Touring the Drome

As the day began, we weren’t entirely sure what we were up to. We did figure, however, that it was time to address the excess baggage that we were accumulating with all of our shopping trips. So, a visit to the Post Office to purchase a box in which some of our Canadian clothing could be shipped home was in order.
By the time we got around to doing that, it was starting to heat up and it was time to think about where to go for lunch. Rough life, eh?
We planned to take a trek back up the valley to la Garde-Adhemar where we would find a restaurant called Le Logis de l’Escalin.

When we checked out the Michelin website, they said nothing exceptional about it, but someone from Michelin clearly needs to revisit to do a reassessment because this place was outstanding.

Before lunch we took a walkabout around the old town which to our surprise is yet another Plus Beaux Villages de France.

The terrace of Le Logis overlooks the Rhone valley as does the entire village and it was beautifully shaded and reminded us of Hotel Montmirail in Vacqueras.

There was an extensive menu with, for example, a Menu Degustation that had 11 courses. We were looking for significantly less food so ordered their least expensive Menu for 21 Euros entitled the TGV. This of course suggests that it’s a faster meal, but it also pays homage to the TGV that zooms passed in the valley below every 5 minutes.

We felt that despite ordering the cheapest menu that we still had the same impeccable service as all of the other patrons. And we definitely were not short on food. There were the cruditees to start followed by the amuse bouche. Our main course was a pork cutlet done in a sauerkraut reduction with dauphine potatoes and eggplant confit. The dessert that followed came was actually 5 mini desserts. With tea and coffee came more sweets. Even a glass of local rose was included in the menu price.
We came away from lunch very satisfied and looking for the car’s air conditioning. By the time we hit our next destination, Grignan, the temperature had risen above 30 degrees again.

We’ve visited Grignan before and on one occasion tried without luck to get into the chateau. Today we succeeded and discovered the reason for failure in the past was due to ongoing renovations.

This chateau has been beautifully restored with appropriate period pieces in each room. It was, of course, sacked during the Revolution and all original works of art were looted. The lady who bought it in the early 1900’s did a fabulous job of bringing it back to life.


In our walk around the grounds we had a view to the south of something extremely tall jutting out of the top of a nearby village.

Since we were staring into the sun, it looked like it could be a large religious statue, but as we drove to Chamaret, we discovered it was an extremely tall clock and bell tower.

We then continued our journey up the Nyons valley to try to find the new house purchased by Jim & Lynda Gardner, the American neighbours to us in Cairanne. Their new town, Mirabel aux Baronnies, is just over the hills from us. It’s a cute little town with slightly more commerce than Cairanne.

They’ve decided to purchase a place with no property to maintain, so they’re right in the heart of the town with entrances to the house off streets on both sides. This place reminds us a lot of St. Chinian and we loved that spot.

We got back to Cairanne shortly before 5:00 and lay low for a bit until the heat finally abated. Rough life, eh?
With this continual string of excellent lunches, we’ve been eating very little in the evening, which is a good thing, otherwise our luggage won’t be the only thing overweight on the airplane.