Ciao for Now

We just wrapped up the most amazing week exploring the Provence region in the south of France.  Here’s a day-by-day account of the awesomeness:

Saturday
We bid farewell to Beaune and after three too-close-for-comfort train connections we arrived in a rain soaked Avignon, our home base for the next week.  Wait, I thought Provence was supposed to have 350 days of sunshine a year…what’s going on here?  Our cabbie told us that after two straight months of 30°C weather (whatever that means), the rain was a welcome sight.  Fair enough.  We navigated some damp cobblestoned streets to the apartment we rented, and thus began the awesomeness.  The apartment was absolutely incredible.  In the shadow of Avignon’s most famous site the Palais des Papes, we felt like we were living in medieval times (only with a fully-stocked kitchen and flushing toilets).  Since we were a little pooped from the travel day, we picked up some pasta, tomatoes, onions, garlic and all the €3 Cotes du Rhone wine we could find and whipped up an amazing dinner.

Home Sweet Home	Not a bad view out the living room window

Cobblestoned lane out our front window	Steady with that pour, Big Pete!

Sunday
We spent the entire day exploring Avignon, and after only a couple hours we knew we picked a great spot for a home base.  We started the day with a visit to Les Halles, the city’s covered market (and Johnny’s new happy place).  Picture your favorite farmers’ market.  Now picture your favorite farmers’ market on steroids…organic steroids, of course.  Now add a few groups of weathered Frenchmen drinking red wine, smoking cigarettes and playing cards at 9 a.m.  And voilà, that’s Les Halles.  Rows and rows of vendors selling seasonal produce, cheeses, breads, seafood, meat, wine, herbs and spices.  We picked up some more pasta, some pesto, sun-dried tomatoes, goat cheese and a fresh baguette for dinner that night.  In the afternoon we leisurely walked around the city’s narrow streets and discovered its numerous hidden squares.  We also walked up to Rocher Des Doms which had amazing views of the city and the Pont D’Avignon, its famous destroyed bridge.

Even the outside of Les Halles is green	MMMMMMMMMMMMMM

One of Avignon’s million squares	Avignon’s bridge to nowhere

Dinner courtesy of Les Halles

Monday
We took a 17-minute train south for a day trip to the city of Arles, famous for its Roman ruins and Vincent Van Gogh history.  We wandered around and saw one of the best Roman arenas outside of Italy as well as several of the sites that inspired Van Gogh’s most famous works.  Arles was a little rougher around the edges than Avignon, and even though it was a solid day trip, we were happy to come back to our apartment…especially since we had reservations at La Vache à Carreaux that night.  Literally half a block from our front door, the restaurant specializes in cheese and wine.  We had a fantastic charcuterie plate, jambon wrapped goat cheese, a goat cheese baked with honey, almonds and apricots, and a camembert melted with white wine and garlic.  Wowzers.

Tuesday
Tuesday, June 7, 2011 had been marked on the calendar for a while now.  This was the day we were taking an Avignon wine tour with Avignon Wine Tour (not just a clever name), and it was Anna and my Christmas gift to her parents.  We had been talking about it for months so I was feeling a little pressure, but our day lived up to the hype and then some.  Avignon Wine Tour has a different tour every day, and on this day we toured some towns and tasted some wines from the Luberon valley, southeast of Avignon.  We visited Menerbes, Bonnieux, Lourmarin and Cucuron (nowhere to be found in most guidebooks), and each one gave us a “oh my god, let’s move here” moment.  This wasn’t your typical “let’s go to Temecula and see how fast we can black out” wine tour.  Each tasting was preceded with tons of info about the region, soil, grapes, winegrower, etc. and followed by long walks through the towns and espresso breaks.  Our guide Francois was full of surprises, jokes and fun facts about the region, and he had a soundtrack full of killer French tunes and Puccini operas.  Lunch at Cafe de la Gare, a 100+ year old restaurant near the abandoned train station in Bonnieux, was definitely a highlight.  We had a buffet of all-you-can-eat regional specialties, pasta with veal and mushrooms and all-you-can-drink local wines for €14.  We all decided that we learned more and had the most fun on this day than any other wine tour we’d ever been on.  All in all, a perfect day.

The gang in Lourmarin

Our lunch spot in Bonnieux	View from our lunch spot

These broom flowers smell mighty fine	Pretty ladies in Menerbes

A perfect square in Cucuron shaded by sycamore trees

Wednesday and Thursday
We spent the next couple days in Avignon fully slipping into the Provencal lifestyle.  We’d sleep in, have long breakfasts, take more visits to Les Halles for picnic supplies, pop our heads into the city’s many Artisinal shops, have afternoon espresso breaks, cook dinner and end our days with ice cream in the main square.  I could get used to this.

Anna and Susan’s favorite store	Espresso break

Pick an oil, any oil	Dinner is served

Fou de FaFa – Home to Anna’s favorite salmon ever	Nighttime at Place de L’Horloge

Friday
Well, we had such a good time on our wine tour on Tuesday that we ended up booking another one for Friday.  Imagine that.  This time we’d be touring the towns and tasting the wines of the Les Baux de Provence region.  It was another amazing day filled with good wine, good food, picturesque scenery and tons of laughs.  I’ll let the pictures do most of the talking.  A perfect end to a perfect week in Provence.

The picture perfect garden at Domaine de Valdition

Springtime in Provence	Vineyards at the foot of Les Alpilles

Barrel room built into the mountain at Chateau Romanin

Provencal smorgasbord	Our lunch spot in Eygalières

View from Les Baux de Provence	View of Les Baux de Provence

A break from wine tasting to sample the market at Eygalières

Paris was absolutely incredible, but after five action-packed days we were ready to slow things down a bit.  We found what we were looking for at our next stop Beaune, a small wine town in France’s Burgundy region.  With no metro to hop on or historic landmarks to check off a list, we spent our days strolling the town’s ramparts and popping in and out of its countless wine shops.  We toured Beaune’s largest wine cellar, Patriarche Pere et Fils, which dates back to 1780 and has miles upon miles of underground caves.  Plus they let you “self-serve” tastings of 13 Burgundian wines for a whopping €10.  We got our money’s worth and then some.

The weather warmed up some on our last day in Beaune, so we decided to pack up a picnic, rent some bikes and head out into the vineyards.  The instant you leave town you’re immersed in lush vineyards as far as the eye can see, interrupted only by the occasional chateau or castle.  We peddled through the tiny towns of Pommard and Volnay before finding a perfect picnic spot in Meursault.  Some red wine, a couple cheeses, a baguette and some cherries and we were ready for the ride back to Beaune.  Things were going along swimmingly until we got about 100 meters away from the bike rental shop (yes, I use the metric system now) and this tree came out from the middle of nowhere and ran smack into Anna’s mom’s nose.  Can you believe it?!  A helpful local called us a taxi, and Anna and her mom spent the next six hours (most of which waiting) at the hospital getting the wound cleaned up.  An emergency room visit and a four days supply of French pain killers cost us a grand total of €3.20, and even though Susan will spend the next couple days bandaged up like she just got a fresh nose job, it was nothing a couple more glasses of wine and some tasty beef bourguignon couldn’t fix.

Baguette + Blue Cheese + Prosciutto + Grand Crus = Taste Bud Explosion

Again we struck gold with our B&B, this time staying at Chez Marie.  Marie, her husband Yves and especially their baby Gaspar made our stay a memorable one.  Marie even gave Big Pete all that he could handle on the tennis court.  Every morning we had granola, homemade yogurt, baguettes, enormous croissants, homemade quince jam and fresh squeezed orange juice, and in the afternoons we would have wine in their garden surrounded by 300 year old stone walls.

Lunch break in the garden	Big Pete and Little Gaspar

And now we’re off to Avignon in the Provence region for some sunny weather, market days and, you guessed it, more wine.

Susan’s Post-Tree Makeover

After a sad goodbye to Yves and Claudine at the Rennes train station, we made the two hour trip to Paris, city of love and light. I was so excited to meet up with my parents who had already been in the city for a few days attending the French Open at Roland Garros. Our hotel was nothing to write home about, but we were able to get our entire stay for free with our Starwood Points…not too shabby!

At dinner our first night we were quickly swept up in the magic of this enchanting city at the famous brasserie, La Coupole, where the likes of Picasso and Hemingway used to gather. A delicious meal and boisterously friendly waiters (who sent us rounds of champagne and chocolates on the house after discovering we were from California!) made for an unforgettable and perfect first evening in Paris.

My parents at La Coupole

Over the next four days we walked (what felt like) every inch of the city; from the Luxembourg Gardens to Musée D’Orsay and Musée Rodin over to Café du Marche on Rue Cler (where Johnny finally got his Chèvre salad that John & Melissa had been telling him about!), to the Eiffel Tower, up to Montemartre to Sacré Coeur and back down to the Louvre and Orangerie, along the Champs-Elysées to the Arc de Triomphe, to Sainte-Chapelle, Notre Dame, around the Marais, and finally topped it all off with a trip to Versailles! Along the way we consumed many “Sandwiches Mixtes,” choquettes, Chèvre salads, pichets of Sancerre, baguettes and croissants. I also had my first tried-and-true Boeuf Bourguignon, which was delicious (and probably a little better than the Williams-Sonoma starter in a jar;)).

At the top of the Arc de Triomphe

Versailles

Sainte-Chapelle

Sancerre break

I have to say that my Dr. Scholl’s foot inserts for my Toms were probably one of the best investments I have ever made (even though I felt like I was 90-years-old when I bought them)! If Johnny and I don’t have awesomely-toned calves and bums by the end of this year, then there is something definitely wrong.

The Louvre

Notre Dame

Highlights included a sunset walk down the Seine, the twinkling Eiffel Tower at dark, dinner at Le Coup Chou (Cameran & Jen, great rec!), a crêpe with caramel and salted butter, the Shakespeare & Company bookstore (I have always wanted to go!), strolling around the Marais and visiting Merci, an amazing store that I had heard about from our Quiksilver designers, and our final dinner at Les Papilles….arguably the best dinner of the trip, AND I could have lived in the tiny little restaurant/wine shop.

“The Thinker” at Musee Rodin

Dinner at Les Papilles

And finally….the beautiful Eiffel Tower at dusk (10pm).

Now it is off to Beaune in the Burgundy region for some wine tasting and a much slower pace….our feet will thank us:)
Au revoir!

After a looong travel day we finally made it to our first stop, Dinan, an impossibly charming medieval town in France’s Brittany region.  We quickly dropped our our bags at our great B&B (more on that later) and even though we were walking zombies, we went to explore the cobbled lanes and find some of the town’s famous creperies.  As fate would have it, we stumbled into Creperie Ahna, and after a couple stinky cheese crepes and a carafe of wine we hit the sack.  Dinan was a great choice for a first stop as wandering the ancient ramparts instantly made us feel like we were in Europe.  It seriously felt like we may turn the corner and stumble onto a jousting match.

We explored Dinan some more on our second day.  It’s a tiny town, and by the end of our time there we must have been down every alley, across every bridge and up every narrow stairway.  In the afternoon we walked along the Rance River to an even smaller town called Lehon.  The walk was amazing.  It was so green and quiet, and everybody we passed greeted us with a cheerful “Bonjour!”  The town of Lehon has a beautiful abbey that we explored for a while.  We had it all to ourselves with a couple pigeons.  Outside of the abbey they had an incredible garden with the biggest poppies we’ve ever seen.

That night we made our way down to Dinan’s port to have some dinner on the water.  Anna tried some of the region’s famous mussels, and I had an amazing goat cheese salad.  Is it possible to overdose on cheese?  We’ll find out.  We washed the meal down with some Muscadet wine and walked the steep cobblestone hill back home.

Even though it was rainy and windy on our last day in Dinan, we headed out to the town’s weekly market.  If only our local farmers’ market could be this awesome.  Regional and seasonal fruits and veggies, Artisanal breads and cheeses, freshly caught fish, and all sorts of other goodies.  We grabbed a baguette, some olives, hummus, more cheese (I’m starting to feel dizzy), some cherries and a half bottle of red wine and packed it up for lunch later.  Our B&B hosts had fixed up their bikes for us, so we grabbed them and rode about an hour along the river to the next port over, dodging a couple rainstorms along the way.  The skies cleared long enough for us to find and bench and have a nice little picnic.

As beautiful and historic as Dinan is, the thing we’ll remember most about our stay here is our B&B hosts Claudine and Yves.  Their B&B Le clos de Mai is fantastic, but their generosity puts it over the top.  They are some of the sweetest people we have ever met.  They picked us up from the airport, fixed up their bikes for us when I told them we liked to ride, helped us practice some French, made us dinner reservations, took us to Rennes to catch our train to Paris and the list goes on and on.  Each morning, Claudine would put out fresh bread, homemade jams, some of Brittany’s famous salted butter, coffee, tea and some fresh squeezed orange juice.  I’d dream about it every night.  The best part of our day was eating breakfast and talking to them for hours each morning.  We only hope our other stays during our trip can be half as good.  Merci Claudine!  Merci Yves!

Off to Paris to meet Anna’s parents!  Click here for more Dinan pics.