More Notes from the Road

Some of my favorite things about Provence:

The paella at the market in Aix. French fast food. From the biggest paella pan I've ever seen. Beats the heck out of McDonald's, doesn't it?

Sundown. My favorite time of day anywhere, here the evening light glows golden on stone houses in narrow streets.

 Streets designed for cars and fire engines don't have this charm. Where I live form does not follow function, form follows parking. Everything is designed around the almighty automobile. Or the almighty fire truck. I suppose if your house is on fire and the fire department can't get down your street you'd go for a bit less charm...but only for a moment. 

The B&R picnics. In the most charming locations. One guide was so attentive she took Larry's shoes to the picnic so he wouldn't have to wear his slippery biking shoes.

Only one problem: how is he supposed to get to the picnic?

Oops.

The red houses of Rousillon. With contrasting car. They may not run but they are clearly what the well-heeled Provencal is driving...or decorating his driveway with... 

The tree-lined streets. Why can't we do this?

The occasional unexpected companion.

As we rode past the goats, Wally took a sniff and said "That explains the cheese!"

I loved the farms...

...and the clusters of dead snails on every weed stalk and fencepost. 

Seems a terrible waste in the land of escargot. But at least they're not eating my garden.

Tasting wine with Dennis McAuliffe, the only American sommalier in France...

...who is very entertaining. 

Did I mention we also learned some stuff?

The music...

...the dancing...

...and the local color. 

Boules, Petanque

Butterfield and Robinson's Provence biking trip begins today! We meet our bikes in a hilltop town. Very smart...

...because there is much less whining if the first ride is a screaming downhill. And the first day's ride is really to give the guides a chance to figure out who the troublemakers are. Who's wobbly, who's fighting, who's mist likely to get lost...

...who can dodge the sheep, and their, ahem, slippery deposits.

The sheepdogs have a tense moment deciding whether to stick to herding sheep or take up bicycle chasing. We have a tense moment too. They make the right choice.

We stop for lunch at Le Bistrot de Pierrerue in a charming one-street town too tiny to have a boulangerie. The French government apparently pays the tiny restaurant to open in the mornings so the locals have someplace to gossip, drink coffee, have pastries...maybe in reverse order. Maybe not.

 Maryvonne and Marc make us an incredible lunch of vegetable tarts, guinea fowl, lime tart with almond crust (I'm gonna try to duplicate this at home and if you're nice I'll invite you to sample it). 

We drink lots of rose. I eat more for lunch than I usually do in a week. So does everyone else. We can barely swing our bloated bodies back onto our bikes. 

We're staying at the fabulous Couvent de Minimes, owned by the same people who own L'Occitane in Provence. The nuns never had it this good.

We gather for a Petanque lesson - after showers of course and a quick nap. (Did I mention the hotel is on top of a hill? again?) Petanque is a bit like bocce but more cut-throat. The French say it came first; the Italians say Bocce did. 

Wally gets into it, in proper professional Petanque attire...

And scores for the boys. Check out his form.

Ann takes to it like a duck to water...

Note the perfect form AND the perfect attire.

Larry is so serious - and knocks the girls' (previously winning) balls into the next county.

Sally takes revenge...note the perfect form.

We have a lovely wine-fueled dinner in the cloister and I wonder about the nuns - this place was founded in the 1600's and the nun's graveyard is right outside our bathroom window.

Off for a well-earned rest I dream of wrinkled faces, each so distinct I could draw it, all a metallic blue. Creepy.

More adventures tomorrow!

Tired But Happy in Bordeaux

We find our bikes in St Emillion, and after a lunch of tartines we hop on our bikes and cycle thru the vineyards and forests of Bordeaux. We are not racing to be ahead of the Tour, so we ride at a leisurely pace, stopping to admire a view or take a picture. Gorgeous little roads - what they call a small road we would call a gravel driveway. 

Almost no traffic, ancient villages, stone chateaus. And wineries. Maybe you’ve heard of this one?

The hills are small; we race up them. I’m feeling strong. And so happy! It is sunny, there is a light breeze, not a car in sight (or a Col, thank God) and we can chat as we pedal along. We laugh, we tell stories, we point out the sights.

In the late afternoon we watch the end of the Tour in a lovely wine bar in St Emillion, with champagne and delicious wines and platters and platters of tasty morsels -  smoked salmon, foie gras, tapenade, salamis and cheeses, mozarella and the sweetest tomatoes. After all, this IS a B&R trip, and we hadn’t eaten in at least an hour! Gotta keep our strength up. When you’re training for your B&R adventure be sure to train in the eating and drinking as well. It can be tough to keep up!

In the wine bar there is the most adorable 8 year old boy. He is curious about the US, about us, about what we think of France, about who we like in the Tour. Fanny translates, we bond. He wants to visit the US; I want to adopt him. His mother, the restaurant owner, has other ideas. Oh well.

Hotel Grand Barrail. Oh yeah. 

No biting bugs (we were afraid they would come with us from the Roach Hotel, and B&R would be booted out of this fancy hotel. So far so good.) Our room is the entire tower. A bathtub the size of a cruise ship. 

Our own private espresso machine. Acres of space - there is room for all our luggage and us. The lap of luxury. We unpack to organize; we have been pulling things out by the sleeve and leaving wads of clothing trailing out that gets stuffed back into the suitcase - no room to open - and things are a mess.

It looks like a bomb went off in our room, but it’ s so big we don’t care - we just kick the stuff into the corners and after a long soak in the tub collapse on the bed. Tired and Happy. 

At dinner Annik yells "The Tour de France caravan is coming by! Come outside!" We do, and find Fanny on a bike on top of the B&R van flinging bike jerseys about. 

If George could see her now!

Tomorrow: The Time Trial, the race of truth. And meet the players, our fellow travelers.

The Tour de France

Riding the Tour de France with B and R seemed like a good idea when we signed up. We would have the winter and spring to get in shape, John was having a significant birthday (it rhymes with heavenly, sort of), and he was planning a big European birthday bash. So we made hotel reservations and bought plane tickets.

Then his grandchildren's mother said no thanks to an all-expenses-paid European vacation (I know, I know, you're not the first to say "Adopt me! I have cute kids!") so John and Pam will head home after the ride. But we're still doing the ride.

I suppose I should confess that we had had several bottles of excellent red wine when we got this Tour de France brainstorm. I should also confess that in the wet and cold of winter as we were drinking more red wine instead of riding we rationalized: "We can get in shape in the spring." That was the red wine talking. And in April when we were just beginning to rack up some longer rides interrupted by lavish lunches we rationalized that we still had two months...

Or not. I spent all of June in bed coughing and sniffing and wheezing and sleeping. Finally got drugs and swelled up like a big purple grape. An itchy purple grape. I won't pass the drug test because of the steroids I took to quell the rash, and I'm not any faster. And did I mention we are the oldest people on this trip by about a hundred and twelve years? But at least I'm not itchy and purple. And we're here, ready or not, to ride the B&R version of the Tour de France.

So we will be riding the last week of the Tour including the Col de Tourmalet. As Wally says, "I've never met a hill I can't walk up." I've also never seen him walk up a hill. I, however, have walked up many a hill, whining and swearing and eventually getting back on my bike.

And since in is a Butterfield trip with excellent food and wine, training takes on a new dimension -

You can't eat all that wonderful food and drink all that fantastic wine without training. So we are in training. Tales of adventures, triumphs and tribulations to come. I keep reminding myself the worst experiences make the best memories.And the best stories.

The Housesitter Chronicles

It's almost more trouble than it's worth, getting the housesitter up to speed.  But we have animals depending on us (not the gophers and ground squirrels, they seem to do fine on their own). And we have a garden - a rather large garden.

So the housesitter comes to learn how everything works. And since it is hot, and since we are trying to get some miles in our legs (and other body parts thank you for noticing) before the day is scorching hot, she comes at dawn. On a Sunday. And of course in showing her how the alarm works it goes off. And in the interest of education, and making sure she can turn it off when we are gone, we let her turn it off. This takes a while.

Sunday morning in the suburbs. When the alarm finally quits banging and screaming we peer out the front door. The street is full of neighbors in bathrobes looking slightly stunned. They look like they have just emerged from a chrysalis and are not sure what to do next. Blinking at the bright light of day. Not happy. Definitely not happy. As one usually pleasant neighbor pointed out "It's not even eight effing o'clock. On Sunday effing morning." In fairness he does have unruly children who were probably up until dawn, and he was clearly caffeine deprived.

A few jars of homemade jam, a liberal distribution of home baked cookies and neighborhood harmony is restored.  When we last saw her the housesitter was prone in front of the TV watching QVC, the alarm had been conquered and the neighbors all fully caffeinated. Harmony restored. And we are off to ride the Tour de France with Butterfield and Robinson. Makes my tushie sore just contemplating it.

Breakfast in Tuscany

Sigh. I am dreaming of being in Tuscany.

We rented a house a few years ago, near Sarteano. The view from the top story was just like this. And being south of Sienna, few tourists ventured there. Most stay on the well-traveled route between Florence and Sienna. But we had been to Locanda dell Amorosa ...

...on our fabulous Butterfield and Robinson biking trip in Tuscany, and had been captivated by the quiet, the small lanes, the sleepy towns full of Tuscans not tourists. Finding those quiet lanes and towns is a B&R specialty. Finding a house to rent and friends to share it was a stroke of luck.

There is a hotel, Sette Querce nearby, Restaurante Daniela (too small and simple to have a website, but oh that food!) is just a few steps up the hill from the hotel, and a world-class restaurant, Mondo X  in a former 12th century monastery is within driving distance. Take your GPS and go! Mondo X is worth any amount of trouble. Charming, quirky, whimsical, delightful - check out the sinks in the women's room (can't you just see the nuns washing up there?) and the passageway to the dining room.  And the meal was unexpected, unusual, delightful delicious...I'm getting hungry just thinking about it.

I am going off to fix breakfast and eat in my garden. But I am dreaming of breakfast in Tuscany.