Bookmarking--really enjoying this great trip report.

Day Six: Tuesday, Sept. 23rd, 2008

We were on the bus and ready to leave Paris by 8:30am today. It was another great weather day and by noon we stopped in the cute little town of Amboise. We had a couple hours here to poke around and have lunch. There is a chateau in the town, but we did not go into it. Instead we headed up the main pedestrian street in search of a place for lunch.

Since I didn’t know this would be the town we were stopping in and I didn’t bring the huge Pudlo book with me, we were left to our own devices when choosing a restaurant. We decided to walk the whole length of the street to figure out what our options were. We found an adorable little tea room on the main street and it was L’Ancree des Artistes. The menu was all in French and I tried out my limited language skills and managed to order 2 mouth-watering crepes, but I believe they called them galletes.

Mom had the Provencal version and I had the pays (or country) version which had ham, mushrooms, and cheese (I definitely had a pattern when it came to lunch crepes!). I can’t recall the ingredients in Mom’s crepe but they were presented beautifully on the plate. They were square shaped with the corners folded inward and a mixed green salad was served on the side, with the delicious vinaigrette dressing. With bottled water and coffee the total was €24.50.

The interior of L’Ancree des Artistes had maybe 10 tables and a couple tables outside. The exposed brick walls and sisal carpet with light wood tables and chairs and a variety of paintings on the walls made for a very inviting atmosphere. The street address is 35, rue Nationale, Amboise.

After lunch we were on our way to the Chateau de Chenonceau. The Chateau and surrounding grounds are gorgeous. The interior of the chateau has beautiful furnishings and the gardens are well maintained. For us, the most interesting part of the chateau were the kitchens (no big surprise there!) where the tools used in the 16th century were displayed as they would have been used…think, knives, pots, pans, ovens, fireplace, bread oven.

We spent a couple hours at Chateau de Chenonceau and in late afternoon we made our way to our hotel in Chinon where we would spend the next 2 nights. After a quick walk around the lower part of the town we decided to go have a glass of wine at one of the cafes in the square next to our hotel. We each had one glass of white wine. For the wine and a pleasant evening setting we paid a total of €5. I had to double check the bill…what a pleasant surprise!

Tonight was our second group meal and it was in the hotel’s dining room. I wasn’t quite sure how the meal would measure up, but it was pretty good. We started with a salad with ham and poached egg on mixed greens, actually the salad was the highlight of the whole meal, it was delicious. The main was guinea hen with vegetables, and potatoes, it was ok, but some people mentioned their guinea hen was a bit dry, I lucked out and mine was fine, but that’s what happens when cooking for a group of 25. The dessert was a charlotte caramel that was light and not too sweet. We didn’t have far to go after dinner, upstairs and to our room to get a good night’s sleep for exploring more chateaus the next day.

Thoroughly enjoying your trip report – I love all of the little details. Looking forward to the rest of your report –thanks for sharing.

I love your report! I just returned from my visit to Paris 2 weeks ago, and I'm still suffering from withdrawal. Keep it up!
Barb

Day Seven: Wednesday, Sept. 24th, 2008

This morning started out cloudy and rainy but as the day progressed the weather got better. The first chateau of the day would be Villandry and we did not go into the chateau, but we did spend about an hour and half in the remarkable gardens there. I could have spent much more time there taking pictures. I took well over 100 pictures here alone and it was a drizzly cloudy day, I can only imagine how long I would have stayed if the weather was better. Honestly I think the pictures I did take during our time there were some of the best of the whole trip!

As we left Villandry the rain was stopping and we made our way to the next chateau which was Azay le Rideau. This was a fairytale looking chateau in a beautiful setting. The rooms have been restored to look as they did in the 16th century. We did the audio guide of the chateau and grounds and it was put together very nicely.

By the time we finished touring the inside of the chateau the sun had come out and it was a great opportunity to walk around the grounds and the little pond. The audio tour lasted about 1 hour. When we were finished we walked up the street to the small town square that was full of pretty flowers.

We found a little café where we had a quick bite to eat. I had my first croquet monsieur
and mom had a crepe. With a coffee and carafe of water the total came to €18.90. Unfortunately I didn’t take down the name of this café. And, since we had walked around the town a bit before eating we were pressed for time and it was probably the fastest lunch we ever ate. We were in and out of the place in 30 minutes.

We were back in Chinon by mid-afternoon and I decided to climb up to the Chateau of Chinon to check out of the views of the Loire River. It was €3 entrance fee and there was some renovation going on of the royal apartments so they weren’t accessible, but the views from the towers on the grounds were as spectacular as I thought they would be.

I met mom back at the hotel and took a short rest before we meet with the group for a historic tour of the medieval part of town. Patrick pointed out some interesting points about Joan of Arc and that the town of Chinon is a UNESCO heritage site.

Stay tuned for a terrific wine tasting and the MOST MEMORABLE meal of the trip!

LCI-Great report and photos. I really liked the ones of the macarons of course!
My mom and I went into Lauderee on our trip, but I couldn't bring myself to plunk down the euros. I'm glad someone did!
Oh! And we also did the same boat trip as you did, at dusk, on our last night in Paris. I really liked it more than I thought I would.

I went to all those chateau in the Loire on my first trip to Europe which is now almost 20 years ago! I think I may need to go back after looking at your photos.

Oh, and now I <i>really</i> wish I'd known about the Starbucks at the entrance to the Louvre. I would have much preferred that to the horrible coffee we had <i>inside</i> the Louvre.

Kristina...

I'm honored by your compliment on my photos since I really admire your trip reports and photos so much!

Yup...It certainly was a splurge for those macaroons. I think we paid &euro;19 for the box of 15, but they were oh-so fresh! Yes, that's my feeble attempt at justifying the cost. ;)

Not only did the macaroons look lovely in all their colorful glory, all the other tasty treats at Lauduree looked just as tempting!

I know that many people aren't Starbucks fans (including several of my friends), but after hearing about your coffee experience inside the Louvre, I'm glad we &quot;buckled in&quot; and had our coffee there. In case you are ever back at the Louvre and need a coffee fix, it's located just behind the gift shop in the main lobby area, and across from a post office.

I haven't had a chance to look at your photos yet, but I am looking forward to them.

I notice that you seem to have a lot of free time on the tour - is that right? That would be important to me.

Here is the rest of Day 7:

After the tour we all walked to the Hotel Diderot at 4, rue Buffon et 7, rue Diderot (www.hoteldiderot.com) for a wine tasting. The hotel is owned by 2 brothers and a sister and one of the brothers, Laurent, welcomed us into this adorable hotel and led us in a terrific wine tasting. We had 5 wines to taste, 3 white and 2 red all from Chinon. We learned a bit about how French wines are classified (by region rather than by grape type…I know nothing about wines so this was new for me).

Laurent has quite funny and entertaining as well as being very knowledgeable about wines, well; with my limited wine familiarity I thought he was very knowledgeable! I regret that I did not write down any of the names of the wines, but I liked the first white which was a sparkling wine and the third white which was a sweet wine but was not overly sweet.

After the wine tasting ended mom and I decided to go to dinner at L’Oceanic at 12, rue Rabelais in Chinon. This restaurant was listed in Pudlo and we had checked out the menu earlier in the day and liked what we saw. When we arrived we were greeted immediately but did not have a reservation. This was not a problem and we were seated in the small dining room with the bar. There was a second dinning room that looked to fit more people then the one we were in.

We both decided to have the &euro;24 menu which was 4 courses, and yes, this was THE MOST MEMORABLE MEAL of the trip.

We started with a raspberry Kir aperitif that was the best Kir I had during the whole trip. I really liked the raspberry flavour. We were served an amuse bouche trio of lobster mousse with paprika, onion tarte and tiny crepe topped with salmon and cheese spread. All were excellent. I chose the melon starter which was another trio, a melon sorbet, frothy melon drink, and melon cubes wrapped in proscuitto. Mom had the sardine mousse starter. Both were delicious and a lovely presentation.

For our main dishes we both had the salmon. Not only was this salmon delicious, the presentation was phenomenal. The salmon was on a bed of pureed potatoes colored green (strange until I tell you what’s next). The salmon itself was shaped like a rose! I have absolutely no idea how this was done, was it shaped into a rose before cooking or after? I don’t know, but never in my life have I ever seen such a beautiful presentation. There were also tiny cubes of eggplant and saut&eacute;ed cabbage on the plate. I am now kicking myself for not taking a picture of this dish, but the tables around us were full and I didn’t want to make a big deal and whip out my camera. I will never make that mistake again! And the meal wasn’t even done yet, there were still 2 courses left!

The next course was the cheese course and we both had the herb cheese served in a bowl, like a thick cold cheese soup with a toasted round of bread. The only way I can describe the taste of these cheese is fresh.

The finale (or so we thought) for me was an apple in pastry, think a square apple turnover in puff pastry with caramel ice-cream that tasted just like my favourite Starbucks coffee drink a caramel macchiato. Mom’s dessert was a pistachio ice-cream and chocolate mousse. Both desserts were terrific.

We wanted to finish (like all that food already wasn’t enough!) with espresso. We thought we simply would request two cafes, but the server asked what type of coffee we wanted and after describing the 3 choices to us we chose the Jamaican coffee. Oh My God…this coffee was served like another dessert. Each cup was served on a plate that resembled an artist’s pallet with about 10 different miniature sweets! My eyes must have gotten as big as saucers because the couple at the table next to us just smiled and laughed when they saw my reaction!

Now for the cost of this memorable meal…&euro;74. We waddled back to the hotel after this meal and fell into bed with full stomachs.

LCBoniti,

Yes, I felt there was a good balance of free time and group activities.

Generally it worked out that if there was a group &quot;event&quot; in the morning the afternoon was free or vice versa with afternoon group event and morning free.

The only times when that didn't happen were the couple days where we had a long bus ride. There were only 2 days with bus rides between 4-6 hours. But the guide was very good about breaking it up and stopping for lunch for 2 hours helped. Sometimes we were on our own at those stops and sometimes there was a group picnic or lunch.

Day Eight: Thursday, Sept. 25th, 2008

Today we left Chinon and headed to Sarlat where we will spend 3 nights. Along the way we stopped in a little town and had a picnic lunch provided by Patrick.

Patrick did a great job with the picnic supplies. We had a variety of cheeses, pate (including rabbit pate which was excellent), fruit, salads, and wine.

After our picnic lunch we stopped at the village of Oradour Sur Glane. This village was attacked by Nazi troops during World War II. They killed all the villagers who were in the village at the time, including men, women and children, about 625 people. Then, they burned the village.

The surviving villagers (because they were in another town working) decided to leave the village exactly as it was the day after the Nazis came through. I could hardly believe what I was walking through, streets with burned out buildings including bakeries, hair salons, auto garages and the church, burned and rusted vehicles, bicycles, and sewing machines just to name some of the devastation. There were plaques on building walls listing the names and ages of those who had perished. Although there were many people in the village walking around this day it was almost completely silent.

When we were done visiting the village it was time to get back on the road and head towards my favourite town on the trip: Sarlat where we would spend the next 3 night.

We arrived in Sarlat at about 5pm and after checking into the hotel we did a quick walk around the old town. We had a group dinner this night at the hotel. The starter at this meal was pate and the main dish was fish (dorado), which tasted like nothing. The dessert was a walnut ice-cream which also wasn’t very impressive. But after the meal we had the night before we dealt with the less then spectacular group meal.

After dinner we did a short walking tour of the old town and got to experience Sarlat by street lamp light, which felt like it was right out of a child’s story book. The cobblestone streets, the flowers flowing out of window boxes and the soft lamp light on each street created a magical feeling.

When the walking tour ended we headed back to the hotel to get a good rest since the next day we would be seeing pre-historic caves and canoeing down the Dordogne River!

What a great report. The Rick Steves tour sounds pretty good with a nice balance of tours and free time. And I agree, Sarlat is absolutely gorgeous! Fantastic architecture and wonderful markets, a real dream. We think the Dordogne is a really special area and also had our best meals there.

I also think Sarlat is beautiful. Great report. And I enjoyed your many (many ;) ) photos.

Toni...

We were happy to have been in Sarlat on a Saturday and got to experience the huge market there! I will write more about that later, but thankfully that was an entirely free day so we got to take our time winding our way through the market...such fun!

And we had our second most memorable meal in Sarlat...stay tuned for that post! ;)

Thanks everyone for continuing to follow along.

Thanks for a wonderful trip report. Can't wait to see the rest.

I am far from a foodie, but your meal descriptions leave me drooling. Loved the pictures of macaroons. Macaroons are a favorite of mine but I am no connoisier, so I had never heard of Laudure. (I pick up my occasional fix at the local supermarket). The idea of a pistachio one sounds fascinating and delicious.

I have only looked at a few of your photos but am enjoying them. That sony camera takes good shots, but of course it is your eye that makes them good. I especially enjoyed seeing the details of the doors on Notre Dame. I think it has had a real face lift since I was last there (too many years ago).

Is there any way to go back into your album and break it into smaller albums so we could enjoy smaller chunks at a visit? Perhaps one album for each day?

I was interested in your comment about the silence ot Oradour-sur-Glan. I remember being really struck by that same aspect at Dachau.

Anyway, kudus to you and loooking forward to reading more. Thanks!

Sorry about the misspelling of connoiseur in above post.

connois<b>s</b>eur

Irishface,

I will have to look into if I can create sub-albums from the main Kodak album. It took me forever to upload all those photos into the one album (high resolution...8 megapixels) and I don't relish having to do that again! :)

If the Kodak site has a way for me to just reorganize and create albums from an existing one that would be an option. I'll see what I can do about that.

Day Nine: Friday, Sept. 26th, 2008

This morning the first stop we made was at the Grotte de Rouffignac, which is a pre-historic cave near Sarlat. This cave had a little train that we boarded and were taken down a small track into the cave. The guide who served double-duty as the train engineer gave a good commentary about the paintings and markings on the walls and ceilings, although it was sometimes difficult to hear her because of the acoustics in the cave. Do note there is no light in this cave except when the train is stopped to look at a particular section of wall, which is then illuminated by small lights and the guide uses a flash light to point out items of interest. It was pretty incredible to think these pre-historic people drew these pictures of animals in almost perfect proportion.

After we emerged from the cave we headed for the little village of Domme, perched high on a hill. It was such a picturesque little place. Mom and I bought duck pate sandwiches and sat in a park overlooking the Dordogne River, it was very scenic and a terrific photo opportunity. The sandwiches were absolutely delicious, and maybe it was the beautiful view that helped enhance the sandwich!

When we were finished with lunch it was time to Canoe! Mom decided to sit out the canoe ride, (she’s not to “into” water activities), and so I teamed up with our guide Patrick to canoe down the Dordogne. It was a great day to paddle, cool and a bit cloudy, so no hot sun to deal with.

As we paddled I took lots of pictures, no surprise there! And we made our way down the river passing picture perfect little villages. We paddled for just 11/2 hours and ended in the town of Beynac. Once we were all out of the water we piled back into the bus and went back to Sarlat.

After a short rest at the hotel we set out to take a look at a couple restaurants for dinner potential. While meandering through the streets there was an artist’s studio that caught my eye, actually it was one of her pictures that caught my eye. The artist herself was there and she could not have been nicer. I began looking through her work and there were several prints that I was really drawn too, so I bought all 4 prints (at &euro;10 each) Each print was a scene of Sarlat and they each had all the perfect colors that would go with the colors I have throughout my home.

We then found our first pick restaurant for dinner, the Presidial (a Pudlo pick), and made an 8pm reservation. It looked great from the outside and the menu looked even better. By now we were ready to have our usual pre-dinner aperitif, so we found a caf&eacute; in the town square and we had a few drinks while watching the sun go down and the street lights come on.

Just before 8pm we walked back over to the Presidial at 6, rue Landry. This was one of the larger restaurants we ate at; there were 2 dinning rooms, one rather large and then a smaller one that had only 6 tables. There was also ample covered outside dinning. When we arrived almost every table inside was full.

We both had the &euro;42 menu. I started with the lobster ravioli and mom had the foie gras, both were excellent. My main was pan fried scallops, there were 6 huge scallops, and puree of broccoli surrounded by a wide peel of carrot. Mom had the tournad of beef with haricots and potatoes. My main dish was delicious, but mom definitely had the winner in this meal. The beef was done to perfection! We also had a bottle of Rose wine.

Next was the cheese course and we both had the goat cheese served with lettuce and a walnut dressing which was wonderful…well, let me be honest, there isn’t really any cheese that I wouldn’t like!

The best part of the meal for me was the dessert. We both had the same thing and it was called Emotion of Dark Chocolate. It was a base of dark chocolate cookie with chocolate mousse on top served in the form of a disk, it was chocolaty goodness! We capped it off with espresso.

A really delicious meal and the total for it all was &euro;115. I would rate this meal our second best after L’Oceanic in Chinon. After our 3 hour meal we walked back to our hotel and ended the day happily satisfied.

Day Ten: Saturday, Sept. 27th, 2008

Today was market day in Sarlat and what a market it was…there was just about any item you could possibly want from food to clothing to soap and cutlery. The market began on the street right outside of our hotel…how convenient!

Since the whole day was on our own, we had a leisurely morning and went out to the market at about 10am. We perused through the food section of the market first picking up bread and cheese for a picnic lunch later in the day. As we made our way through the crowded streets of the market we came upon a little boutique. The scarves outside drew me in but what kept me there were some really great ponchos. We each bought one, mine green, mom’s black and grey, they are tres chic!

As we continued through the market I then came across a really “funky” purse and it was just too cool to pass up. It’s green and blue in color and triangular shaped and has a bunch of pockets in the front. My description is not doing it justice, I may have to take a picture of it and post it!

By 1:30pm we dropped off our purchases in our room and took our picnic supplies to the public garden for an outdoor lunch of cheese, bread and fruit. After relaxing at lunch we took another walk around the market and poked around in several of the town shops. After mailing our last few postcards we found a caf&eacute; in the town square for an aperitif before meeting up with the group for another group meal at the hotel.

Tonight’s group meal at the hotel was a step- up from 2 nights ago, but not the best of the trip. We started with a Roquefort salad with endive and walnuts, the main was duck confit with potatoes and chocolate cake for dessert.

We were ready to hit the hay early for our trip to Carcassonne in the morning.

LCI- I'm glad you got to go to the market in Sarlat. That was on my radar after reading about it in my France Eyewitness guidebook, but alas, we could not make it there because we were going to the winery on that day.
I will try to check out the photos as I'm sure there are some! Count me in the camp who recommends you break up your albums by day. ;-)

Also, I have to give you credit for getting your report done so quickly now that you have started it. I am definitely behind schedule, but I'm too wrapped up in the election to write.

Kristina...

My goal was to have the report done by this weekend since I will be out of town Sat-Tues. I'm taking a weekend trip to NYC.

OMG...I'll have to do another trip report! :-D

I'm not sure if I will make my self imposed deadline! But hang in there with me! There are some more good meals for me to share.

BTW...the pictures of the anniversary dinner during your trip were absolutey amazing...I want to go to that castle!

What a nice report. Thank you. Glad you enjoyed the market in Sarlat. Markets are my favorite things in Europe and the one in Sarlat is very special. It takes over the whole town. What a backdrop for all that wonderful food.

I loved your photos. They were beautiful. I particularly enjoyed the photos you took at Oradour-sur-Glane, a place I had never heard of before. I did a bit of Googling, and couldn't stop reading about the place. I'd love to get a copy of Sarah Farmer's book about the town.

I, too, am working on a &quot;trip report&quot; of my 6-day vacation to Paris last month. In 1993, we went on a 2-week vacation to France, Switzerland, Germany and London with my then 11-year-old step-daughter. It was before we owned a video camera, so I decided to write a journal of our travels for my step-daughter to keep, to help her remember the trip. It turned to be about 30 pages long and took me an entire year to write! I could never end it, because I was always making changes to the text to make it sound better. With video cameras, it's easy to record everything for posterity. But there's nothing like the written word. I'll be working on my report (now that the election is over, I have lots of time to devote to it), and hopefully I'll finish it in a day or so.

Again, loved your photos, and report, too!

Hi Marcy,

I've looked through most of your photos and it looks like you had such a good time! I'm up to the Canal du Midi so have about 400 left. You did take a lot of photos but I'm enjoying them. Looking forward to the rest of your report.

Thanks for taking the time to look at my photos! :)

freberta...

It's only in the last 4 years that I really got back into keeping a journal while I travel.

Back in my college days during a study abroad in Europe I was very faithful about keeping a journal of all my travels. Then I didn't travel for a while so there wasn't a need.

Now that I've been able to travel more frequently and to interesting places (and joining Fodors!)I'm really enjoying keeping a travel journal. Every now and then I will pull it out and leaf through the pages and relive the places I've been.

I figure if I keep it up I'll have quite the reference collection! :-D

Bookmarking.

Ok...I found out that I can create sub-albums from my giant 1478 photo album in my kodak gallery account!

I am in the process of breaking out the giant album into smaller albums by location (city/town/or site).

Once I create these new albums (I'm about half way done) I will post an entry here with links to those individual albums.

Gotta love Fodor-ville...you all are enhancing my computer skills! ;)

Thanks! I was really enjoying your pictures, but don't have time to watch all at once so glad I can go to where I left off in a new album. Thanks for taking the time to do this!

OK, I hope this works. The link below should take you to a slide show of 9 separate photo albums from this trip.

The first slide show that opens is all the Paris photos. If you go to the bottom of the thumbnails there is a link that says browse other 9 albums and you can see all the photos in separate albums.

I hope this works. Thanks for being patient.


http://tinyurl.com/6973fr

Oops, no, wait a minute, I can't get to the 9 albums although I see that link and the Paris photos show fine...?

Oops, no, wait another minute, it works fine. My mistake.

Thank you!

ttt

Thank you LowCountryIslander. I looked at each of your photos, beautiful. I especially liked the album of Rousillon and the Ochre cliffs. It was a beautiful exploration of colour--- the cliffs, the houses and their shutters, the pots of paints, that one intriguing sign...even the sunset was part of the pallette of this album. I felt almost overwhelmed by the saturated colour in these shots.

I enjoy your choice of subject and your composition. The kitchen details at one of the chateaux were intriguing, as was the glorious vegetable garden at another (the purple cabbages!) I'll stop now, I could probably write an essay on your photos. Thank you for taking the time to break them down into individual albums.

ttt

Thanks for hanging in with me. I was out of town and now battling a cold...but here is our day in Carcassonne.

Day Eleven: Sunday, Sept. 28th, 2008

We left Sarlat this morning in route to Carcassonne, it’s about a 4 hour drive and we made a stop along the way for lunch. We stopped at the Canal di Midi and Patrick brought a picnic lunch for all of us. We boarded a little boat for a one hour cruise and picnic lunch on the canal. We went through one lock on the canal and enjoyed being outside in the great weather. The hour long mini cruise went too quickly and before we knew it we were back at the dock and heading out on the road.

After lunch it was a quick 45 minute ride to the town of Carcassonne. We checked into the hotel, which was just outside the city walls, at about 2pm and by 3pm we were at the city walls with the group for a one hour walking tour.

Inside the walls it is very touristy, but if you look beyond that, the town has twisty little streets that are fun to explore. After walking around and poking into several shops and checking out restaurant options for dinner we decided to go to Bar A Vins for an aperitif. We spent a couple hours there and got to talking with a couple from Canada who were seated next to us. They were very interested in discussing American politics. After a while I saw some tapas plates going out to other tables and they looked really good. Since we didn’t have a big lunch we ordered the grilled vegetables (eggplant, peppers, and artichokes) and they were a delicious addition to our beverages.

At about 7pm we walked over to Chez Saskia (part of the Hotel de la Cite), it looked so cute, but unfortunately they were not open for dinner, another reason to return to Carcassonne! Instead we fell back on another Pudlo recommendation a place called Auberge Dame Carcas at 3, place du Chateau.

We were so glad we ate at this restaurant, everything was delicious. We decided to have the &euro;15 menu and it was a lot of food. We both chose the pate with onion jam starter and since Carcassonne is known for cassoulet and since it would be our only chance for it, we both had the cassoulet for our main dish. It was excellent, served bubbling hot in a ceramic baking dish with duck, sausage, and white beans, it definitely tasted like a comfort food to me. To go along with the cassoulet we had a bottle of Rose. For dessert we both had the chocolate cake which was light and airy sponge cake but still very chocolaty. We finished the meal with 2 espressos. For all this the total was &euro;45 we thought this was one of the best bargain meals we had the whole trip.

I really liked this restaurant. It was rustic looking inside and had an open kitchen. We sat inside but there was also outside seating.

I was a bit apprehensive when we walked in because there were not many people there, but within an hour every table inside and out was full. A couple of British gals were seated next to us and we had a very nice conversation with them during dinner. We walked back to the hotel and had an early night since we would be driving to Arles in the morning!

Day Twelve: Monday, Sept. 29th, 2008

On our way to Arles today we stopped in St. Christol at a local winery (Chateau des Hospitaliers) for a tour, wine tasting and lunch. The winery is a family operation run by Serge and Sylvie and they were terrific hosts. They have built their winery from the ground up; truly, Serge did the building himself, and they are being environmentally friendly with everything in their operation, from the construction to the harvest.

The wines are marvellous and starting at &euro;3 a bottle the price is definitely right. During the wine tasting we also got to sample their apple cider made from the apples grown in their orchard and it was the best apple cider I have ever tasted.

After the wine tasting Sylvie and Serge invited the group into their home on the winery property for a wonderful homemade lunch. There was a variety of salads, cheeses, and breads and fresh apple tart for dessert. It was a great meal in a lovely setting.

By 2:30pm we were back on the road and heading towards the Pont du Gard. What an amazing engineering structure. And we had perfect weather and by visiting late in the day the afternoon sun was illuminating the structure for more great photo opportunities!

At 5:30pm we were on our way to Arles. We arrived at the cute Le Calendal Hotel. This hotel is in a perfect location. Just out the front door lies the Ancient Theater and to the right is the Roman Arena. If a central spot is what you are looking for in Arles this hotel is it. The room had ample room and the lobby and restaurant were bright and inviting. The breakfast offered at this hotel was by far the best of the whole trip. There was a really nice variety of pastry, meats, cheeses, eggs, juices and coffees.

After we freshened up we went on short walking tour with the group to get familiar with the town and then we had dinner on our own. I really wanted to try Le Cilantro, which was listed in the Pudlo book and conveniently located down the street from the hotel. But it was a Monday night and unfortunately it was closed…a good reason to go back to Arles!

We walked around the old town area for a bit and found a place listed in the Rick Steves’ guidebook that looked good, called La Pailotte, so we went in. This was another good pick. I really wanted to try the bull and it was on the menu and it was delicious, wrapped in phylo dough. Mom had the pork which was also very good. We both had the eggplant and tomato puree for the starter and for dessert we both had the blanc fromage with fruit and chocolate sauce. The whole meal was terrific.

We ended the night with a short walk back to the hotel looking forward to a full day exploring Arles tomorrow.

I liked Arles--a lot--so I'm eager to read your impressions.

LCI - Just wanted to let you know that I continue to enjoy your trip report. I am going to print it out and go over it in detail in preparation for our trip.

Please continue . . .

Day Thirteen: Tuesday, Sept. 30th, 2008

This morning we met our local guide, Jacqueline, for an hour and a half walking tour or Arles. We saw some of the spots were Van Gogh painted and several of the Roman ruins. At the end of the tour Patrick gave us our museum passes and we had the rest of the day on our own. Mom and I started at the Roman Arena which is still used today for bull fights. It is in remarkable condition and while we were there a portion of the outside of the structure was being cleaned; it was a big contrast to the un-cleaned portions.

During our walking tour earlier in the day we found out there was an exhibit of Christian LaCroix dresses at the Reattu Museum and we decided to go and see it. Wow! Doesn’t even begin to describe these dresses which I thought were works of art on their own. Apparently LaCroix is a home town boy of Arles and many of the dresses in this exhibition were inspired by some of the artwork displayed there. It was a great exhibit.

We decide to take a brief coffee break at about 12:30pm and stopped at Caf&eacute; de la Major a cute little coffee place not far from the Reattu Museum. After getting sufficiently caffeinated we set out meandering along the streets and did some window shopping. We went back to the Van Gogh hospital for a look around and then took a walk to the Ancient History Museum.

It was a bit of a walk to the Ancient History Museum from the old town area, but not more then 20 minutes. I really liked this museum, it was set up in a very user friendly way. From the outside this giant blue and glass building didn’t really impress, but inside the space was open and light and the exhibits were placed in an easy to follow order.

The descriptions were in French, but we were given an English translation book that helped us figure things out. I liked the mosaics and the models of the Roman ruins the most. I highly recommend a visit to this museum. We were able to see all we wanted in just over one hour.

From the museum we walked back to the old town along the river and found Soleilei. This is a little ice cream shop at 9, rue du Dr. Fanton. We each had a cone with one scoop of olive oil ice cream and one scoop of chocolate, it was a great combination! Who knew olive oil ice cream even existed…not me!

After our ice cream break, we walked to the Ancient Theater and had the place practically to ourselves. I must have been doing ok with my French at this point because when I said “Bonjour” to the woman in the ticket booth, she asked me (in French, of course) if I would like the brochure/guide to the site in French…I had to smile to myself, I guess I had mastered the correct pronunciation of Bonjour! But I asked for the English version.

We didn’t have to meet the group until 7:15pm for dinner, so we went to the Forum Plaza where there are several cafes and we had our evening aperitif.

For dinner we met the group for THE BEST group meal of the whole tour. The name of the restaurant was Corazon. Mom and I started with the eggplant and goat cheese starter, it was so good I don’t even remember what the other starter choice for the group was. I could have probably made that starter an entire meal, but it didn’t stop there! Both mom and I chose the lamb shank in orange and ginger glaze for our main dish. The lamb was “fall off the bone” tender, we didn’t even need to use a knife. It was served with sweet potatoes. As if that wasn’t perfect enough, I had the chocolate molten cake for dessert which was absolutely decadent and mom had the trio of sorbets which included peach, pear and I can’t remember the third flavour). This was another delicious meal and a great way to end our stay in Arles.

Tomorrow we are off to the Les Baux and the ochre cliffs of Rousillon.