kms” – as Avignon is only 18kms from St. Remy, we were really only 2kms closer to our goal and thus were effectively doing only 2kms/hr.
It was near 9:00pm by the time we finally made it back to St. Remy. We stopped quickly in town for a bite of dinner and headed back to the hotel. As we were getting changed for bed, the wind picked up and before long was howling through the trees outside – I hoped this was the start of the Mistral which had been promised – what could be more Provençal than the Mistral?
Nov 21st, 2006 | 06:40 AM
#63
Joined: Mar 2004
Posts: 6,117
Likes: 0
I'm sorry I laughed out loud at the getting lost part. To make you feel better it sounds like something we could have done. Now that we're not so young we try to avoid large towns. You should have seen us trying to get out of Nice (without having had our morning coffee)!
Nov 21st, 2006 | 07:41 AM
#65
Original Poster
Joined: Feb 2004
Posts: 541
Likes: 0
I absolutely love my D70s! The pictures it takes are fantastic, the interface is easy to use, and at this point I can change most of the settings without looking at the camera using the buttons. I haven't regretted the purchase for a second.
Glad you're all enjoying the report!
Glad you're all enjoying the report!
Nov 21st, 2006 | 11:35 AM
#66
Original Poster
Joined: Feb 2004
Posts: 541
Likes: 0
hopingtotravel - getting lost is one of our best things, especially when I stop listening to the navigator and decide to go my own way. I'm not sure why, but we found Provence to be particularly confusing - we got lost pretty much EVERY day, although day 10 was definitely the worst.
Nov 21st, 2006 | 09:39 PM
#68
Original Poster
Joined: Feb 2004
Posts: 541
Likes: 0
Day 11
Tuesday, September 26, 2006: Two Women from LA and a Sweaty Guy.
Check out the accompanying photos from this trip at http://tinyurl.com/w5rlb)
Finally, a day that began with us going for a relatively long drive and not getting lost. After a hearty breakfast, we packed up into Floriane and headed towards Cavaillon. Despite some traffic due to road construction (and flying pylons hitting poor Floriane due to the Mistral), we made it to the outskirts of Cavaillon and on through to the Luberon hill towns.
First on our tour was a village that, at one point in its history, was a bustling little town, but has been deserted for a couple of hundred years. According to the Michelin Green Guide, Oppede Le Vieux slowly got smaller and smaller as people left the isolated hill for the more populous towns on the plains. The town was actually a bit spooky. Once past the still active (in a relative sense) main square which had a few shops and cafés, you walk through a tunnel under the old Marie and into the old town. The ruined roads lead back and forth up the hill to the remains of the castle at the top. The streets themselves are worn and cracked, with trees and bushes growing up through what’s left of the cobblestones. Few of the houses have roofs, and most are only outlines of where the walls used to be.
It looked like two of the ruins were being renovated by a couple of industrious men, and a couple of caves partway along were being lived in. The castle at the top looked like it was small but impressive. Unfortunately, after a couple hundred years of neglect and an earthquake or two, there’s not much left standing other than a few walls and two broken towers. All things considered, Oppede le Vieux is an interesting stop. It seemed that it was a bit off the normal tourist trail so it wasn’t filled with people – other than us (and the people living in the caves), there was only one other group of people looking around.
We clambered back down to the parking lot and set off for Luberon hill town number two: Menerbes. Now this was a town I’d been looking forward to visiting for years – ever since I read my first Peter Mayle book. As it turned out, Menerbes wasn’t quite what I’d imagined after reading A Year in Provence – it was a bit smaller and a bit steeper than I’d pictured it in my mind’s eye.
We wandered around for a bit, trying to see if we recognized anything from the books, but unfortunately didn’t. We had a tasty panini at a little café near the Marie and relaxed for a bit. To be perfectly honest, there isn’t a lot to see in Menerbes. We stood on one of the walls and tried to figure out which house was Peter Mayle’s, but gave up after a few minutes (we later heard that it was two driveways past the school on the road to Bonnieux). On the way out of town back down to the car, we noticed a little shop advertising free wine tastings. Of course we stopped.
The guy in the shop didn’t speak any English whatsoever, but it took him a little while to realize that we didn’t speak French completely fluently, which was a huge compliments. He said that he was really impressed with how much we could speak – I must’ve learned something in all those French classes in high school. He offered us samples of all the wine he had available – I stopped after 5 reds (I was driving), Jamie went all the way through 9. We were so impressed with the friendly salesman and the surprisingly good taste of the wine that we were forced to buy three bottles.
Back to Floriane and off to Bonnieux, our third town on the day’s hill town tour. Bonnieux is nice, but STEEP. We scored a sweet parking spot on a side street about halfway, but had a hell of a hike up the church at the top of the hill. Partway up, as we stopped to catch our breath and have a look around (but mostly to catch our breath – it was really steep) we were embarrassed to find that an old woman, presumably a local, was cruising up the steep stairs without even breathing hard.
At this point the wind was really picking up. It was actually cold up at the top with the wind chill. We were starting to realize that this was the famous Mistral – a strong and steady cold wind. Sure enough, it was clearing all the clouds out of the sky.
Other than the spectacular view, there didn’t seem to be much going on in Bonnieux. After a coffee for me (place we stopped at wouldn’t sell wine by the glass for Jamie), we found the car and continued on our merry journey. Next on the list was Roussillon.
Roussillon is famous mainly for its colour. The hills it’s on are made mostly of ochre which gives the whole place a reddish-orange tinge. To be honest, I’m not entirely sure if ochre is the dirt, the colour, or both. We were given strict warnings not to touch the dirt and then our faces, as the colour will immediately stain. I’m not sure if this happens a lot, as it would take quite a bit to get me to smear dirt all over my face, even if it is festively coloured.
Roussillon was our favourite of the villages we’d visited so far that day. It seemed to be quite friendly, with lots of little shops and cafés. Granted, there were more tourists about than the other towns, but even with that it was really nice. As with all the villages, the views from the edges of the town on the cliffs were amazing and we could see all the towns we’d visited so far.
After a brief stop for refreshment, we loaded back into the car and headed for our last stop on the day’s tour – Gordes. We’d heard that the best view of the town is a little bit before the main parking lot. We saw the turnout as we drove past it, and after paying our €2 for parking, we walked the one kilometer back to get our photo. As it turns out one kilometer after a full day of sightseeing is a really long way. We didn’t quite make it to the main spot, but found a little area that had some really nice views.
We then walked a full two kilometers into town to have a look around. Again, there didn’t seem to be much going on in Gordes and after having a bit of a walk around to see the sights, we decided that we’d had enough sightseeing for the day. In retrospect, I’m not sure if our impression of Gordes may have been slightly coloured by the fact that we were completely bagged by this point.
Much to our surprise, we made it back to St. Remy without getting even a little bit lost. This would turn out to be the first day since being in France that we could say that. We stopped in town to pick up supplies (wine, cheese, some sausage, olives, and bread) and headed back to the hotel to have a quiet night in and recover from our busy day.
When we got to the front desk to get our key, we found a note from Brendan inviting us to the restaurant for dinner, as Michel was planning a special menu. How could we resist an offer like that? We dropped our day’s purchases in the room and after a quick glass of wine, walked back into town.
Dinner turned out to be quite the adventure. Brendan sat us with an older couple who turned out to also be from Vancouver. We had a great meal and really enjoyed talking with them – Michel was on his best form and dinner was amazing. As we were eating, a couple we’d met that morning in the hotel came in on our recommendation. After the Vancouverites left, we sat and chatted with the Californians. It wasn’t long before the drama began.
Two rather loud women and one very sweaty man barged into the restaurant. It turned out that the women were both from LA and had planned on meeting in Europe for a combined vacation. The story got a bit bizarre from there. Gwen, it seemed, had been in Munich for Oktoberfest, and was trying to fly to St. Tropez to meet Jennifer. According to her, when she got to Stockholm, all of the pilots went on strike at the same time, leaving her stranded. She rented a car and started driving south. I’m not sure at what point she’d met up with Jennifer, but they said they’d been driving all day and had decided that they had to stop for the night in St. Remy. It seemed a bit fishy to me, but what did I know?
Larry, on the other hand, had actually been in the restaurant earlier that evening. He’d taken a cab back to his hotel, but had somehow gotten lost on the way. The girls had found him wandering around on the roads and given him a lift back to the restaurant. Larry was from Chicago, and trying desperately to sleep with Gwen, who was somewhat attractive in a plastic Barbie sort of way (Jennifer, on the other hand, was not attractive, in that obscene hardcore weightlifter kind of way). He was offering to buy them dinner, pay for a hotel for them for the night (or stay in his), and even buy everyone in the restaurant drinks.
The story kept getting weirder and weirder as the night went on and the drinks kept flowing. Sweaty Larry got sweatier, various owners of hotels arrived to ship him and the women to their various hotels (Brendan, after some time on the phone, had managed to find them a room). What the hell – it made for an interesting evening.
We ended the night getting a ride back to the hotel with Brendan in the nastiest car we’ve ever seen (some sort of dodgy Renault). We had a final drink at the hotel before crashing in our room. What a day!
Tuesday, September 26, 2006: Two Women from LA and a Sweaty Guy.
Check out the accompanying photos from this trip at http://tinyurl.com/w5rlb)
Finally, a day that began with us going for a relatively long drive and not getting lost. After a hearty breakfast, we packed up into Floriane and headed towards Cavaillon. Despite some traffic due to road construction (and flying pylons hitting poor Floriane due to the Mistral), we made it to the outskirts of Cavaillon and on through to the Luberon hill towns.
First on our tour was a village that, at one point in its history, was a bustling little town, but has been deserted for a couple of hundred years. According to the Michelin Green Guide, Oppede Le Vieux slowly got smaller and smaller as people left the isolated hill for the more populous towns on the plains. The town was actually a bit spooky. Once past the still active (in a relative sense) main square which had a few shops and cafés, you walk through a tunnel under the old Marie and into the old town. The ruined roads lead back and forth up the hill to the remains of the castle at the top. The streets themselves are worn and cracked, with trees and bushes growing up through what’s left of the cobblestones. Few of the houses have roofs, and most are only outlines of where the walls used to be.
It looked like two of the ruins were being renovated by a couple of industrious men, and a couple of caves partway along were being lived in. The castle at the top looked like it was small but impressive. Unfortunately, after a couple hundred years of neglect and an earthquake or two, there’s not much left standing other than a few walls and two broken towers. All things considered, Oppede le Vieux is an interesting stop. It seemed that it was a bit off the normal tourist trail so it wasn’t filled with people – other than us (and the people living in the caves), there was only one other group of people looking around.
We clambered back down to the parking lot and set off for Luberon hill town number two: Menerbes. Now this was a town I’d been looking forward to visiting for years – ever since I read my first Peter Mayle book. As it turned out, Menerbes wasn’t quite what I’d imagined after reading A Year in Provence – it was a bit smaller and a bit steeper than I’d pictured it in my mind’s eye.
We wandered around for a bit, trying to see if we recognized anything from the books, but unfortunately didn’t. We had a tasty panini at a little café near the Marie and relaxed for a bit. To be perfectly honest, there isn’t a lot to see in Menerbes. We stood on one of the walls and tried to figure out which house was Peter Mayle’s, but gave up after a few minutes (we later heard that it was two driveways past the school on the road to Bonnieux). On the way out of town back down to the car, we noticed a little shop advertising free wine tastings. Of course we stopped.
The guy in the shop didn’t speak any English whatsoever, but it took him a little while to realize that we didn’t speak French completely fluently, which was a huge compliments. He said that he was really impressed with how much we could speak – I must’ve learned something in all those French classes in high school. He offered us samples of all the wine he had available – I stopped after 5 reds (I was driving), Jamie went all the way through 9. We were so impressed with the friendly salesman and the surprisingly good taste of the wine that we were forced to buy three bottles.
Back to Floriane and off to Bonnieux, our third town on the day’s hill town tour. Bonnieux is nice, but STEEP. We scored a sweet parking spot on a side street about halfway, but had a hell of a hike up the church at the top of the hill. Partway up, as we stopped to catch our breath and have a look around (but mostly to catch our breath – it was really steep) we were embarrassed to find that an old woman, presumably a local, was cruising up the steep stairs without even breathing hard.
At this point the wind was really picking up. It was actually cold up at the top with the wind chill. We were starting to realize that this was the famous Mistral – a strong and steady cold wind. Sure enough, it was clearing all the clouds out of the sky.
Other than the spectacular view, there didn’t seem to be much going on in Bonnieux. After a coffee for me (place we stopped at wouldn’t sell wine by the glass for Jamie), we found the car and continued on our merry journey. Next on the list was Roussillon.
Roussillon is famous mainly for its colour. The hills it’s on are made mostly of ochre which gives the whole place a reddish-orange tinge. To be honest, I’m not entirely sure if ochre is the dirt, the colour, or both. We were given strict warnings not to touch the dirt and then our faces, as the colour will immediately stain. I’m not sure if this happens a lot, as it would take quite a bit to get me to smear dirt all over my face, even if it is festively coloured.
Roussillon was our favourite of the villages we’d visited so far that day. It seemed to be quite friendly, with lots of little shops and cafés. Granted, there were more tourists about than the other towns, but even with that it was really nice. As with all the villages, the views from the edges of the town on the cliffs were amazing and we could see all the towns we’d visited so far.
After a brief stop for refreshment, we loaded back into the car and headed for our last stop on the day’s tour – Gordes. We’d heard that the best view of the town is a little bit before the main parking lot. We saw the turnout as we drove past it, and after paying our €2 for parking, we walked the one kilometer back to get our photo. As it turns out one kilometer after a full day of sightseeing is a really long way. We didn’t quite make it to the main spot, but found a little area that had some really nice views.
We then walked a full two kilometers into town to have a look around. Again, there didn’t seem to be much going on in Gordes and after having a bit of a walk around to see the sights, we decided that we’d had enough sightseeing for the day. In retrospect, I’m not sure if our impression of Gordes may have been slightly coloured by the fact that we were completely bagged by this point.
Much to our surprise, we made it back to St. Remy without getting even a little bit lost. This would turn out to be the first day since being in France that we could say that. We stopped in town to pick up supplies (wine, cheese, some sausage, olives, and bread) and headed back to the hotel to have a quiet night in and recover from our busy day.
When we got to the front desk to get our key, we found a note from Brendan inviting us to the restaurant for dinner, as Michel was planning a special menu. How could we resist an offer like that? We dropped our day’s purchases in the room and after a quick glass of wine, walked back into town.
Dinner turned out to be quite the adventure. Brendan sat us with an older couple who turned out to also be from Vancouver. We had a great meal and really enjoyed talking with them – Michel was on his best form and dinner was amazing. As we were eating, a couple we’d met that morning in the hotel came in on our recommendation. After the Vancouverites left, we sat and chatted with the Californians. It wasn’t long before the drama began.
Two rather loud women and one very sweaty man barged into the restaurant. It turned out that the women were both from LA and had planned on meeting in Europe for a combined vacation. The story got a bit bizarre from there. Gwen, it seemed, had been in Munich for Oktoberfest, and was trying to fly to St. Tropez to meet Jennifer. According to her, when she got to Stockholm, all of the pilots went on strike at the same time, leaving her stranded. She rented a car and started driving south. I’m not sure at what point she’d met up with Jennifer, but they said they’d been driving all day and had decided that they had to stop for the night in St. Remy. It seemed a bit fishy to me, but what did I know?
Larry, on the other hand, had actually been in the restaurant earlier that evening. He’d taken a cab back to his hotel, but had somehow gotten lost on the way. The girls had found him wandering around on the roads and given him a lift back to the restaurant. Larry was from Chicago, and trying desperately to sleep with Gwen, who was somewhat attractive in a plastic Barbie sort of way (Jennifer, on the other hand, was not attractive, in that obscene hardcore weightlifter kind of way). He was offering to buy them dinner, pay for a hotel for them for the night (or stay in his), and even buy everyone in the restaurant drinks.
The story kept getting weirder and weirder as the night went on and the drinks kept flowing. Sweaty Larry got sweatier, various owners of hotels arrived to ship him and the women to their various hotels (Brendan, after some time on the phone, had managed to find them a room). What the hell – it made for an interesting evening.
We ended the night getting a ride back to the hotel with Brendan in the nastiest car we’ve ever seen (some sort of dodgy Renault). We had a final drink at the hotel before crashing in our room. What a day!
Nov 22nd, 2006 | 10:21 AM
#71
Joined: Dec 2005
Posts: 903
Likes: 0
Scott, I just read through all of your wonderful trip report and I want more, more, more! I love your writing style and your photos are amazing. I can relate to how long it takes to write a report because I started posting my June trip to the Dordogne in July and just finished it today.
We stayed near Beune on our first trip to France so got to explore that area before moving on to Paris. Om another trip we stayed in Saint Remy but we never got ot the Luberon. Aren't the Apilles just like a Van Gogh painting?
Anyway, your report brings back pleasant memories and isn't it great to have that Canadian high school French?
We stayed near Beune on our first trip to France so got to explore that area before moving on to Paris. Om another trip we stayed in Saint Remy but we never got ot the Luberon. Aren't the Apilles just like a Van Gogh painting?
Anyway, your report brings back pleasant memories and isn't it great to have that Canadian high school French?
Nov 22nd, 2006 | 02:11 PM
#72
Joined: Dec 2003
Posts: 24,359
Likes: 0
BikerScott,
Keep it coming! Sounds like you had good adventures.
Just FYI, the stones in the fortress at Les Baux didn't actually crumble to begin with. They were helped along when Cardinal Richlieu ordered the destruction of the entire edifice. Bad man.
Keep it coming! Sounds like you had good adventures.
Just FYI, the stones in the fortress at Les Baux didn't actually crumble to begin with. They were helped along when Cardinal Richlieu ordered the destruction of the entire edifice. Bad man.
Nov 25th, 2006 | 04:11 PM
#73
Original Poster
Joined: Feb 2004
Posts: 541
Likes: 0
Day 12: Wednesday, September 27, 2006
Lounging and German Crotch
(Check out the accompanying photos from this trip at http://tinyurl.com/w5rlb - more posted last night)
Somewhat surprisingly, we weren’t feeling our best on Wednesday morning when we woke up. That last bottle of wine with Brendan at the hotel after getting home may not have been the best of ideas, as it turned out. Hindsight can be a pain the ass. We were actually feeling so delicate that we decided to skip breakfast, focusing instead on re-hydrating as quickly as possible.
After a suitable recovery period, we went back to the old roman ruins of Glanum, just south of town. Unlike our previous attempt, we not only found it without getting lost, but it was also open, which was a nice change. The only downside was that we had to pay the €2 parking fee, although I wasn’t going to complain to loudly about that.
Glanum is a neat little spot. It was a fairly small roman town that was originally a celtic settlement with a temple and spring dedicated to the celtic god Glanis. The romans arrived in the 1st century, however the town was destroyed in the 3rd century and the inhabitants moved a bit further north to what was to become St. Remy de Provence.
The site was originally excavated in 1921, and as of our visit, is still being worked on. One of the things I love about sites this in Europe, as compared to historic sites in North America, is how close you can get to everything. There were very few barricades or fences, just the occasional sign reminding you that you are standing in (and sometimes on) an ancient historic site and asking you to please be careful.
The old spring, around which the town was probably originally settled is still there and full of water. An unfortunate tourist had twisted her ankle quite badly and was actually soaking it in the cold spring water – talk about an immersion in history (I just couldn’t resist saying it).
We spent quite a long time wandering around the old ruins, trying to imagine what it would have looked like 1900 years ago when it was a bustling little town. There was a bath house, a forum, some lavish houses and market stalls. The entire town had underground drains that were fed by the spring.
At this point, as is so often the case, a busload of German teenagers arrived and immediately began running all over the place hooting and hollering. The sun was looking particularly bright, and my headache wasn’t being done any favours by the penetrating voices of the teenagers. We decided that we’d done as much sightseeing that day as was reasonable, given the circumstances, and that a break would be in order for the afternoon. The Mistral of the previous day had, as promised, cleared out all the clouds and it was absolutely beautiful out. It seemed that the best option would be to head back to the hotel, grab our books and some water, and sit by the pool for a few hours and relax.
We changed into our bathing suits in our room, grabbed our books, and headed to the poolside. Other than a hairy snoring napping Frenchman and his wife, we were the only ones taking advantage of the pool that afternoon. We settled ourselves and spent an enjoyable hour or so soaking up the sun, resting our feet and reading. Our idyllic bliss was, unfortunately, spoiled by the arrival of two quite pudgy Germans who positioned themselves across the pool, facing us.
I don’t want you to think that I have anything against Germans, other than the busloads of teenagers that they seemed to be sending all over France to hoot and holler as we tried to explore various historical sights. I would have been horrified by people of any nationality, had they sat in those particular seats facing us, with those particular bathing suits (very tight, not leaving a lot, if anything, to the imagination), with their legs spread in a relaxed manner, giving us a very much unwelcome and uncomfortable view of their Speedo-clad crotches. As I’ve said before, and still firmly believe – nothing ruins an afternoon quite like an uninvited and continued viewing of obese Speedo crotch.
It didn’t take long before the sight of the Speedos convinced us that our afternoon lounging was at an end. I wasn’t quite finished relaxing, however Jamie was getting bored (my ability to sit and do almost nothing is nearly infinite, whereas Jamie’s is, in fact, finite). On the other hand, I was still feeling a bit off, and the crotch-show was quite frankly making me a bit nauseous. We packed up our things and headed back to the room.
At this point in the trip, I’d pretty much run out of fresh underbritches (you could have used a lot of adjectives to describe them, but fresh wouldn’t have been one of them) and desperately needed to do some laundry. Earlier in the day we’d discovered this amazing little place which you could take all of your dirty laundry too, and leave it. Several hours later, for example after lounging by a pool for an afternoon, you could return and find the laundry washed, folded, and definitely fresh. All this for only €12! We need this at home.
Having fulfilled our goals for the day (i.e. relaxing, not being sick all over the place from a hangover, having the laundry done etc), we decided to head back into town for dinner. We’d talked to some people the previous evening in a café before the epic soap-opera dinner that had raved about a restaurant in town called “Le Cassoulet”, which was actually also in the Green Guide that we’d been using.
We quickly realized that being featured in the Michelin Green Guide didn’t mean the same thing as having a Michelin star, as we had what turned out to be the worst meal of our entire trip to France that night. The food was lacking in almost everything I enjoy about French cuisine, most notably flavour. Despite this, the waiter we had was most entertaining and almost made it worth the food (I’ve never seen tighter jeans, and his white t-shirt might actually have been painted on.
After the disappointed meal, we headed back to our room for a quick glass of wine and sleep. I don’t remember if we had nightmares about giant Speedo crotches chasing us around Provence, although I may have just blocked the horror of it out of my memory.
Lounging and German Crotch
(Check out the accompanying photos from this trip at http://tinyurl.com/w5rlb - more posted last night)
Somewhat surprisingly, we weren’t feeling our best on Wednesday morning when we woke up. That last bottle of wine with Brendan at the hotel after getting home may not have been the best of ideas, as it turned out. Hindsight can be a pain the ass. We were actually feeling so delicate that we decided to skip breakfast, focusing instead on re-hydrating as quickly as possible.
After a suitable recovery period, we went back to the old roman ruins of Glanum, just south of town. Unlike our previous attempt, we not only found it without getting lost, but it was also open, which was a nice change. The only downside was that we had to pay the €2 parking fee, although I wasn’t going to complain to loudly about that.
Glanum is a neat little spot. It was a fairly small roman town that was originally a celtic settlement with a temple and spring dedicated to the celtic god Glanis. The romans arrived in the 1st century, however the town was destroyed in the 3rd century and the inhabitants moved a bit further north to what was to become St. Remy de Provence.
The site was originally excavated in 1921, and as of our visit, is still being worked on. One of the things I love about sites this in Europe, as compared to historic sites in North America, is how close you can get to everything. There were very few barricades or fences, just the occasional sign reminding you that you are standing in (and sometimes on) an ancient historic site and asking you to please be careful.
The old spring, around which the town was probably originally settled is still there and full of water. An unfortunate tourist had twisted her ankle quite badly and was actually soaking it in the cold spring water – talk about an immersion in history (I just couldn’t resist saying it).
We spent quite a long time wandering around the old ruins, trying to imagine what it would have looked like 1900 years ago when it was a bustling little town. There was a bath house, a forum, some lavish houses and market stalls. The entire town had underground drains that were fed by the spring.
At this point, as is so often the case, a busload of German teenagers arrived and immediately began running all over the place hooting and hollering. The sun was looking particularly bright, and my headache wasn’t being done any favours by the penetrating voices of the teenagers. We decided that we’d done as much sightseeing that day as was reasonable, given the circumstances, and that a break would be in order for the afternoon. The Mistral of the previous day had, as promised, cleared out all the clouds and it was absolutely beautiful out. It seemed that the best option would be to head back to the hotel, grab our books and some water, and sit by the pool for a few hours and relax.
We changed into our bathing suits in our room, grabbed our books, and headed to the poolside. Other than a hairy snoring napping Frenchman and his wife, we were the only ones taking advantage of the pool that afternoon. We settled ourselves and spent an enjoyable hour or so soaking up the sun, resting our feet and reading. Our idyllic bliss was, unfortunately, spoiled by the arrival of two quite pudgy Germans who positioned themselves across the pool, facing us.
I don’t want you to think that I have anything against Germans, other than the busloads of teenagers that they seemed to be sending all over France to hoot and holler as we tried to explore various historical sights. I would have been horrified by people of any nationality, had they sat in those particular seats facing us, with those particular bathing suits (very tight, not leaving a lot, if anything, to the imagination), with their legs spread in a relaxed manner, giving us a very much unwelcome and uncomfortable view of their Speedo-clad crotches. As I’ve said before, and still firmly believe – nothing ruins an afternoon quite like an uninvited and continued viewing of obese Speedo crotch.
It didn’t take long before the sight of the Speedos convinced us that our afternoon lounging was at an end. I wasn’t quite finished relaxing, however Jamie was getting bored (my ability to sit and do almost nothing is nearly infinite, whereas Jamie’s is, in fact, finite). On the other hand, I was still feeling a bit off, and the crotch-show was quite frankly making me a bit nauseous. We packed up our things and headed back to the room.
At this point in the trip, I’d pretty much run out of fresh underbritches (you could have used a lot of adjectives to describe them, but fresh wouldn’t have been one of them) and desperately needed to do some laundry. Earlier in the day we’d discovered this amazing little place which you could take all of your dirty laundry too, and leave it. Several hours later, for example after lounging by a pool for an afternoon, you could return and find the laundry washed, folded, and definitely fresh. All this for only €12! We need this at home.
Having fulfilled our goals for the day (i.e. relaxing, not being sick all over the place from a hangover, having the laundry done etc), we decided to head back into town for dinner. We’d talked to some people the previous evening in a café before the epic soap-opera dinner that had raved about a restaurant in town called “Le Cassoulet”, which was actually also in the Green Guide that we’d been using.
We quickly realized that being featured in the Michelin Green Guide didn’t mean the same thing as having a Michelin star, as we had what turned out to be the worst meal of our entire trip to France that night. The food was lacking in almost everything I enjoy about French cuisine, most notably flavour. Despite this, the waiter we had was most entertaining and almost made it worth the food (I’ve never seen tighter jeans, and his white t-shirt might actually have been painted on.
After the disappointed meal, we headed back to our room for a quick glass of wine and sleep. I don’t remember if we had nightmares about giant Speedo crotches chasing us around Provence, although I may have just blocked the horror of it out of my memory.
Nov 29th, 2006 | 11:30 AM
#76
Original Poster
Joined: Feb 2004
Posts: 541
Likes: 0
Day 13
Thursday, September 28, 2006:
Living on the Actual Sun.
(Check out the accompanying photos from this trip at http://tinyurl.com/w5rlb)
Apparently the Mistral had blown away our good sense as well as all the bad weather, as we had agreed to get up at the ungodly hour of 7am that morning. We were meeting Brendan in the lobby of our hotel and he was going to take us to the commercial market in Avignon for the day. It was like going to my version of Disneyland, only with more cheese of the edible variety and a LOT more wine.
We drove out to the outskirts of Avignon with Brendan and ended up at a place called “Metro,” which is the commercial market for the Avignon area. That means, essentially, that all the hoteliers and restaurateurs go there to stock up on pretty much everything they’d ever want to get. Our first stop was the food markets, my favourite place, I think, in the whole world.
The vegetable market was huge. Absolutely massive. Boxes and crates full of all the nicest looking veggies you’d ever want to see – peppers, courgettes, massive piles of mushrooms, tomatoes. I was in heaven. And then it got better. Next was the fromagerie, which was even bigger than the veggie section. Then the fish – a massive selection of incredibly fresh and outstandingly ugly fish. I thought that was impressive until I saw the meat department – an entire section of a warehouse that they’d turned into a giant refrigerator, filled with rows of cow bits, hordes of pork bits, battalions of rabbits.
They saved the best for last – think of all the bottles of wine and other kinds of liquor you see in restaurants – they have to buy those somewhere. I felt like I was tripping through the daisies in that particular section – from wine to scotch to gin to beer, and all so far below retail prices that I was flabbergasted (yes, it turns out there is a markup, but I guess restaurants have to make some money somewhere).
After playing in the market for about as long as we could, we drove back to St. Remy to drop Brendan off. We made the firm decision that if we ever end up in southern France, we need to make friends with someone who either owns a hotel or a restaurant (you need to own one or the other to get a membership). Next on the list of adventures was what might arguably be the most recognizable Provencal sights – Pont du Gard.
As it turns out, Pont du Gard is only about an hour from St. Remy so we got there faster than we thought (ironically, we ended up on the same road that we’d been lost on when trying to get home from Avignon a few days earlier). We parked in the big parking lot and walked towards the big tourist center.
It was at this point that we realized that we’d actually driven to the sun – holy crap was it HOT! Our first impression, before actually seeing the thing, was that Pont du Gard was extremely touristy. The visitor centre is really big, especially for France, and features a gift shop and a few restauranty type places. Not really our style. We continued walked across the surface of the sun (who knew that the sun could also be that humid – I was turning into a giant puddle of water), turned a corner, and saw it.
There aren’t words to adequately describe how big it is. I mean it is MASSIVE. To be honest, Pont du Gard hadn’t really been on the top of my list to see, but I ended being glad we’d gone. We walked across it and up the hill on the other side to get some good angles for photographs, and ended up just looking at it for a while. The thought that kept going through my mind was yes, it’s big. It’s one of the most amazing architectural achievements that I’ve ever seen. Was that really the easiest way to get water to the town it was going to? I mean honestly – they must’ve put in a few good hours of work on that thing.
At this point, I’d more or less turned into a big pile of goo from the heat and humidity, so we got back into the wonderful air-conditioning of the car. Next on our list of things to see was the nearby town to Nimes. The drive was uneventful, which was nice for a change.
Despite being quite a bit bigger than Avignon, we immediately felt more comfortable in Nimes. After parking about as far underground as I’ve ever been, we started on the Michelin Green Guide tour and saw a triumphal arch that was typically arch-like, and a roman temple, which was just about as roman temple-like as you’d ever want to see.
There were a group of young people running around in one-piece work suits and hard hats having either shaving cream fights or whipping cream fights, I’m not sure which. We never did figure out why they were doing it, or what they were trying to achieve, but we spent most of the afternoon avoiding stepping in rather large piles of foamy white stuff which had been liberally strewn over a surprisingly large area of central Nimes.
At one point on our walk, we had a very Rome-like experience – we turned a corner, and there in front of us was a giant Roman arena. Not as big as the Coliseum in Rome, it is still as impressive because it’s pretty much all still standing. In fact, it’s the best-preserved roman arena in the world, and is still being used as a bull-fighting ring almost 2000 years after it was built.
We did the extremely interesting audio tour of the arena and learned a whole bunch about gladiators. We’d done a bunch of these audio tours at this point, and I don’t think we had a single one in France that we didn’t enjoy. Among other things, we learned that there were very specific types of gladiators – they didn’t just fight with whatever they happened to pick up, they had assigned roles and weapons. Makes that whole Spartacus movie make a bit more sense.
What kind of day would we be having in France if we didn’t get ridiculously lost at least once? This time, it was trying to get home from Nimes, and yet again, it was that whole Ales/Arles thing that screwed us up. I don’t know that I’ll try to drive through downtown Nimes right in the middle of the afternoon rush-hour again, although we did eventually make it out on the right road and heading in the right direction.
We ended the evening with yet another fantastic meal at La Table du Michel – when you’ve got a winner, why stray? We had an early evening, possibly the earliest of the trip thus far – we were back at the hotel by 10:00pm. Despite the early hour, the syphilitic pricks next door to us started banging on the wall as Jamie talked to her mom on the phone. She wasn’t being particularly loud, but I guess these twits felt that it was inappropriate. Jamie continued talking to her mother, which I really seemed to piss them off, as they called up to the front desk to complain. The woman from the front desk called after Jamie got off the phone to let us know that they’d complained, but at least she had the good grace to sound embarrassed about it.
We were so upset about the morons that we had to have a final glass of wine to calm our nerves, and I have to admit that we weren’t particularly quiet in our conversation. 10:00pm is not too late to be talking in a hotel, I don’t care where you’re from. Eventually, we decided to hit the sack - we wanted our sleep as we had a big day of driving and sight-seeing ahead of us the next day.
Thursday, September 28, 2006:
Living on the Actual Sun.
(Check out the accompanying photos from this trip at http://tinyurl.com/w5rlb)
Apparently the Mistral had blown away our good sense as well as all the bad weather, as we had agreed to get up at the ungodly hour of 7am that morning. We were meeting Brendan in the lobby of our hotel and he was going to take us to the commercial market in Avignon for the day. It was like going to my version of Disneyland, only with more cheese of the edible variety and a LOT more wine.
We drove out to the outskirts of Avignon with Brendan and ended up at a place called “Metro,” which is the commercial market for the Avignon area. That means, essentially, that all the hoteliers and restaurateurs go there to stock up on pretty much everything they’d ever want to get. Our first stop was the food markets, my favourite place, I think, in the whole world.
The vegetable market was huge. Absolutely massive. Boxes and crates full of all the nicest looking veggies you’d ever want to see – peppers, courgettes, massive piles of mushrooms, tomatoes. I was in heaven. And then it got better. Next was the fromagerie, which was even bigger than the veggie section. Then the fish – a massive selection of incredibly fresh and outstandingly ugly fish. I thought that was impressive until I saw the meat department – an entire section of a warehouse that they’d turned into a giant refrigerator, filled with rows of cow bits, hordes of pork bits, battalions of rabbits.
They saved the best for last – think of all the bottles of wine and other kinds of liquor you see in restaurants – they have to buy those somewhere. I felt like I was tripping through the daisies in that particular section – from wine to scotch to gin to beer, and all so far below retail prices that I was flabbergasted (yes, it turns out there is a markup, but I guess restaurants have to make some money somewhere).
After playing in the market for about as long as we could, we drove back to St. Remy to drop Brendan off. We made the firm decision that if we ever end up in southern France, we need to make friends with someone who either owns a hotel or a restaurant (you need to own one or the other to get a membership). Next on the list of adventures was what might arguably be the most recognizable Provencal sights – Pont du Gard.
As it turns out, Pont du Gard is only about an hour from St. Remy so we got there faster than we thought (ironically, we ended up on the same road that we’d been lost on when trying to get home from Avignon a few days earlier). We parked in the big parking lot and walked towards the big tourist center.
It was at this point that we realized that we’d actually driven to the sun – holy crap was it HOT! Our first impression, before actually seeing the thing, was that Pont du Gard was extremely touristy. The visitor centre is really big, especially for France, and features a gift shop and a few restauranty type places. Not really our style. We continued walked across the surface of the sun (who knew that the sun could also be that humid – I was turning into a giant puddle of water), turned a corner, and saw it.
There aren’t words to adequately describe how big it is. I mean it is MASSIVE. To be honest, Pont du Gard hadn’t really been on the top of my list to see, but I ended being glad we’d gone. We walked across it and up the hill on the other side to get some good angles for photographs, and ended up just looking at it for a while. The thought that kept going through my mind was yes, it’s big. It’s one of the most amazing architectural achievements that I’ve ever seen. Was that really the easiest way to get water to the town it was going to? I mean honestly – they must’ve put in a few good hours of work on that thing.
At this point, I’d more or less turned into a big pile of goo from the heat and humidity, so we got back into the wonderful air-conditioning of the car. Next on our list of things to see was the nearby town to Nimes. The drive was uneventful, which was nice for a change.
Despite being quite a bit bigger than Avignon, we immediately felt more comfortable in Nimes. After parking about as far underground as I’ve ever been, we started on the Michelin Green Guide tour and saw a triumphal arch that was typically arch-like, and a roman temple, which was just about as roman temple-like as you’d ever want to see.
There were a group of young people running around in one-piece work suits and hard hats having either shaving cream fights or whipping cream fights, I’m not sure which. We never did figure out why they were doing it, or what they were trying to achieve, but we spent most of the afternoon avoiding stepping in rather large piles of foamy white stuff which had been liberally strewn over a surprisingly large area of central Nimes.
At one point on our walk, we had a very Rome-like experience – we turned a corner, and there in front of us was a giant Roman arena. Not as big as the Coliseum in Rome, it is still as impressive because it’s pretty much all still standing. In fact, it’s the best-preserved roman arena in the world, and is still being used as a bull-fighting ring almost 2000 years after it was built.
We did the extremely interesting audio tour of the arena and learned a whole bunch about gladiators. We’d done a bunch of these audio tours at this point, and I don’t think we had a single one in France that we didn’t enjoy. Among other things, we learned that there were very specific types of gladiators – they didn’t just fight with whatever they happened to pick up, they had assigned roles and weapons. Makes that whole Spartacus movie make a bit more sense.
What kind of day would we be having in France if we didn’t get ridiculously lost at least once? This time, it was trying to get home from Nimes, and yet again, it was that whole Ales/Arles thing that screwed us up. I don’t know that I’ll try to drive through downtown Nimes right in the middle of the afternoon rush-hour again, although we did eventually make it out on the right road and heading in the right direction.
We ended the evening with yet another fantastic meal at La Table du Michel – when you’ve got a winner, why stray? We had an early evening, possibly the earliest of the trip thus far – we were back at the hotel by 10:00pm. Despite the early hour, the syphilitic pricks next door to us started banging on the wall as Jamie talked to her mom on the phone. She wasn’t being particularly loud, but I guess these twits felt that it was inappropriate. Jamie continued talking to her mother, which I really seemed to piss them off, as they called up to the front desk to complain. The woman from the front desk called after Jamie got off the phone to let us know that they’d complained, but at least she had the good grace to sound embarrassed about it.
We were so upset about the morons that we had to have a final glass of wine to calm our nerves, and I have to admit that we weren’t particularly quiet in our conversation. 10:00pm is not too late to be talking in a hotel, I don’t care where you’re from. Eventually, we decided to hit the sack - we wanted our sleep as we had a big day of driving and sight-seeing ahead of us the next day.
Nov 30th, 2006 | 04:14 PM
#78
Original Poster
Joined: Feb 2004
Posts: 541
Likes: 0
Day 14
Friday, September 28, 2006:
Living Large, and a Farewell to Provence.
(Check out the accompanying photos from this trip at http://tinyurl.com/w5rlb)
What a difference a day makes – the day before, we had lunch in a MacDonald’s on the way out to Pont du Gard, today we enjoyed a meal (when it was this fine, it can’t just be called lunch) at the Michelin three-star restaurant at Oustau de Baumaniere in Les Baux.
We managed to sleep in a bit, as Brendan was taking us out to meet a friend of his who worked at Baumaniere early that afternoon. We met Brendan in the lobby at 11:00am (a much more reasonable hour than the 7:00am meeting time of the previous day) and drove along the wonderfully windy road to Les Baux. We arrived at the hotel and spent a few minutes checking out the little store while Brendan went to find his friend.
As it turned out, his friend didn’t just work at the hotel, he was the manager of the whole place. We were seated for lunch at one of the tables on the patio – the tables were set amongst huge trees, the canopies of which provided a nice shade from the afternoon sun. We had an amazing view – out over the pool and down the valley of les Baux. It seemed that there were two waiters for each customer in the place and they were all bustling around with almost vicious efficiency.
Before lunch began, Brendan’s friend had arranged for us to have a tour of the kitchen. The executive chef came out and introduced himself, and took us on the tour – I hadn’t been expecting that. The kitchens are incredible – they were renovated a few years ago and they definitely spared no expense on upgrades. It was my dream kitchen – vast grills, rows of ovens, sections devoted to meats, fish, and cold plates. They even have their own pastry room where all the baked goods served are made fresh every day. The fridges are even more impressive – larger than some apartments I’ve seen (although generally colder than the apartments).
After our kitchen tour, we were shown back to our table. When we first looked at the menu, we were a bit concerned – there were no prices. We assumed it was one of those “if you have to ask how much it is, you can’t afford it” situations. We eventually found one with prices, and decided that we were right. It being lunch, and us being a bit stunned by the prices, we decided to eat light, only going for a main course and skipping the appetizer. I had lamb, Jamie had some truffle ravioli, and Brendan went for a cepes salad. When the sommelier came out to hand me the wine list, I thought he was playing some sort of a joke. The thing was massive – probably three feet tall and two feet wide. I opened it and realized that it wasn’t a joke – their wine selection is absolutely insane. From what I gathered, they have more than 3000 types of wines available, all French, and all expensive. Sufficed to say that with the price of the main courses, we didn’t have any.
After lunch, an older gentleman came and sat down at our table to chat with us. I soon realized that this was the owner of Baumaniere, whom Brendan also knows. He chatted with us for a while and seemed very nice – I was having another of those “I’ve only read about this sort of thing” moments. Next on the list of surprises, the head sommelier came over and offered to give us a tour of the wine cellars. Yes, that’s right – a tour of the wine cellars from the head sommelier of a Michelin three-starred restaurant. I couldn’t have asked for more.
Let me just say that the wine cellar is impressive. Not only is it HUGE, its extraordinarily well stocked with a range of the best wines produced in France over the years. Beyond that, the part we saw was only a portion of the total stock – they keep a case or so of each type and year of wine on-site, and store the rest at an off-site warehouse somewhere. The highlight was being handed a bottle of wine which was labeled “1883” – that’s almost as old as Canada, and was bottled before the phyloxera virus destroyed the original vines in France. Just about heaven (although we didn’t taste it – I don’t even want to guess at how much it would’ve cost). After paying for lunch, we drove Brendan back to St. Remy so he could prepare for dinner service that night, and we headed back out, this time into the Camargue.
The Camargue is a huge marshy plain more or less between Nimes and the sea. It’s famous for several things, among them very large and very black bulls, white horses, pink flamigos, salt, and gypsies (there’s a gypsy town in the Camargue with an annual gypsy festival, apparently a very cool spot to visit). The drive out to one of the main villages in the Camargue, Aigues Mortes, took a bit longer than we’d expected. We managed to get all the way there (and back, for that matter) without seeing a single bull of any colour, white horses, or pink flamingos. We did, however, see a donkey.
Aigues Mortes is an odd little town. Despite the fact that it’s several miles from the sea, it was at one point, the only French port in the area and vital for French shipping and commerce (at least according to the little info-video in the tourist centre). It’s a fairly big completely walled city which seems to be somewhat isolated out in the middle of the marshes. As it took a bit longer than we’d expected to get out there, we only really had time to walk around the ramparts of the town, not to actually explore much of it. On the other hand, I don’t know that there’s really all that much there to see, other than the ramparts (which are impressive, and interesting to walk).
We’d only paid for two hours of parking, and after the brisk walk in the hot afternoon sun, we were ready to head back to St. Remy. We were planning on meeting some friends from Canada for dinner - the same ones who didn’t show up in Paris. We took a slightly different route back, but didn’t make any better time.
Somewhat surprisingly (at least for me), we found Dave and Sarah at the hotel – Jamie had planned their trip for them and had booked them in at L’Amandiere with us. We enjoyed a quick glass of wine on our patio before the mosquitoes convinced us that it was time to head into town for dinner.
We, of course, took them to our favourite restaurant in Provence for dinner – la Table du Michel. Brendan was in fine form and treated us like royalty, and even came up with a special menu for us – a fresh crayfish salad to start and then an amazing veal main course. In addition to our visit, it was also the last night of the restaurant – Brendan and Michel only had a lease on the place while they looked for a place of their own to buy. Last word was that they were going to buy a little hotel somewhere in the area and run a restaurant in it. Dinner was, as expected, excellent and we definitely enjoyed ourselves.
After a long and excellent evening, we all headed back to the hotel for a nightcap (well, Jamie, Dave and Sarah had a nightcap, I crashed). We had a busy day planned for Saturday – we were leaving Provence and heading slightly north and west into the Dordogne. After spending a full week in Provence, we’d found that it was different than we’d expected, but we’d enjoyed it all the same. We were a little sad to be leave, especially as we’d made some friends and really felt at home there, but were looking forward to seeing the castles of the Perigord.
Friday, September 28, 2006:
Living Large, and a Farewell to Provence.
(Check out the accompanying photos from this trip at http://tinyurl.com/w5rlb)
What a difference a day makes – the day before, we had lunch in a MacDonald’s on the way out to Pont du Gard, today we enjoyed a meal (when it was this fine, it can’t just be called lunch) at the Michelin three-star restaurant at Oustau de Baumaniere in Les Baux.
We managed to sleep in a bit, as Brendan was taking us out to meet a friend of his who worked at Baumaniere early that afternoon. We met Brendan in the lobby at 11:00am (a much more reasonable hour than the 7:00am meeting time of the previous day) and drove along the wonderfully windy road to Les Baux. We arrived at the hotel and spent a few minutes checking out the little store while Brendan went to find his friend.
As it turned out, his friend didn’t just work at the hotel, he was the manager of the whole place. We were seated for lunch at one of the tables on the patio – the tables were set amongst huge trees, the canopies of which provided a nice shade from the afternoon sun. We had an amazing view – out over the pool and down the valley of les Baux. It seemed that there were two waiters for each customer in the place and they were all bustling around with almost vicious efficiency.
Before lunch began, Brendan’s friend had arranged for us to have a tour of the kitchen. The executive chef came out and introduced himself, and took us on the tour – I hadn’t been expecting that. The kitchens are incredible – they were renovated a few years ago and they definitely spared no expense on upgrades. It was my dream kitchen – vast grills, rows of ovens, sections devoted to meats, fish, and cold plates. They even have their own pastry room where all the baked goods served are made fresh every day. The fridges are even more impressive – larger than some apartments I’ve seen (although generally colder than the apartments).
After our kitchen tour, we were shown back to our table. When we first looked at the menu, we were a bit concerned – there were no prices. We assumed it was one of those “if you have to ask how much it is, you can’t afford it” situations. We eventually found one with prices, and decided that we were right. It being lunch, and us being a bit stunned by the prices, we decided to eat light, only going for a main course and skipping the appetizer. I had lamb, Jamie had some truffle ravioli, and Brendan went for a cepes salad. When the sommelier came out to hand me the wine list, I thought he was playing some sort of a joke. The thing was massive – probably three feet tall and two feet wide. I opened it and realized that it wasn’t a joke – their wine selection is absolutely insane. From what I gathered, they have more than 3000 types of wines available, all French, and all expensive. Sufficed to say that with the price of the main courses, we didn’t have any.
After lunch, an older gentleman came and sat down at our table to chat with us. I soon realized that this was the owner of Baumaniere, whom Brendan also knows. He chatted with us for a while and seemed very nice – I was having another of those “I’ve only read about this sort of thing” moments. Next on the list of surprises, the head sommelier came over and offered to give us a tour of the wine cellars. Yes, that’s right – a tour of the wine cellars from the head sommelier of a Michelin three-starred restaurant. I couldn’t have asked for more.
Let me just say that the wine cellar is impressive. Not only is it HUGE, its extraordinarily well stocked with a range of the best wines produced in France over the years. Beyond that, the part we saw was only a portion of the total stock – they keep a case or so of each type and year of wine on-site, and store the rest at an off-site warehouse somewhere. The highlight was being handed a bottle of wine which was labeled “1883” – that’s almost as old as Canada, and was bottled before the phyloxera virus destroyed the original vines in France. Just about heaven (although we didn’t taste it – I don’t even want to guess at how much it would’ve cost). After paying for lunch, we drove Brendan back to St. Remy so he could prepare for dinner service that night, and we headed back out, this time into the Camargue.
The Camargue is a huge marshy plain more or less between Nimes and the sea. It’s famous for several things, among them very large and very black bulls, white horses, pink flamigos, salt, and gypsies (there’s a gypsy town in the Camargue with an annual gypsy festival, apparently a very cool spot to visit). The drive out to one of the main villages in the Camargue, Aigues Mortes, took a bit longer than we’d expected. We managed to get all the way there (and back, for that matter) without seeing a single bull of any colour, white horses, or pink flamingos. We did, however, see a donkey.
Aigues Mortes is an odd little town. Despite the fact that it’s several miles from the sea, it was at one point, the only French port in the area and vital for French shipping and commerce (at least according to the little info-video in the tourist centre). It’s a fairly big completely walled city which seems to be somewhat isolated out in the middle of the marshes. As it took a bit longer than we’d expected to get out there, we only really had time to walk around the ramparts of the town, not to actually explore much of it. On the other hand, I don’t know that there’s really all that much there to see, other than the ramparts (which are impressive, and interesting to walk).
We’d only paid for two hours of parking, and after the brisk walk in the hot afternoon sun, we were ready to head back to St. Remy. We were planning on meeting some friends from Canada for dinner - the same ones who didn’t show up in Paris. We took a slightly different route back, but didn’t make any better time.
Somewhat surprisingly (at least for me), we found Dave and Sarah at the hotel – Jamie had planned their trip for them and had booked them in at L’Amandiere with us. We enjoyed a quick glass of wine on our patio before the mosquitoes convinced us that it was time to head into town for dinner.
We, of course, took them to our favourite restaurant in Provence for dinner – la Table du Michel. Brendan was in fine form and treated us like royalty, and even came up with a special menu for us – a fresh crayfish salad to start and then an amazing veal main course. In addition to our visit, it was also the last night of the restaurant – Brendan and Michel only had a lease on the place while they looked for a place of their own to buy. Last word was that they were going to buy a little hotel somewhere in the area and run a restaurant in it. Dinner was, as expected, excellent and we definitely enjoyed ourselves.
After a long and excellent evening, we all headed back to the hotel for a nightcap (well, Jamie, Dave and Sarah had a nightcap, I crashed). We had a busy day planned for Saturday – we were leaving Provence and heading slightly north and west into the Dordogne. After spending a full week in Provence, we’d found that it was different than we’d expected, but we’d enjoyed it all the same. We were a little sad to be leave, especially as we’d made some friends and really felt at home there, but were looking forward to seeing the castles of the Perigord.
Dec 2nd, 2006 | 11:15 AM
#79
Joined: Feb 2005
Posts: 2,642
Likes: 0
What a pity you didn't see any black bulls, they're beautiful 
http://www.nimausensis.com/Nimes/TotoCamargue.jpg
and the white horses with their "guardians" riding them.
http://www.matthieucolin.com/tirages...la_MerT003.jpg
Too bad!
The gypsie town you mentioned is les Saintes Marie(s) de la Mer
http://www.saintesmaries.com/us/index.php
What did you expect to find in Provence that you didn't find?
http://www.nimausensis.com/Nimes/TotoCamargue.jpg
and the white horses with their "guardians" riding them.
http://www.matthieucolin.com/tirages...la_MerT003.jpg
Too bad!
The gypsie town you mentioned is les Saintes Marie(s) de la Mer
http://www.saintesmaries.com/us/index.php
What did you expect to find in Provence that you didn't find?
