Advertisement
Published: July 24th 2011
Edit Blog Post
Ideal Palace
This is a view of one side of the Palace. Unbelievable! Nigel here. I have to say—the only way to really experience a country is to do a house swap. You get to stay longer (~3 weeks) and you immerse yourself in local culture in a way that is just not possible on a hotel excursion. On our annual trips to Europe, we avoid the tourist centres. For example, we are not visiting Paris this trip. By dedicating ourselves to the off the beaten track we avoid the other tourists. We align ourselves avec les vrais français. On mange les nourritures locales. On boit le vin domestique (qu'on ne peut pas acheter au LCBO). On parle la langue (plusieurs personnes qu'on rencontre ne peut pas parler que quelques mots anglais —merveilleuses). On achat du pain là ou nos voisins l'achat.
We are in food heaven tonight. Louis D. you could write a cook book here, seriously. We got a little lost (merci au GPS) on the drive home and ended up at a little produce stand in the middle of nowhere (well, in the middle of a lot of sunflower fields). We bought some local ravioli (which this area is famous for), some caillette (think pork & spinach paté only firmer
Lost in maze
This was the easy maze. Even Lori didn't get lost! and even more scrumptious), a fresh local melon, and some more (very local) wine. Man, that ravioli was incredible. Just with a little butter and some grated emmenthal on top. We had it with some chipolatas (local sausages) which were also a real treat!
Tonight's wine? Châteauneuf-du-Pape 2007 mis en bouteille par Henri Fabré, propriétaire à Châteauneuf-du-Pape, Vaucluse. The best so far. The name of the wine makes me think of Hollywood movies (James Bond, Humphrey Bogart). The wine comes from around Avignon and Orange a little south of us.
Lori here. We started off the day with a longer run (well, Lori ran while the others biked and stopped at all the parks we passed). At one point, Nigel directed Lori to go up a very steep hill - like the cottage but steeper and longer - and she managed to get a little lost in the small twisty roads up there. She did come down eventually though so that was good.
Then we headed out for our daily adventure. First stop, Saint-Antoine-l'Abbaye. This turned out to be a beautiful village with a gorgeous abbey, and a very picturesque village. We set the GPS to "non-toll
l'Abbaye
This is the Abbey. roads only" this time so we really enjoyed the drive. It reminded us of the back roads in England - windy and twisty. The drive really made the day even more enjoyable. Once we arrived, we sat and had our picnic lunch and then took a walking tour (unguided) of the village.
Next stop, Hauterives. This is the town that is the home of the Palais Idéal de Ferdinand Cheval. We had checked it out online but the web doesn't even come close to capturing this place. It is a palace that a postal worker built himself over the course of 30 years. It was based on a dream he had. After working all day as a mailman, he would spend his evenings carving this palace out of rock (and supplementing it with concrete formations with sea shells stuck in). The photos attached don't do it justice. The guy was clearly obsessive-compulsive.
The last stop was les Labyrinthes d'Hauterives. It was a set of 4 mazes of varying levels of difficulty made of bean stalks, lavender, cypress and chamillot (spelling may be off...some kind of tall tree). We spent a few hours there wandering around getting lost. The
Typical Bakery
This bakery actually had windows along the side of the building so we were able to watch him making fresh bread! kids raced ahead and found all the dead ends. And when they got lost they just crawled under the walls of trees and escaped (cheaters!).
Then, we blindly followed the GPS directions to take us home and she got us quite lost so we ignored her for a bit till we forgave her and then found ourselves at the market mentioned above.
There are many bakeries (boulangeries) in every town/village. In Saint-Antoine-l'Abbaye, we picked up some freshly baked meringue (another French delicacy), sablé au chocolat (shortbread with chocolate on top), and flan d'abricot (apricot flan).
Nigel said this was one of his favourite days so far. French culture galore. It's a tough one - I'm still coming down off the high (so to speak) of watching the Tour. But it was a very special day for us.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.045s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 8; qc: 24; dbt: 0.0277s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.3mb