After numerous years of touring in France we have become pretty well conditioned to the state of French secondary roads, namely NARROW! No complaints about the autoroutes – they’re terrific!
We are nonplused about traveling on two lane roads that would qualify as one-lane roads in Canada. It does not faze us to have to come to a dead stop as a transport truck approaches. Roads that have speed limits of 90 kph, where you can barely manage 50 kph do not ruffle us. We are not perturbed by endless traffic circles – hell we have them in Kitchener. But every once and a while we’re in awe of transport truck drivers who have some extremely difficult situations to navigate.
The photos below document one such encounter. The semi ahead of us sat while the dump truck passed, because the semi needed to be in the middle of the road to clear the plane trees in Violes that have encroached seriously on the road on both sides. Time for a by-pass around Violes, but that would mean wiping out vineyards and I don’t see that happening in the near future.
Chateauneuf du Pape! The name conjures up very good wine, wine that is barely affordable in Canada. In fact, it’s barely affordable here. As testimonial to this fact, we bought our first bottle of red Chateauneuf today and it’s likely to be our last on this trip.
Until today, we had not darkened the doorstep of Chateauneuf, but we finally made the trip. Don’t go to Chateauneuf du Pape for a shopping trip unless it’s wine you want because at least 95% of the shops here are dedicated to selling wine.
We picked up our wine at the tourist wine shop that represents the majority of Chateauneuf producers. Our choice was a Domaine Bois de Boursan that Peter & Margaret introduced us to. It wasn’t a Cuvee Felix but we were happy to find any wine by Jean-Paul Versino at this venue.
I call the middle photo above "Rocks, Roses & Roots".
I think we’re becoming more and more French, because we totally shut down for the afternoon and didn’t head to Chateauneuf du Pape until after 5:00 p.m. by which time everything in France has opened up again. Photos taken therefore showed that dramatic late day sun.
No eating out today! We’ll try harder tomorrow!
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