A trip to the other side

Sounds kind of ominous doesn’t it? Kind of like shifting over to the dark side or riding the rails with Lucifer. In reality, all we did was take a trip through memory lane over to the west of the Rhone.

We started with the market in Bagnols sur Ceze. Anybody counting markets? This is a market that we frequented when we stayed at Peter & Margaret’s first home, Mas de Viales. This is a good place to find all of the essentials and lots more to which Dawn can attest.

Because of the nuclear recycling facility at Marcoule, there has been a huge influx of residents into Bagnols from former French colonies in the north of Africa. This market is therefore teeming with Muslims. I found many of the younger Muslim ladies to be extremely fashionable.

From Bagnols sur Ceze, we drove up over the hills to the Mas de Viales and had a short visit with the new owner, Anne. She’s done some upgrading here, like a new roof and restuccoed walls, but otherwise, the rest of the place looks the same.

Then, we drove to another old stomping ground, Uzes. The smaller market here was finished when we arrived, so both parking and walking were much more enjoyable.
We found a nice spot in the church parking lot and had our first French pique nique.
Uzes, despite its location on the west side of the Rhone, is considered a hot Provence tourist destination. A walk through its streets is never dull.

Finally, we crossed back to the right side, which is actually the left bank of the Rhone. Our drive took us through the vineyards of Tavel and Chateauneuf du Pape. Quel dommage!
Back at the ranch, we enjoyed the breeze on the terrace with lots of rose wine.
Dinner tonight was in-house with pork brochettes and lots more time on the terrace eating up the fabulous Cotes du Rhone views.

Another day, another market

Today I’ll start off with a few words about my French wheels. They’re pretty sweet! My car is a black Renault Megane Estate (aka station wagon) with a 1.6 litre turbo diesel engine and really cool wheels. The car also has GPS and is the Renault Bose model that means an amazing sound system. In Canada, this would in itself be enough for me to buy the car.

Each evening as we settle down on the terrace for cocktails a man walks down from the upper road with a cat on a leash. The cat named Ishmail walks the top of whole length of the wall. Somehow, I don’t see a Canadian cat doing this.



Tuesday means market day – probably the largest market we’ve seen – at Vaison-la-Romaine. The rest of the world is also aware of this. Talk about tight quarters! It is, however, a great place to people watch and our group quickly turned into consumers – clothing, tablecloths, cutlery and great tomato products from my tomato lady. I wonder if she knows I’ve been stalking her for years. For my protection, I must point out that this is totally non-threatening stalking.

From Vasion-la-Romaine, we thought we might lunch in St. Roman de Malagarde at Chez Claudette. Forget that! It was 1:00 and we were way too late to get a seat. So we drove across the hills and down to Coteaux & Fourchette, the new Michelin recommended restaurant on the outskirts of Cairanne.
We had an outstanding prix fixe, the girls settling for 2 courses while I went for all 3. Jackie & I started with sardines on a bed of stewed vegetables, while Dawn had a chilled-zucchini soup. Then, Dawn & I shared our main courses that were veal medallions and a slow-cooked pork with beans – yep pretty much the French version of pork and beans. Although both were good, we felt the pork and beans were the most amazing. For dessert, Jackie & I had an apple tart with figs. With the meal, we supped a Domaine Alary Estevenas white. With a majority of clairette it was quite different, to our palates anyway and we found it very enjoyable.

Next, thanks to Margaret’s notes on shopping, we popped down to Carpentras, about 25 kilometres south of Cairanne. Shoe shopping has been Margaret’s favourite here, but once again there were no shoes purchased. Incroyable!

So, back to Orange we went to stock up for dinner at Carrefour. I also fueled up and got a car wash that may be a regular occurrence with a black car. I didn’t have enough coin for the wash and found my North American credit card rejected. The nice man in charge of the wash area offered me change for a 20 Euro note and voila! a new car. Generally our chip credit cards work everywhere here, but there are clearly some hold outs where they spit on the International card. C’est la France!
We spent the remainder of the evening on the terrace with a rotisseried chicken, beans and salad and watched the sun go down with the streaked red sky that followed.

A walking circuit from Cairanne

Since I’m starting off with a photo of Camille Cayran, the wine cooperative of Cairanne, I should probably say a few words about wine. We’ve been doing a good job of sampling the local product since we’ve arrived and because it’s been warm, we’ve had a lot of whites and roses.
Now, the locals claim they can’t make a decent white in this region, but Corinne Couturier, the female vintner of Rabasse-Charavin, sure does a fine job. We’ve also discovered a fine white at Camille Cayran and one at Galuvan.
Galuvan are now working the Domaine Rocher vines and last night with our duck we pulled out my final 2001 Monsieur Paul and a 2003 Domaine Rocher red. They were fabulous. The other night, we also cracked into my case of 2007 Fontsane Les Terrasses Gigondas – equally amazing!
The vendage has not really begun. Some whites are being picked, but Rasteau, for example, doesn’t start picking until next week. The weather forecast for the next week is warm and sunny so they shouldn’t have any issues getting the grapes off at the right time.
We’ve had a few 2010’s that have been released early and so far they appear promising, but they’re pretty light right now. We haven’t spoken to anyone about the 2011 harvest and what they might be anticipating, but I’ll pass that on when I have some information.

Today I started the day with a big walk in the vineyards. I followed a marked trail out of Cairanne and up into the hills to the north of town. It was a little slick in places due to yesterday’s deluge, but I managed to stay upright and only deviated from the route twice – once because I stopped watching for markings and missed a turnoff and once because I was following a trail, but not one that would take me home. Oops!

My route took me along the top of the hill north of Cairanne with views of Ste. Cecile and the Nyons valley. Since I started out at 7:00, I watched the sun come up on Cairanne and it was pretty impressive, especially after the dull day yesterday.

I ended up being gone close to two hours and of course the girls were all concerned. I reminded them that I was carrying both my cellphone and GPS, so there was no need for concern.
Following breakfast we hit the small market at Tulette, next door. Apparently a day without a market is like a day without sunshine.

Then we drove to Tissus Gregoire, close to Avignon and low and behold, we walked away without a single purchase. Maybe we’re sick! Anyway, with all the fabric products it’s a little hard to make a choice, even if you know what you want.
Afternoon was “weak spell time” back at Cairanne and because it’s about the only restaurant open on Monday night, we set off to Le Tourne au Verre within walking distance of the house in town.

This restaurant has always featured a set menu of 3 courses. Now, you can have 1, 2 or 3 courses and there is a choice of two dishes for each course. Jackie & I started with a beef carpaccio, while Dawn had a smoked salmon dish. For main course Dawn & Jackie had sea breme while I had a lamb tajine. For dessert we all had stewed figs. The meal was excellent and the pleasant evening meant that we were eating on the patio.
We finished off the night with a couple of games of “Bite Me” and some popcorn. So far the girls, Dawn in particular, are cleaning up. Time for change!

A rainy day in Cairanne

The picture above was taken late last night in the courtyard. Nice ambience!
From our past experience, rainy days here are few and far between. But today we had a good one. This was unfortunate for the poor Cairannites – can you call the residents of Cairanne that? – because this was to be their Vide Grenier day. Now for North Americans this is the equivalent of a town-wide garage sale or flea market. The last time we were here in September with our children, we enjoyed walking past stall after stall (aka each resident’s spot on the road) of junk. Well, one man’s junk is another man’s treasure, right? And, at that time, we did find a cake plate in our Alsace plate motif for 2 Euros – woo-hoo!

Once it was clear that the Vide Grenier was a wash out, we headed out for a drive. No, the vistas were not spectacular, but the drive was none-the-less, pretty. We drove the back way to Nyons and then towards Vaison la Romaine.


From there we headed to Malaucene, the famous bike-launching town for climbs to the summit of Mt. Ventoux. Then it was a sharp right turn up into hills through Suzette and on to Beaumes de Venise. From there, we headed back to Cairanne via the cooperatives of Vacqueras and Rasteau. Not much shabby wine in these places!
It continued to rain, so cocktails were indoors in the den – the first time we’ve had a chance to use this room. We opened up doors and shutters and quite enjoyed the ambience.

Tonight it was duck for dinner. We’re never happy about the beef in France, but the duck is something else. We got two marinated breasts yesterday at Auchan and they were more than enough to serve three people.
So, tomorrow, total sun apparently and in fact the long range forecast has no more rain. The wine makers should be happy! We won't mind, either.

Cairanne

Well, after a good night’s sleep in Cairanne, we feel we’re back. No big walks today because quite frankly, we didn’t wake up in time. However, shortly after 9:00 I did walk down to the cemetery and then to the boulangerie for morning bread. The air was already warming up, but the sky was also pretty cloudy, so it wasn’t clear what was coming weatherwise.

It’s obvious from my morning walk that although the 2011 vendage has begun, that most grapes are heavy on the vine. One of these years I’m going to make a point of learning how to identify the varietal from the grape and leaf. Maybe this year – who knows? In the meantime, if I guessed Grenache, I wouldn’t be too far from wrong, since more than 50% of the vineyards are planted with that grape.

Following breakfast, we drove to neighbouring St. Cecile les Vignes for their Saturday market. Anybody keeping track? Two days – two markets. The girls had a good time in the clothing stalls and actually walked away with a fair bit of product and I have to say I got into the back of one of those merchant’s trucks myself for a fitting.

Following lunch back at Cairanne, we drove down to Auchan in Avignon. This is always a very entertaining destination due to quantity of product available. Not long after we entered the store, the skies opened up and a torrential thunderstorm was upon us. We were thinking our timing was impeccable, but so was the rest of Avignon. The store was a zoo!
Back in Cairanne we found ourselves ahead of the storm, but once inside, the skies again erupted. Good thing it was cocktail hour even though today’s would be inside the house.
Tonight’s dinner consisted of veal meatballs and fresh pasta with carbonara sauce, all from Auchan. Parfait!

Wandering along the Mediterranean

After last night’s fabulous meal on the beach, we awoke to another day heating up on the Mediterranean. Our hotel was very quiet over the night, so everyone awoke well rested and ready to shop. Did I say shop?
Our first destination was Cassis that was only slightly up the coast from La Ciotat. As we drove through La Ciotat we discovered that they had a fairly substantial dry dock operation with a few good-sized ships yanked out of the water for repairs.

From there, we drove up over the hills to Cassis on a road that was excellent and yet scarily convoluted – not a guard rail in sight. The views of the first callanques between La Ciotat and Marseilles were pretty impressive. These callanques are the French equivalent of Norwegian fiords, the difference here being the temperature and the turquoise water. Oh my God, it was hot today – up to 33!


As we headed down into Cassis, we were impressed by how compact this tourist destination is. Driving into the town, we quickly discovered our first market of the trip. Talk about serendipity!


We had a nice walkabout down into the town from the limited municipal parking. That’s pretty much true in every town with a market. The goods for sale were surprisingly different from other market towns we’ve visited. It will be interesting to see if these products show up anywhere else.

There was also a beautiful beach in town with a few token nudies and lots of people in the water. Did I mention 33?

At the end of our walk, we stopped for some refreshment before continuing our journey. Like most beach towns, there were lots of cafes along the harbour and we found a good one.

Then, we headed towards Marseilles. We took back roads and headed as soon as we could towards the beach. Then, rather than heading towards Marseilles, we turned the other direction on a road that we knew would eventually dead-end. Back in 2006 when we visited a restaurant with particularly expensive fish – 8 Euros per 100 grams – we drove the same road. Guess what? The expensive restaurant was toast! We thought we would eat there – don’t question the thought process here – but it was not to be.

However, not far down the road, we found another fish restaurant, which also sold their fish by the 100 grams. We were much more savvy this time. We all chose a red mullet or rouget en francais, which are smaller fish, so we each had one, of about 250 grams each.
They served fish and fish only – with a baked caramelized tomato.



Following this fabulous meal we set off for Cairanne, with a quick tour through Marseilles for Jackie. No nails in the tires this time! You’d have to refer back to 2009 for that one.
The highway flowed well and we zipped off at Orange Sud for a shopping trip at Carrefour. We picked up the essentials that involved a lot of liquids. Some things never change.
Finally, just as the cleaning lady was finishing, we landed in Cairanne. It was like coming home, except a lot hotter.
So, unpacking slowly, we settled into our life here for the next four weeks. We sat on the terrace and watched the sun depart and then we sat and polished off a few more bottles.
C’est la vie!

We’ve Landed!

I must begin by giving you some information about Amsterdam’s Airport, Schiphol. This is the first time we’ve landed here so we were quite shocked by the extent of the shopping. The shopping here would easily rival the largest North American malls we’ve visited and BONUS, it’s all duty free.
Having said that, we bought next to nothing, but I thought a couple of interior pics might be appropriate – like the window Barbie display in a children’s shop – hope Ella & Sadie enjoy that - and the façade of the wine bar featuring Tattinger champagne by the glass.


I ended up not running after the plane as we did find a nice Dutch KLM agent who found Dawn and I seats together, something that seemed impossible in Toronto. Go figure!
When we landed in Marseilles however, we had some difficulty contacting the Renault agent to collect our car. For some reason all manner of phone, cellular and land-line alike, was inoperative on the entire airport property. What’s that all about?
Fortunately, the Renault agent found us in the airport in our futility trying to get through to him on a phone we already understood didn’t work. I think we were looking for a miracle and low and behold he appeared.
Anyway, we were in and out of the Renault depot in a matter of minutes on our way to our hotel in La Ciotat. Now, I booked this hotel for our first night because it was on the Med not far from the airport in a very picturesque area.
Our first challenge was getting across Marseilles at rush hour. Not pretty!
Then, despite our GPS and good maps of the hotel location, we proceeded to drive literally in circles around the hotel for close to an hour without finding it. We – I – asked directions – anyone impressed? – twice and finally we found it, mere minutes before the reception closed for the night. As it turns out, The Hotel Victoria is a residence hotel consisting only of apartments and the reception had limited hours as a result.


The hotel is nicely located, just 100 metres up from the beach on the outskirts of La Ciotat, but it’s a little tired. Fortunately, arriving on a hot 30-degree day, the air conditioning was working and the apartment quickly cooled down.
Despite being the first day of September, people lingered on the beach well after sunset and we found a beach restaurant for dinner called Indiana. Interesting!

We were pretty hungry and actually feeling pretty good despite our lack of sleep and wolfed down mussels for Dawn and Cognac flambéed gambas for Bill and Jackie, along with a litre piche of local rose. We finished up with a nice Ile Flottante and ice cream sundae for dessert.

Man it feels good to be back in France!