Small Town Entertainment

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This morning wandered throughout the old town of Aix-en-Provence and figured out what this Provencal life was all about. It's about taking things easy, wandering down narrow streets, originally built for horse and carriage, and enjoying simple pleasures like good food, good wine and pretty flowers.

We meandered through the narrow streets of Aix's market this morning, croissant in hand, and saw fruit that we've never seen and tasted like we've never tasted. The strawberries, the apricots, the canteloupe, the raspberries, the cherries. You name it they had it and it was like none of us have ever had the pleasure of tasting back home. Typically, we bought a baguette, some cheese, prosciutto and the aforementioned incredible fruit. We also scooped a bottle of rose wine for 5 euros! A bottle! The corkscrew we had to buy to open the bottle cost more! We opted out of the foie gras (15 euros for a vat!), tapenade, pate. But we could have had a feast for Kings (and Princesses!) if we wanted. We now get what Aix is all about. Absinthe, pastis, getting lost in the old town. It's a gastronomic experience!

We gathered our Provencal picnic and made a gourmet spread in a nearby park where a couple were having their wedding pictures taken. Cutting french salami with the foil cutter on a corkscrew proved to be challenging but whatever, it was a Provencal picnic with a zillion cicadas as our orchestra.

Following lunch, we headed along le "route des vins" which took us through about a dozen small towns. They were cute and "provencal" but we've decided to change our itinerary slightly and only stay in Gordes (in the Luberon) for 1 night and extend our stay in Avignon to 3 nights. It's relaxing here and neat to see but 2 nights in a town with a population of 6 (slight exaggeration) might be a bit much for us. One unbelieveable thing was when we stopped at a wine cave (i.e. cellar) en route and bought a bottle of Cab Sauvignon for 2.85 euro. That's less than $5 CDN for a lovely bottle of red. Crazy!

The communication barrier has elevated slightly in rural France as well, but we suspected this might happen. We're getting by but most of the locals' English is like our French so there's a lot of gestures and simple talk - we're all like a bunch of toddlers trying to converse!

Went for dinner at a great lil' Italian place on a side street of cours Mirabeau and ordered all in French. Our reward was an after dinner liqueur we'd never heard of that tasted like it was 150%. Apparently, it was only 50% but whoa! we're both feeling a little pickled. It was a little nasty and packed a punch even for John.

On our way back to our hotel we concluded that it must be a big night in Aix. The road was blocked off and there were crowds of people watching classic cars. It was quite the spectacle with an announcer describing each one and then interviewing the driver. The announcer would then wave the french flag and the driver would parade down the blocked streets while the on-lookers clapped and whistled. Wild. The funny thing was that John and I had seen most of these cars on the backroads during our afternoon "route des vins" tour. What can we say, we're always in the middle of the action!

Heading to bed now. It's only 11pm here but the laid backness of the area has taken over, plus with the excitement of the car show and the 150% liqueur I'm done. On to the Luberon tomorrow.

Miss you all!!

P.S. Will try to post a blog entry tomorrow but not sure how things will be Internet-wise in Gordes so if worse comes to worse we'll post our antics and fantastics when in Avignon the next day. Hopefully that won't be the case but didn't want any worries if you didn't hear from us.

Love to all!

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