Marv and Terry du Rhône

On Wednesday August 19th, Marv and Terry made it into Toulouse with their shady rental car, complete with Marv's underwear being used for an oil cap (must be some kind of Canadian French thing, I don't know). They had been in France since the prior weekend, touring Paris and then driving down, visiting castles in the Loire Valley. They stayed with us for two nights in Toulouse before we headed for Provence together on Friday morning...at 9am sharp! (technically it was 9:35am but Randi is getting tired of me crackin the whip to get on the road)

We made a stop in Arles, saw the smaller Roman arena and had lunch there, on the way to the Abbaye de Sainte Croix Hotel in Salon de Provence. The hotel is a converted XIIth century abbey, located on one of the foothills of the Alpilles, which provided an incredible view of the surrounding area, from their outdoor restaurant. I am currently reading 'Pillars of the Earth' which is an excellent book whose main character happens to be a 12th century monk. I learned from the book that monks had no personal possessions and no money of their own but they lived more like lords than peasants. They had good food, warm cloths and fine stone buildings...and apparently sometimes a really nice pool, as well as excellent bar and room service. Also as a monk you need to take three vows ...poverty, celibacy and obedience. It's good for us that this Abbaye was not enforcing any of those for us that weekend...except for maybe a taste of poverty when we checked out.

That first night there we took a ride into the small town of Salon de Provence for dinner. We found a really nice spot there at the 'La Salle à Manger'. The daughter of the owner spoke English and came to our table to read the entire menu to us, without our asking. It was nice though. She gave us her impression of some of the dishes and explained some of the subtleties of the ingredients, spices and/or cooking methods being used. Some of the French folks around us were starved for attention and I could see them watching her incredulously while she read the menu to us verbatim. Her catering to us was totally the opposite of almost every story you hear about how Americans are treated in restaurants in France. When it was time for dessert she brought the menu which listed 40 desserts!!...we told her she didn't need to read all 40. We were all very satisfied with everything there and would recommend it highly.
Afterward we took a stroll and wandered upon an outdoor festival that we ended up staying at for hours, dancing to AC/DC and the Rolling Stones, among other rock covers. It was totally unexpected but it was exactly what we were all looking for as it turned out. The band's lead singer was trying to act/dress like Angus Young of AC/DC but with a kilt?? His singing was at times horrendous and hilarious but his attitude seemed great and everyone there seemed to like him. Also, I thought he looked a lot like our friend Steve Nelson...the thought of that being Steve up there made it extra special for me. It was definitely veird.

The next day we took a trip to Saint Remy to see the église Saint-Martin there (is it old ?....ah-yeah!!) and Nostradamus's childhood home...I KNEW we would see that there. From there we drove farther north through some incredibly beautiful country. It is said that St. Remy is where Van Gogh painted Starry Night. This painting is seen everywhere it seems and I hope to have it somewhere in our house at home someday as well.
We drove through Avignon without stopping at the Pope's Palace but instead continued right to the Pope's wine region, Châteauneuf-du-Pape. They are known for some incredibly great wine...it's the Pope's wine for gosh darn...he used to live there between 1330 to 1370 before moving to Rome. We both bought a couple bottles there and then found a deserted road right next to the Rhone river to stop and try some. We drank one of the Château La Nerthe bottles and then another cheaper bottle we had brought with. This lead to all kinds of à côté de Rhone related activities...see du Rhone, rock du Rhone, sing du Rhone, skip du Rhone, pee du Rhone and the crowd pleaser John Wayne du Rhone..."so yer one of them Frenchies huh". Finally Marv decided to 'climb du Rhone' when he climbed up an abandoned, fenced off, private property type, ancient castle tower, while I stayed back with the girls...and felt like one. Of course I could say I needed to stay with my illegally parked stick-shift car that the girls couldn't move...but in reality I didn't want to get all shi*ty, sweaty, dirty and possibly scratch up my man purse. We didn't think he would get in there and up there...but never underestimate Marv. Notice his hand waving from the small murder hole in the photo on the left, as we tracked his progress up the tower. He did get a little dirty and cut up but he was not to be denied. It was really very impressive. We're just real happy he didn't kill himself goin up there.


We had a lot of fun that day. After having dinner in the small town of Châteauneuf-du-Pape, we drove back through the starry night and stayed up until the small hours, in Marv & Terry's patio area off of their suite...great spot.


The following day we went to Nimes. There we saw the ancient and amazing Pont de Gard, built in 50 AD by the Romans, of course, to bring water from a spring to the city of Nimes. It looks like it must have been a lot of work for back then...like "what are you crazy?"


From there we drove into the town of Nimes and visited a larger, more impressive Roman arena there, which is considered the best preserved Roman amphitheater. It could hold 24,000 blood thirsty spectators. There were many stops within the arena with information boards in French and English. It focused on the life of the gladiator, as opposed to a similarly impressive story told inside the Colosseum in Rome, that focused mostly on the building itself and the history of Rome. We found out there were different types of gladiators, depending on what their armor and what their weapons were. There was the Provocator, the Thrace, the Hoplomaque, the Mirmillion, the Secutor, the Arbelas, the minimally armed but quick and scrappy, Retiaire and finally everyone's favorite, the small and equally as scrappy, Randiator...shown getting ready for a big match. The message we seemed to come away with in the end, was that the sport of gladiator fighting was at first somewhat civilized and noble but as time went on, they ruined the sport, until it became shamelessly brutal by around 300 AD....kinda like what they've done with the commercialization of the NFL in the last 30 years but different.

Marv and Terry took the fast train (TGV) from Nimes back to Paris, for their flight the next morning. It was sad to see them go...time flies so fast but it was a really fun weekend and we are so glad they were able to vacation in France and visit us.

Saint-Antonie-Noble-Val

On Saturday, August 15th, we went for another 90 minute drive north in the same Le Lot region we've gone to now a few times and saw another cute little medieval French town, Saint Antonin Noble Val. It seems like we've seen a Lot (pun there) of these type of towns lately. I'm starting to take pics with a snobbish attitude. I have Randi at my side reading one of our travel books and I'll say "ok, where's the cathedral?...how old?...any gargoyles?...if ya see an old guy with french bread in his hands, walkin up a really steep cobblestone street, let me know". But Saint Antonin Noble Val proved to be a beautiful little town in it's own right.

On the way back we drove through the Gaillac wine region and went to two tastings. One was at the Manoir de L'Emmeillle which since visiting there we found out that it's for sale for a cool 3.2 mill. The vigneron there Charles Poussou was very nice, helping us with our wine selection and our french. He corrected Randi repeatedly on how to say "deux". It seems simple but it's really not. Before leaving the Gaillac region we parked on the side of some little deserted road and cracked open one of the bottles we bought. We didn't have anything else to do, so we walked through some of the vines, eating and drinking the grape. It was another
bonne jour in southern France.

Back Together Again

Our children arrived in France on July 28th. What a sight for sore eyes. Randi and I couldn't wait to hug them. They were all exhausted from the long trip here and from the beer in the Amsterdam airport. They thought they all looked horrible but they all looked great to us.
We let them adjust from jetlag for just the one day and then rented a Citroen C8 van and took them on a European "Road TRIP!!" And not just a little weekend drive in the country...oh no...it wasn't over there. Nothing's over until we decide it is! Did we stop at just seeing the French Riviera ? ...no! Did we stop after then driving to Cinque Terre Italy ? ...no! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell, no! I'm on a role now. How bout after we then drove to Barcelona Spain ? You're damn right it was over then...2600 kilometers sounds like a lot more than 1600 miles but either way it was enough driving for Dad. But I will add that I had been posturing for over a couple weeks to not go to Barcelona but everybody was up for it when the time came...and they were all right. We were all glad we went. The whole itinerary turned out to be a success and we never hit any of the July/August holiday traffic we had been warned about many times by our French friends.

We spent the first 3 nights in St. Tropez. We chose the location for it's beaches and were not disappointed with that or our hotel choice. However, the size of the yachts and big money being throw around was a little too glitzy for us...but we kinda knew that going in. We had kind of a high-brow spot on St. Tropez's main beach area the one day where we had rented lounge chairs and umbrellas. It was right next to the Nikki Beach (private) valet area, where they will take you and your luggage to and from your yacht to shore...I thought about just paying to have them drive us all away from the shore, circle around some usually large watercraft and back...I could hit the beachhead with style. Chris liked when he ordered a drink after lunch and the waiter told him to "go back to your mattress"...apparently he wanted Chris to get back to his reclining position and spare him the difficulty of carrying the drink there himself.
Our hotel was called the Hôtel L'Orangeraie. It was really a beautiful spot, in a mansion that was converted to a hotel. The rooms were very comfortable, the breakfast was good and the pool was nice. The service there was excellent as well. The pool boy, Jullian, became friends with the whole family it seemed and is even Facebook friends with Randi now...nothing wrong with her being friends with the pool boy right?? We had a beautiful rooms with huge windows that looked out over the pool and to the sea beyond. The kids had a room for 4 with a large stone balcony overlooking the pool. We would love to go back there someday and recommend the hotel highly to anyone going there.
From there we drove just a couple hours to SanRemo, Italy...just over the border from Monaco. We stayed there for just one night at the Ariston Montecarlo Hotel. We liked it there, even though room #72 was quite a bit nicer than room #73 (like it was built in a different era). The pool there was huge and deep. I talked to the pool boy there...he was more of a Bill Murray type guy...he said "that pool is more like a lake than a pool". The hotel had free bike rentals and the town
has a nice path next to the ocean and away from traffic. The boys met a friend there named Max. He was staying there with his family from Holland for 2 weeks! He was near the end of his time there and Max was well connected by that time with the downtown area. He convinced his Dad to drive them downtown and they convinced me that they were ok going and would take a taxi back. I don't know the whole story but they went to the Casino there, they didn't have much money left for a taxi and ended up walking, sometimes running, like 30 minutes back to the hotel.

Then we went to what everyone agreed was our favorite location, Cinque Terre, where we stayed in Manarola. The Italian food was wonderful. The people were great. The towns were beautiful and interesting. The hiking trails were amazing. We took the easy hike called The Lover's Walk between Manarola and Riomaggiore the one day and we took the train to visit Monterosso and Vernazza the other days. The train was a locally run, very unreliable, Petticoat Junction kind of setup. The one day we took it half way to Monterosso when it stopped half way there in Cogniglia. The train engineer came inside our car and we all assumed he was going to check our tickets but instead he yelled a couple sentences of Italian at everyone in the car. We were all sitting right by the door with this blank look of 'me no understanda the wordsa comin outta your moutha" on our faces when the guys finally yells "Get out!!". We understood that. We waited for 10 minutes for another train because that one had to go back in the direction from whence it came???...we don't know why??...we were told to get out...we got out...no big deal...kind of amusing.
Our gang had a lot of fun there...staying up late and hanging out with the local kids from the town. By the time we left my daughter Alli was being romanced by the 'pizza boy' ...she said he was picking flowers for her and eating fruit off the trees :) My step-son Josh was falling in love with Jasmine, one of the waitresses there. My step-daughter Brooke was playing tamborine for a local band at the bar. Chris was still makin "good karma deposits" with the girls....that's a term the boys told us. We called them 'the bankers' after that. The longer we stayed there the more we liked it. No one wanted to leave.

From there we went to Aix En Provence and stayed in a beautiful old country home... very romantic, nice pool...but no air conditioning!!..and the bed was about two feet too short for me!! But we enjoyed walking through Aix that night. The kids were able to experience the typical French restaurant experience that we've had many times here...where they seat you right away and then put you in a virtual isolation tank. We sat for maybe 15 minutes without getting anything, including water and we were all very thirsty. We finally got their attention when we got up and walked out. I was proud to see that none of us were ashamed to go to a Chinese restaurant right next door. I knew it was the right move right away when they immediately gave us water with two bowls of ice!! as well...nobody! gives out ice here. We had reservations to stay at that hotel for two nights but after the night of bad sleep we all made a quick decision in the morning to not stay a second night but instead leave for Barcelona a day early.

Barcelona was great. What an interesting and beautiful city. The old Gothic Quarter area of the town is really cool. The beaches were really nice and not crowded. The different works of Antoni Gaudí are all incredible to see. We've seen a lot of churches since we've been here but nothing like Gaudi's La Sagrada Família. He designed it to have 18 towers, 12 for the 12 apostles, 4 for the 4 evangelists, one for Mary and one for Jesus. It's still a 'work in progress' that they hope to have finished by 2026, which would mark 100 years since his death but most people think that is still optimistic. The only existing copy of his last recorded blue prints were destroyed in 1938, during the Spanish Civil War. So now the continued design of the church is a WWGD...what would Gaudi do...kind of mode. It's really incredible to see how he incorporated nature's angles and curves throughout all his work. The other incredible thing about our stay in Barcelona was our very modern and very nice hotel which we stayed at for $59 a night!! We couldn't believe it. The kids all were asking us why we were spending so much money on a hotel like that and we were telling them that it was the least expensive out of all the hotels we were at. I talked to the lady working there about it and she said their prices fluctuate a lot. They are 15 minutes out of downtown and across from their convention center. She said this next weekend there is a convention there and that same room of ours would be $300 a night. We hope to visit Barcelona again and hope to stay there for $59 again. The boys again had a late night, going with some girls from England to a pool party...not a regular pool but the 1992 Olympic pool party. I think the young bankers may have made a withdrawal that night??

Finally we had a couple days in Toulouse together. We did some shopping and spent more money, buying the kids some clothes...and tried to make time stop. We are staying the apartment now, with the lights off...letting our checkbook recover.

If you're in France and your frig stinks...

I would bet money that I know what it is...9 times out of 10, even if it's fresh and properly stored...it's probably Camembert cheese.



I'm not buying the sh*t anymore.