The Road to Aix

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It was time to leave our five-star accommodations and head to Aix. We had a leisurely breakfast while we waited for the taxi to take us to the airport where we would pick up our car. I did have a horrible shock when we checked out of the hotel, somehow, I am no longer a Hilton Gold member, so we had to pay for our breakfast, guess we just need to travel more and get those points built back up.

The trip to the airport was a hoot, the driver, who spoke very little English and we next to no French, still tried to have a conversation with us. What we understood is that he loves Apple computers but hates Android phones. We arrived a few minutes early to the Europe Car rental desk, and they open promptly at 9 am not a second earlier not a second late. I love Europe Car, they take debit cards, allow one-way rentals, and so easy to check in and go. We opted to prepay the gas, because we have had not so good experiences trying to buy gas in France on past trips.

It took all of 10 minutes to do the paper work and get our car, one problem there were three baby car seats in the car and zero room for our luggage. That was quickly resolved and we were off to Provence, First Stop Narbonne.

Narbonne

We have driven in France before, and they drive on the correct side of the road, so the only thing we were worried about was getting in and out of the cities, always a very stressful time. This time even more stressful as we did not have any good city maps or even a current driving map of France. We relied upon a 7-year-old map and our guide books.

Narbonne was not too difficult, we managed to drive in and out of the city fairly easy. We did however, get lost on the way to Narbonne, took the wrong exit off a roundabout and were in the middle of wine country, before we turned around. Now, if we are going to get lost, being in the middle of wine country is not a bad thing. After a 15-minute detour we found our way into the heart of the city.

The historic center is very quaint. Our sole reason for stopping here, other than to say we have been to Narbonne (not somewhere we would retire to, but only 30 minutes by train from Carcassonne, so would visit often) was to climb to the top of Donjon Gilles-Aycelin tower. Yes, another tower to climb, only 162 steps, but as always worth it for the view.

After the climb, quick stop at BNP for cash, then off to Montpelier.

Montpelier

The drive in to the city center was a bit more challenging, we had to rely totally on the street signs, which I can’t see and Jerry can’t read French, so always an interesting experience and generally leads to a bit of car tension. Jerry tends to point, instead of verbalize, pointing doesn’t do me much good when I am trying to focus on what’s in front of me not to the right or left of me. In any event, we are still happily married and found our destination.

We park under the old aqueduct and then walked through a park to the city’s own eversion of the Arc de Triumph, about the same size as the one in Washington Square in the Village. From there we walked down the main street (high-end shopping) to Placed du comidie. We were going to have lunch at Le Bains de Montpelier (built on the ruins of a roman bath) but kitchen closed 3 seconds before we got there. This led to the frustrating lunch walk. Knowing not to eat on a main tourist square and with most of the nicer places already closed, we headed off the beaten path. We found a great small wine shop, that also happened to server small lunches. It was perfect, quiet and wine.

The server was very pleasant spoke great English and recommended some great local wines for us to have with lunch. The entrée du jour was a quiche with bacon and mushrooms, it was so good, one of the best we have had. It was served with a small salad and two cheeses that were locally farm made (a camembert and a St. Nectaire) they both were so good and perfectly room temp the camembert was like butter. Before the quiche we had a nice charcuterie board, Jerry had a nice local red wine (la Clape) and I had a Sancerre, I could not help it, it was Friday.

After lunch it was back to the car and onward to Aix. We had to have the car back by 6 we had 2 hours, it wasn’t enough time. It was tricking getting out of Montpelier, we had to breakdown and use google maps on my phone, because wed didn’t know how to use the GPS in the car, interestingly enough it synced with my phone.

But the google maps alone was not enough, we did get there but 7 minutes after the rental place closed, fearing a huge late fee, we had no choice but to drive the car to a parking structure near our hotel and hope when we turned it in the next day for the new car, all would be fine.

We did find the parking garage easily, the same one we parked in 7 years ago when we were here and we both somehow remembered to get there. After parking it was a short walk to Hotel Cardinal, a lovely little 2-star hotel in the old city walls of Aix. We had enough hotels.com points to get one of our three nights free, so I got a higher quality of room than normal, it is actually a studio apartment, with court yard and small kitchen. It is decorated very much like a small apartment in 18^th or 19^th century Paris. It is really nice.

We checked in, did some unpacking and had a class of wine after a very stressful day of driving.

La Brochure

We decided before we left on the trip that our first dinner should be someplace, we had eaten before so to avoid any bad experience. We choose La Brochure, which is basically on the street behind our hotel.

We were not disappointed, and apparently half the city had the same idea to eat there that night. It was packed, the birthday party of 20 didn’t help. The only downside to this restaurant, is that it is very warm. Most everything is cooked on an open flamed grill which is in the middle of the dinning room. It makes for great food, but it is a bit warm.

Aside: The Ruin of French Culture. The French, like everywhere are pretty much tech whores, they are clued to their devises. Worse yet, they have decided that children are now ok in restaurants, use to be you would almost never see a child under 16 eating with their family. Now the strollers and babies seem to come as well. Nothing better (I jest) than two screaming babies when your trying to enjoy your perfectly cooked lamb chops. The French also no longer seem to care about style, they dress like any badly dressed 20 or 30 something in New York. Paris is a bit better, but still bring back French Style.

Dinner was a very nice release from the day of driving. We started with a nice cold class of Cote’s de Provence (Rose of course). Jerry had a tomato and mozzarella salads with herb de Provence. I had a really good avocado and shrimp salad, served with something similar to a remoulade sauce, but not quite the bang, but still really good.

Jerry went to the sea for dinner, grilled king prawns with pasta. They were billed as spicy cooked with paprika but it could have used a bit more heat to it. It was really good, just more spice please.

I was back to lamb chops, I can’t help myself, Jerry does not like lamb, so the only time I get it is when we eat out. They were cooked perfectly medium rare, and served with gratin dauphinoise potatoes, (they were good just needed to be hot). The bottle of wine was a great Chateau-neuf-du-Pape. The region is just north of Provence, and one of our favorite wines, it had to be had.

The meal ended with a very nice chocolate mouse. The check was served with intense chocolate truffles.

After dinner, we took a short stroll hoping to find an open wine shop, we were out of our supply. We didn’t find one, but we had enough in the room for one final glass before we passed out for the night.

Dish of the Day, Lunch in Montpelier, the quiche was divine.

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Photos

Donjon Gilles-Aycelin
Narbonne

Arc
Montpelier

To Aix
We made it