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St. Paul de Vence "street"
What a beautiful place. Shops lining the cobble stone "streets" (no cars on the inside).Leaving Nice we went to another medieval town called St. Paul de Vence. This is another cobblestone walled town that is pretty much an artist community. I loved it here!!! Just loved it. Art and sculpture everywhere and the shops in this place were full of artists as well. (I bought a handcrafted leather purse here - the artisan was sewing them in the shop - if only I had room for more!!). I was so happy to have several hours here and I suppose if I had more I would have spent a lot of money. Lunch was overlooking the view of the countryside and the Mediterranean in the distance, a great salad and great wine. If you are ever in this area, I highly recommend a stop in to this town.
On to Avignon.
Avignon is another medieval walled town once called the City of the Popes because of the papal palace here. Avignon is on the left bank of the Rhone River and that famous bridge St. Benezet bridge (maybe you know the song? “Sur le pont d’Avignon?”). Avignon was a great city and we stayed here in a really wonderful hotel for 3 nights. My room
From the walls of St. Paul de Vence
See the sea on the horizon? And the beautiful countryside punctuated by another sculpture. was amazing - I had a sitting room and a garden terrace! After a short tour of town we were back to the hotel and a hosted dinner that was not too bad with wine of course.
I had a great great stay here in Avignon. Did I mention this is in an amazing wine region? Yes it is near one of my very favorites - Chateneuf du Pape! Oh yay me!!! We went on a tour of an olive mill - which may sound boring to some but I love olives too. We walked out to the olive groves and learned about how they are grown and what are the things you take in to consideration - different harvest times, different olives, when to press, when to consume your oil (within 2 years of its press date) and how they all taste so different - olives and oils. We saw the olive presses as well and how it is prepared and ended it all with an olive oil tasting. Olive oil and tapenades! We made plenty of purchases here - jars of tapenade, olive oil, goodies.
Next stop - Wine Tasting!!! YAY!!!! Yes a great winery in
Baby Olives
Close up of Olive branches - can you see the baby olives? Chateneuf du Pape and I had a fun time. I also managed to snag the very last bottle of the Dedication wine from a great year. Yup. Sitting in my wine fridge now. I will let it sit as long as I can stand it. I think it needs another 5 years. Talk about torture. I also made a fun purchase here - something called a wine bag. I had not seen this before - essentially it is a plastic bag that you put your wine in and fill with ice and water. Voila - portable chilled wine. After our tasting we went to the top of a hill to some ruins and a great view where I got to really get some close up looks at the unique soil of this region - very big stones called galets. If you look at this soil otherwise, seeing how rocky it is, you would not automatically assume it grows such wonderful grapes. I have some pictures of this. Again this is one of those experiences I treasure as a wine enthusiast - standing in a vineyard in Chateneuf-du-Pape. This was a happy day.
The next day, I chose not to
City of Avignon
A view of the city with walls and Papal Palace from the outside. go sight-seeing and instead went on a wine tour. I tried to join a group but at first was told there were no other groups going so they may not be having a tour. I was lucky enough to have them call in the morning saying they decided to do the tour. I don’t mind giving this shout-out here to this great company - Avignon Wine Tours. They picked me up at the hotel and that is when I learned I was the only one on the tour! I got a personal tour that day and it was simply amazing. I use this word a lot. I am not finished yet either - I guess I should pull out the thesaurus for more words to say wonderful, great, splendid, amazing, incredible, awesome… Francoise and David were my escorts for the day. Before Francois started this business he was a Maitre D with a love of wine from high end restaurants (I think in Paris) and David is a sommelier with a similar background so I was obviously in the company of very knowledgeable men. David had just joined the company and was learning this new wine route which is how
Blue Door
This was the front of a really beautiful place. There were many like this but this one was striking. I was able to get this personal tour. Of course this meant Francoise was also taking the time to point out things to David but that actually made it even better for me. I could really go on and on and on about this tour so I will try to keep it as short as my enthusiasm can manage.
Starting at our first place in Tavel, it was all about the wonderful rosés. Tavel is rosé. Francoise started off with a tutorial on the regions, the soils, the proper tasting technique. We sampled several wines here and moved on to our second stop. This place was great too - and here is where I had my favorite wine of the day - a white Lirac (Apellation Lirac Controlee) that was just phenomenal. I bought two. While here a group of 5 Austrian’s came in to sample and they were looking at me curiously because I had two big debonair men in suit jackets standing behind me while tasting, who carried my packages and held the door and walked in front and behind me as if they were my body guards. After we left we were giggling that these guys
Chateneuf-du-Pape vineyard
See the large stones? this is a mark of the area - the stones absorb the heat from the sun and release it in to the dark hours back to the vines. were probably googling me right then to figure out what important person was just in the same winery as they were! Ha ha!! Francoise and David had great senses of humor and we laughed our way through the day. We drove through quaint towns and even better, through beautiful vineyards. The music they played in the car was perfect - a combination of classical, opera, French music, american jazz - just a great mix that always seemed to match where we were. There were “surprises” built in to the tour and one of them was they brought me to the Roman Aqueduct. They dropped me of on one side and gave me time to walk over the aqueduct and meet them on the other side. It was great!! The weather was perfect. We had a typical provencal lunch (bull’s meat in a red wine sauce for me with a cake and cream for dessert - with wine of course). We went to two other places including a winery that was also a working archaeological site - they recreated an ancient Roman winery and it was super cool!! They showed how they grew them, harvested and made the wine and then
Roman aqueduct close up
A closer view. It was pretty cool to walk near this feat of engineering. we tasted some. Not the kind that I would buy and drink all the time but it was interesting none the less. They also had “modern” wine. I bought a bottle of Roman wine to share with the group.
To sum up this very long description, I can’t wait to go back. I think this is the day I firmly fell in love with Provence. I was already there after St. Paul de Vence but after this day, I knew I have to come back. And you can bet I will look up Avignon tours again - they have five more tours they offer and I want to go on them all!!
This night the group of us met in the garden courtyard with bread, cheese, olives, and other such goodies and we all brought wine. I shared 4 or 5 bottles that I bought along the way including the Roman wine. It was the perfect end to a perfect day. 😊
I could not decide between all my wonderful pictures so I just included a LOT. Not all go with the narrative (for example the frog!) but oh well. I'm sure you won't mind.
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