Karlsruhe’s Finest Room At the Train Station

We make it, they have parking, they are open, they are going to give us breakfast in the morning, and they have an internet connection. They do not have air-conditioning or a non-smoking room. I slap down my credit card and grab the camera. I don’t even care if there is no shower at this point; I just want a bed. The room is giant compared to what we have been staying in and at first whiff the lingering smoke isn’t too bad. Unfortunately, it’s hot – really hot. We have to open the windows, which leads to the second problem: we are at the train station, so naturally, there are trains and strassenbahns and cars and drunk people all competing in a battle of decibels. I decide to ignore this, as best I can. Scott is deep deep in work mode and there is nothing on TV but an episode of Veronica Mars and while the storyline is interesting the person they chose to dub her voice is freaking me out so I have to turn it off. I lie down on the very comfortable bed and discover at that moment why it is important to have a non-smoking room. The blankets and pillows and mattress and everything else are rife with old, moldy cigarette smell. I find if I lay on my back and turn my head in the direction of the brightest streetlight known to man, I might just be able to handle it. I am pondering whether this would be considered second hand smoke or third hand and wondering about the health effects. For example, if thirty people smoked in this room over the last six months, am I breathing the remnants of thirty times second hand smoke? Even if this isn’t causing cancer, it certainly is causing a symptom known as “irritable Alexis with stiff neck,” not to mention a boyfriend who wakes his girlfriend throughout the night mumbling “disgusting, just disgusting.”

Google How I Love Thee, Let Me Count The Ways

We set out for our big drive to Germany. Our plan is really to drive the 8-10 hours it takes to get to Wurzburg and then have two days there rather than having to check into, and out of, a hotel along the way. This is not meant to be, because the evil French trucks now have help from the evil French highway construction projects to make sure that we cannot meet our goal. At one point when I was driving and waiting at a tollbooth we did not move for so long I popped it into neutral and put on the parking break for ten minutes– no need to overwork my leg muscles! We drive and drive and stop for food in some place that is like a weird French/German mix, because it is so close to the border. Finally, we cross the boarder on to the lovely speed-limitless German roads. In fact, immediately upon crossing, some BMW starts flashing his lights at Scott because he wants to drive 180 or something and we were impeding his progress. Anyway, we think we can push it to Wurzburg and I call our hotel (after calling the states to have someone look up the number – I wrote all of the hotel information down but the number; what was I thinking?) They tell me they are booked up and we cannot come a day early, ugh! What will we do? We decide what is best is to pick a place along the way since it is already 11 and get some rest rather than pushing it on further, but where to stay? The guidebook I have isn’t that helpful. I try calling the number listed for a place in Baden-Baden and no one answers. Not knowing enough about other towns along the way, including how large they are, I am loathe to just get off the highway and search because in those small towns you really don’t find anything open past 11. I finally I hit on an idea – We are near the city of Karlsrhue; I am going to test Google with the words “Karlsrhue” “hotel” and “Germany.” When I announce this plan to Scott, he suggests that the stress of the long road trip has gotten to me and that I am losing touch with reality. But, ha ha! Google – otherwise known as Alexis’ favorite thing in the world next to gazpacho – comes through and texts me back a list of hotels in Karlsruhe. So now we are speeding down the highway doing 160 kilometers an hour and I am frantically dialing on one cell phone (having procured a charger for Scott in Spain) and checking numbers and information on my phone. Several tired voices tell me they are booked up when, finally, I get a kindly old man who tells me we can stay at his hotel. I confirm the address with him and offer a slight involuntary cringe when he tells me they are directly on the Bahnhof (train station). But, hey it’s a room and I am beyond tired.

Americans Uber alles

During dinner we befriend a very sweet American couple who are actually around our ages – almost a breath of fresh air, since for our whole trip we have been the youngest everywhere we go. They were a married couple from Seattle. She runs some kind of graphic stationary business out of their house and he had a started a video game company that got bought a few years ago by some super duper leader in the industry. Apparently, he did the Lord of the Rings game, the kind that works with Playstation and Xbox (but not the one I put on Scott’s cell phone for me to play when bored). His grandfather worked on the Manhattan project as some kind of metallurgist, which was fascinating to hear about, particularly when they told us the story of his mother living at Las Alomos and knowing only that her father was working on something that would supposedly end the war. His mother, in her adulthood, came to be friends with a Japanese woman who had lived near Hiroshima at the time of the bombing. If that doesn’t have book written all over it I don’t know what does.

Is It Thursday? It Must Be France

We headed back to Provence and to Les Florets where we had eaten with Erin; this time we would stay at the Inn as well. The room was adorable with two tiny twin beds and a lovely giant bathtub. The dinner wasn’t as great as the first time. The menu was the same, but the amuse bouche was different, a cold cucumber soup with bits of smoked duck in it. Good but not great. I also ordered the salmon stuffed with asparagus mousse that Scott had eaten the first time and found that the mouse wasn’t as fine and there was barely any of it. Probably, the way I got it was the way it was supposed to be, since the first time we were there they weren’t anticipating as many people as they got and (we believe) they ran low on the crab and shrimp with which the mousse was supposed to be studded – so they just substituted more mousse. Or maybe the first time was the way it was supposed to be and the chef was out on our second visit. Either way, it was still a fine meal. We sat outside on the terrace and it began to rain, so they simply put up umbrellas and we were fine. They even carried the cheese cart out to us in the drizzle.

Cyber Café or Your Car: Really, What Is The Difference?

We move on the next morning around lunch time to a town called St. Jean du Bruel, that Scott has wanted to visit for the last ten years (I know I am prone to exaggeration, but this isn't one). We stop at the little hotel (called Hotel du Midi Papillon) for lunch; the place has reportedly been run by the same family for four generations. I screw my courage again and order duck confit. This is really because there isn't anything else I want on the menu, other than salad – and there is nothing to pare the salad with that is reasonably priced, other then some strange sounding cured ham (a town specialty). I don't really like ham, but thought about it for a bit. Finally, I nixed the whole salad/ham combo concept and went with the duck. Scott ordered the ham. Thank the Lord I didn't. It looked raw and while he thought it tasted great, I thought it tasted as raw as it looked. There were two gigantic purple pieces with giant edges of thick white fat, that looked as if it had just been sliced off the live animal and thrown on his plate, along with a pat of butter – not sure what you are supposed to use that for. On the whole my duck was great and it turned out that our dinners came with brimming bowls of vegetables, including one that I was sure was salsify and a giant bowl of artichoke hearts. Once again, not sure why the vegetables weren't listed, but whatever. The duck wasn't as good as Scott's had been, but it still might be a
meat I would consider in the future. Then after we get in the car I miraculously find an unlocked wifi signal and sit rooted to that fortuitous spot for an hour or more so I can post to the blog.

Time For Sleep and Wine

We stayed the night at a small town near one of the gorges. The room was nice (though also suffering from the aforementioned missing-shower disease). The food was good, not great, but by that point I had realized that nothing would measure up if the cheese plate didn't have shallot cheese on it! We walked around the town looking for the elusive "cyber" café (pronounced See-Ber, not that it matters because no one knows what you are looking for anyway). We found no cyber café, but the walk in this deserted riverside town was better than sitting on the internet anyway. We also passed an establishment called "Jeff Bar," with about a dozen men in it and no women. We couldn't tell if it was a gay bar or a sports bar; rather than try to figure it out we went to bed.

Gorge Photos

The Paris Cafe is Right Around the Corner from this Bridge

Paris Café

During our drive to the Gorges I of course needed food, so we stopped in a very cute town and decided to roll the dice and not consult our Bible – The Michlelin. We tried one place that was too smoky, and then settled in the end on a place called Paris Café. (I think there were only three restaurants in the town.). Scott had duck confit and I ordered a soup au pistou and onion tart. The restaurant had old pink flower wall paper that you would see in a western movie in a house of ill-repute. There was in fact a long staircase in the dinning room that I was expecting can-can girls to float down at any moment, or at the very least some crazy, obese French madam, but that didn't happen. The bathroom also had this strange sink contraption that had peddles on the floor that you had to step on to make the hot and cold water come out. However, they were so far under the sink it was impossible to step on them at the same time, so you have to play that step on the hot, quick step on the cold game the whole time, telling yourself that this ridiculous process is actually going to make the water come out in some tolerably fashion – instead you burn and freeze your fingers alternately, but c'est la vie. Back at the table the soup has arrived, in its own enormous terrine – I am given a bowl and a ladle. I eat two bowls, wondering if they forgot the tart and if actually I am expected to finish a terrine of soup that would feed a family of eight. Scott's yummy duck has arrived and he asks after my tart. Low and behold the terrine is whisked away – almost with spoon in my fingers – and is replaced with a giant onion tart – it is seriously a whole 9" (or maybe 12") pan that could feed the family of eight's next door neighbors. The whole thing cost 10 Euros and I realize I have a lot to learn about ordering in France. I also screwed up my courage and tried Scott's Duck; smart move, it was delicious.

Drive to Gorges du Tarn

The next day we set off again, and the weather seems to be holding, until we drive straight into another rain storm (or maybe the same one continuing to follow us). The ride is similar to all of our other rides: cute towns whip by as I read aloud from Heat and trucks try to run us off the road. There was an added bit of precariousness during the first leg of the trip because Scott was having some work crisis and wanted to drive while distracting himself by talking sternly into his cell phone. We also stopped to get gas at this huge market and I ran in to use the bathroom and was immediately taken in by the cheese counter. Those French don’t fool around with their cheese! While there was no shallot chevre, there was pretty much everything else and tons upon tons of Roquefort – because we are near the town of Roquefort where the cheese is made. The scenery took on decidedly new characteristics as we climbed steadily upward, entering an area knows as the Ardeche. We drive through treacherous mountain passes and the trees turn darker green, and leafy branches are replaced by confers. Then we came out on to a sort of misty plateau; visibility is poor for driving, but the mist makes the scene magical. Finally, after four or five hours on the road, we turn a corner after the town of Millau and are suddenly staring down into the several-hundred-foot-deep gorge, cut by the River Tarn. I had been getting a little annoyed about being cooped up in the car with super scary roads but when I saw gorgeous site that was the ride’s payoff, I knew I would have sat in that car for twice as long to see it.

Dinner Again at Cuq

Finally it is sunny. We spend the rest of the day laying around in the garden with the dogs of the house sunning ourselves and reading. And, best of all we can have dinner on the terrace! We meet a pleasant British couple who regale us with stories of driving from London to the South of France and how they walked in an anti-war protest in New York when they were stuck there in a blizzard years ago.They also spend some time telling us how terrible Blair is and what a disappointment he is. I find this comforting. I have to remember that America isn’t the only place that has a hated ruler. Dinner is once again fabulous, and Adonis makes the starter that was in the magazine, round courgettes (zucchini) filled with a meat and wine mixture in a very light lemon sauce, yum! He also makes duck, but since I am still a recovering vegetarian I’m not really down for the duck. Of course, Scott has already emailed them with my finicky meat eating and they have prepared a very nice pasta for me. Also, the night before they had lent me the first four episodes of the second Season of Desperate Housewives (what did I say about gay men?). I was in heaven, until I realized once again that I couldn’t get the internet to work for me.

One Star Lunch

The next day, also pretty cloudy and raining in the morning Scott decided to treat me to a lunch at a Michelin one star restaurant that is in the area. It was beautiful, awe-inspiring food and the dining room had a beautiful view of the surrounding country-side. I’ve never really been big on French food but there truly is something that they do with sauces as well as the mixture of uncommon ingredients that is different from anywhere else. Now of course I am going to come home and start taking French cooking classes. (Oh, I started with seared tuna that was out of this world and followed with lobster tail wrapped in this kind of shredded wheat like package. Every bite was a new and different sensation. I will have to add Scott’s wine choices later because my notes on wine are on scraps of paper jumbled together and will require time to go though. Scott had Cassoulet, which is the regional specialty. So special is it that half the hotels and restaurants in the area seemed to be name “Hotel du Cassoulet,” or some variation thereof. (I have no idea how you would explain to your cab driver that you want cassoulet south or cassoulet north or that you want to eat some cassoulet or sleep at some cassoulet, but it works for them!).

Reading Thomas Hardy in Toulouse

There might be nothing more indulgent then reading Thomas Hardy while sitting in a French bathtub looking out a window that depicts the bucolic scenery you are imagining while reading the book. I highly recommend this to everyone.

Bunches of Cuq Photos

Beauty at Cuq en Terrasse

We make our way to a small town outside of Toulouse, where will we stay at a Bed and Breakfast that has 8 rooms. Let me go on the record saying now that all B&Bs should be run by gay men! Scott has stayed at this place before and since he is a repeat customer we get upgraded to a room with views from the bedroom and the bathroom. Let me address the bathroom for one moment, aside from some odd cat theme going on (the room is called Le Chat Bleu), the bathroom is wonderful! There are absolutely no signs of European bathroom disease. There is a giant tub with (mosaic of a cat) a wonderful view. This is the portion of the trip where we move from European bathroom disease to something that is far better and clearly less contagious, called the missing shower, all just bathtubs with the handheld shower thing. It stills seems luxurious to me. One of the first things I notice is that there is a copy of the French Saveur magazine in the bedroom. Which of course I try to read, and what do I notice on page 8? The chef of our B&B showing off his recipes! This place is set high on a hill with an amazing view of fields upon fields of astounding colors of green morphing into yellow wheat and back to green again. I could look at it all day long and still not have drunk in enough of the scenery to cure my thirst. Since the whether isn’t great, we decide to just take it easy and enjoy the slow pace of rural French life, which consists, apparently, of eating, drinking, and sleeping. And, eat we do. Adonis, the Saveur-featured cook of the Inn, makes a delicious dinner and best of all I eat the cheese that I know for the rest of my life I will long for. It was a perfect chevre, coated in shallots that appear to have been soaked in wine. A local woman makes it for the boys and if you ever come across such a combination, by up the whole stock. Scott asked if I wanted to eat elsewhere for dinner the next night and all I could think about was that cheese! So, “no I want to eat here every night and I want my cheese plate to be only made of shallot cheese.”

Are We There Yet?

We start out on our long drive to France and while we would have loved a few more days in Barcelona the holiday has everything closed down and the city seems somehow empty so leaving for France it is. Plus, Scott is really looking forward to getting to Toulouse. Of course, it starts raining. My good news is that the combination of weird French Nose spritzing stuff and gallons of gazpacho seem to have helped my cold. I am now down to a small little cough and no more aches, I can hardly believe it. I think I have mentioned before that the French roads are terrible, but let me say it again. How can a country have so many trucks? I just don’t understand where they disappear to once they hit the French boarder? Do they dump their cargo at the boarder and return home? They don’t appear to advance much beyond the German boarder that is for sure. Despite the crazy trucks and the rain the drive is pleasant enough (for me at least since I am in the passenger seat). We pass a medieval town called Carcason that is amazing, this town was around in the 9^th century!

Cacaoalat!

On the way to picking up the car I noticed a bottle of cacolate (Ok I was searching hard!) – it tastes kind of like quick.

The Hunt For Food Catches Strange Art

It was our last morning in Barcelona and once again I was hungry! We set out to go to a market that we read about in the Batali book where you go to a stand and point to things in the market and they cook it for you. But, once again we are hit with our awful travelers luck and it is a holiday and everything is closed, including the market. Off we go on the food search; we are also looking for a charger for Scott’s phone since he needs to work and his charger was in his lost luggage. We walk around for what seems like hours and can’t find a restaurant with gazpacho. I just keep thinking of the soup of the night before and that is what I want to eat. Finally, we stumble into a square that I could have sworn we were in the night of the wedding with the bride and groom (but who knows – to the untrained eye, they all look kind off the same). This square is now filled with a giant piece of public art. There are male figures in what looks like a military formation. They are made out of trash – mostly soda cans, food tins, some computer leftovers. It is strange and disturbing and moving all at the same time.

Tapas, Tapas, and More Tapas

After our bus tour we headed over to Steve’s hotel, he was staying in one of the most luxury hotels in Barcelona – one night of his probably cost the same as our whole stay. We said goodbye to the New York girls who were heading off to Paris. And, the three of us, Scott, Steve and I headed to dinner. This was not before I had availed myself of Steve’s espresso maker in his room and taken all of the products that were offered, I was out of hair conditioner and sick of the strange French shampoo they give you in the little wet wipe packages. Its hard to find a restaurant on a Sunday but Steve’s concierge sent us to a small tapas place in a little alleyway that was amazing. I had three glasses of gazpacho (served in a wine glass rather than a bowl). I couldn’t get enough and am still thinking about it. We ordered half of the menu and ate and ate for what seemed like hours. We said Good-bye to Steve and headed home. The city is also always hopping, it reminded me a bit of new York. People don’t even go out until midnight and then come home at 5. However, we couldn’t keep up such a pace and we turned in early under the guise of wanting more time to sight see (but really it’s just because we are old). We saw Primus and Stacy at the hotel; by then, all of the other Americans were on their way home or to other points in Europe.

Sight-Seeing for Lazy People 101

Being so super lazy, and still suffering from the never ending cold, I decided that we should take one of the tourist buses around town, rather than trying to walk around under our own power. While a little expensive, it turned out to be a good idea. We were able to cover quite a bit of ground and learn some history (although, Scott was surprised that they made no mention whatsoever of the Spanish Civil War, even though Barcelona played a central role in that defining struggle). In fact the primary subject of the tour’s narration was the architect, Gaudi, the avatar of the “modernista” movement. Barcelona’s buildings are a hodgepodge of architectural styles, with fantastical modernista structures next to sober stone facades next to steel-and-glass skyscrapers. The city is filled with art and is very green. Most of the apartment buildings have balconies and the majority of these are filled with plants. We got off the bus to find some lunch and what should I notice but a woman drinking a bottle of Cacaoalat!

You Can’t go Wrong with Paella

That day Scott and I decided that we would have a day of recovery and would make no attempt to do anything other than lie in bed (and, possibly, eat). We spent the day reading and lounging and at one point Scott went our and found us Doner kebabs (which were good, but not as good as the ones in Germany!) Around 11:00 p.m. we were inspired by an invitation from Primus and Stacy to got to a restaurant recommended by Marc as having the best paella in Barcelona. The restaurant was called, I believe, Set Ports (Seven Doors, in Catalan), and has been in operation for over a hundred years. There was a line of people waiting for tables, none of whom seemed to be tourists, so we had high-hopes for the food. Marc was on the money: the paella was delicious (and so was everything else). I had read in our Barcelona guidebook about something called Cacoaolat (a local chocolate drink) and I wanted some at the end of dinner, but I couldn’t remember what it was called so I just asked for chocolate milk. The waiter thought that I was out of my mind, but was kind enough to bring me a small thing of milk and a tiny container of melted chocolate that I mixed in my glass. My companions thought I was nuts too. All in all, a great meal and a great chance to rehash the previous days experience.

Sunrise

Upon getting home we went to a plaza and bought some beer from some people selling six packs on the street at 5 a.m., then we all headed back to the roof-deck of our hotel to wind the night down. We sat on the roof with a smattering of American guests and a couple of Marc’s Barcelona boys and talked and watched the sunrise with the bride and groom. The whole experience was great and what a wonderful way to end such a special day, with the sun coming up on their new life and illuminating the whole city of Barcelona.

Happy Couple

The Reception

We hop back on the bus and drive about half an hour to the reception, which is in a venue right by the Mediterranean. The hors d’oeuvres at the cocktail hour were the best I have ever eaten at a wedding. They had grilled squid, spicy lamb kebabs, lots of delicious friend things, paella made with noodles instead of rice, the ubiquitous tomato bread, shavings of Iberian ham, little open-faced grilled sandwiches topped with a fried quail egg, and other items I can’t even remember. I even tried this weird thing on a spoon that was some kind of tomato thing with an anchovy on top, and I liked it! I ate so much at the cocktail hour I could barely eat my dinner. During the dinner, the Spaniards were doing some kind of wedding chant. Scott, rendered unusually exuberant by innumerable glasses of the delicious vino tinto they were pouring all night, felt that the Americans should not be outdone in the area of goofy wedding-reception rituals. So, we sent Stacy to all of the tables of American’s to recruit everyone into doing the glasses-clinking, bride-and-groom-kiss thing. We were successful and Julie later said she was happy we did that because right after the chant she had told Marc about the clinking thing. Also, it’s always good for Europeans to see that our country actually has traditions that don’t involve blowing things up. Dinner was fabulous. One funny note: there were different desserts for men and women, women getting raspberry coulis with their ice cream and men getting pineapple, which really looked great on the table. Then the cake was cut and Julie and Marc danced around the room to the song American Woman where Julie handed her bouquet to Allison and danced with her a bit. Then she and Marc danced some more with the cake topper and came and deposited it with Scott and I (there is a custom that you give this to the couple you think should next get married). The little ceramic duo were quite pale, with reddish hair, and somewhat stupefied expressions and Scott said they looked like they were the winners of the Danish Special Olympics. I’ve packed the funny looking couple away and maybe we can pass on the tradition somehow. We danced and danced until 4 am. There was an earlier bus that took some of the revelers home around 2; this included Erin who I didn’t see again in Europe.

American Girls Right Before The Wedding

The Main Event

The wedding is beautiful. The church is on the top of a mountain with a gorgeous view. Julie looks incredible as she comes down the aisle and even though I can’t understand a word of the proceedings (performed in Catalan), the ceremony is touching. Stacy is bawling, and she wasn’t the only one in the audience with tears in her eyes.

How Not To Get Ready for A Wedding in Barcelona, or Anywhere else

The first thing we discover when we arrive around three in the afternoon in a warm and sunny Barcelona is that I have the times wrong for the wedding. I thought we were to leave for the wedding at 6:00, but a cell phone call from Allison informs us that we need to be on the bus at 4:30 and the wedding starts at 6. We are way behind, and we still have to fix Scott’s suit. We miss the parking garage we are supposed to use and have to drive around the maze of one way streets to get back to it. This whole endeavor, plus parking and dragging our luggage to the hotel, shave off about thirty minutes of our precious time. We check into the hotel, which looks like it was designed top-to-bottom by Ikea: extremely small, with all of the vertical spaces used; the floors are painted concrete, the walls are white and green. What happens next is a lesson in how you don’t want to go about getting ready for a wedding. I had called Primus and Stacy before they left for Spain and asked them to bring some clothes for Scott, but we were thinking we could use the suit bought at Hugo Boss, by pinning the pants legs to the right length (the jacket, we thought, fit okay). Unfortunately, we have no safety pins and no time to find any. Jeff graciously pitches in by going room to room through the hotel, seeking pins. He finds a total of one, so Scott ends up trying to pin the pants using buttons bearing the hotel’s logo (like campaign buttons) that he took from a jar at the registration desk. I shower and pull on my dress, throwing make-up, hair brush and everything I might need into a bag to take on the bus. I then take over the tailoring duties and Scott, already frazzled, heads to the shower. He turns on the sink to brush his teeth, but then decides to hop in the shower first, leaving the sink running. Normally not a problem, except the water pressure is massive and the sink doesn’t drain. Within seconds, water is pouring onto the floor by the gallon, which Scott discovers because the water from the sink starts to flow into the walk-in shower. No time to deal with that problem, so we just throw some towels in the general direction of the newly-formed lake and hope that the people in the room below us have a sense of humor. I have pinned the legs of Scott’s suit, but for some reason they have come out too short and are now highwaters (fitting, given the flood in our bathroom). Meanwhile, the shirt that came with our friends is wrinkled and his shoes are the brown boots that have been worn the entire trip though rain and mud and we have no implement with which to shine them. And the jacket that we thought fit, really doesn’t: the sleeves are a good three inches too long. At some point we pull it together, as best we can, and make it to the bus. Sadly, our beautiful stress-free morning is a memory long gone and we are feeling seriously stressed. However, the bus ride is beautiful and uneventful, I ask around and get some missing make-up, Allison remarks that I look very nice for a 20 minute pull-together, and no one seems to notice Scott’s sartorial challenges. With all that, we are able to relax.

Holy Prices, Batman!

The next morning we head to our internet café for a bit, and again find it necessary to perform circus-like acrobatics in order to perch in the one square-foot of the café where the wifi actually works. Afterward, Erin and I set out to walk around the town – Erin wants to buy some gifts and I, of course, want to eat. Scott meanwhile has found a bookstore to buy the 2007 Michelin guide as well as a Spanish newspaper so he is taken care of and goes to drink diet cokes and read about the world at a seaside café. The town is incredibly beautiful – with small pebbled beaches, an old stone castle with a long pier stretching out into the azure Mediterranean, all sitting under the stalwart gaze of the looming Pyrenees mountains. Collioure is just 15 -20 miles from the Spanish boarder and the Catalan influence is quite apparent: the café/bar had signs up for the Barcelona football team and many of the signs had Catalan spellings (the road sign welcoming us the town was in French; the one on the way out was in Catalan). Erin and I walk into Les Templiers, a hotel that reportedly had art from Matisse and van Gogh, among other artists who stayed in Collouire at one time or another and would trade artwork for room and board. The walls were covered with art, but nothing that looked like the work of any of the masters. That done we continued our shopping/food expedition, only to realize that everything in the eateries was incredibly overpriced that all we could afford for breakfast were two tiny pots of honey. Lunch was a similar challenge: we finally settled on a creperie that served me a delicious crape for 9 Euros!!! After lunch, it is time to head out to Barcelona. It is here that I also realize that I have left my brand new, super comfortable, super cool $50 shoes in France – well, it was my turn to lose something after all.

The Beach Town In The Rain

We finally reach our destination: a small beach town called Collioure. We check in to our small room and find the surprise of a giant bathroom with shower and tub! We head off in the direction of a café/bar that we have heard has free wifi. Since we do not want to be wifi freeloaders, Scott orders some (undrinkable) red wine and I order an ice tea that comes in a small Lipton bottle for something like 3 euros. However, after we have ordered our totally overpriced drinks, we discover that we can’t get the wifi to work unless we are all the way in the back of the smoky bar perched precariously on stools at a very tall table. While we dawdle in the café arguing over who gets the computer – me to post blog stuff or Scott for his work (come on we are on vacation!) the rain starts coming down in sheets. Luckily we have located a restaurant across the way that is in the Michelin and supposed to be very good. It is good, and beautiful, although the tile work is a bit over the top. Every single surface in the restaurant is covered in them – it’s reminiscent of a Turkish bath. The food is great and you could really tell from the menu that we are almost in Spain. I ate gambas a la plancha!

From Avignon to Collouire

The day turns out to be cloudy and horribly wet. Since we all inexplicably neglected to bring CDs for the car, and since the options on the radio consist of talk shows we can’t understand and ludicrously bad French rap, we content ourselves during the long drive with taking turns reading aloud from Heat, a book by Bill Buford about his time as a cook at Mario Batali’s restaurant, Babbo. This succeeds in making me really Hungry.

When In Doubt, You’ve Lost Your Bag

Upon arriving home we discover that we have left the laptop bag, although not the laptop, at the internet place in Avignon. The bag contains every vital possession Scott had left. It means that we will be heading back to Avignon in the morning to try to retrieve it. But in the case of hoping for the best and planning for the worst, we start to think about what we will do if we can’t find the bag, which contains, among other things, the pills for Scott’s back. Scott says that if his back gets really bad the only choice might be for him to get on a plane home. I of course am rummaging through my mind recalling every acquaintance I have in Europe who is a doctor, most of whom I am sure would be completely unlikely to prescribe a narcotic to someone who phones out of the blue after ten years asking for one. But, you don’t know without asking! The next morning we close out the bill and Erin and I receive a talking to from the woman behind the desk (we forgot to cancel our dinner reservation). She goes as far as to pull out Scott’s email asking for the reservation and pointing to it over and over as she scolds. Whatever, I have a bag to worry about. We get back to Avignon and find the internet café and low and behold the bag! With everything still in it!

Dinner Found In St. Remy de Provence

We end up having a wonderful dinner at a restaurant in St. Remy de Provence, called the Jardin de Fredrick. It was adorable and had an artist in residence, something that was apparent as soon as we walked into the deep red and yellow dinning room, whose walls were packed with paintings. The menus themselves were hand-painted with different scenes of the area. I had a quick vision of a wizened artist, hunched-over, painting his menus like wizened, hunched-over monks illustrating bibles. Dinner was wonderful; in fact, we couldn’t decide if we preferred that to the night before or not – its true Michelin doesn’t steer you wrong!

Abbaye de Senanque

From the glorious view of the village we head to the Abbaye de Senanque, an ancient abbey that is fronted by a huge field of lavender. Unfortunately, the lavender was not yet in bloom, so that was a bit disappointing. The site was beautiful nevertheless. The sun was getting low and the monastery itself was already closed. Erin and I walked the grounds and let Scott sit and indulge his favorite pastime – reading the Red Michelin guide and looking for restaurants we can eat at. We had reservations to eat at our hotel but by that point it was getting late and we were too far away to make it back in time.

Gordes

Next stop? I have no idea, except that it was a village called Gordes, somewhere west of Les Baux. I was feeling the stress of the climb mixed with the illness and after taking more pills and sniffing more nose stuff I was once again happily snoring in the back of the car – until I was woken up to look at a village built stunningly into the side of a huge hill. Approaching the village, you see tightly-packed rows of sand-colored buildings, drenched in sunlight, clinging to a hillside so steep that the roof of each building is even with the ground floor of the building behind it. The sight is even more amazing when you remember that much of it was built hundreds of years ago.Even in villages that lack such a spectacular setting, the sun-soaked, sand-colored limestone buildings of the region are truly a wonder.

Loosing Erin

Erin chose not to visit the Chateau and we told her we would meet her in a store she had wanted to shop in. Only, I didn’t know where that store was. Scott and I ended up walking up and down the hill, from one end of the village to the other, searching for her. I was getting really worried. I kept thinking that someone had kidnapped her. (We had also spent the cash we had and I was parched.) We decided to wait at the bottom of the hill, at the entrance to the village, near the parking lot, thinking that at some point she would have to come down and look for us by the car. A bit after that we decided to give one more look in all of the stores up the hill and found her waiting at the top, assuming we were still a the Chateau and would have to pass by that spot on our way down. What a huge relief! We had lost 20 euros somewhere on our tour of the Chateau and I didn’t want to lose Erin too!

Many Photos of Les Baux

Les Baux-De-Provence – France’s Answer to Neuschweinstein

Our next stop is Les Baux-De-Provence, which is a small village built into an incredible scene of bauxite hills. On top of the town is an area called the Chateau, which is the ruins of an 11 century fortress that was inhabited by the Lords of Baux – called the race of eagles. The fortress is built in this arid rocky area on the top of a hill that gives way to sweeping views of the valleys below. The climbs were extremely steep and the stairs were original and therefore dangerous. At one point, some French man started babbling at me and seeing my blank look of idocy changed to English to inform me I was wearing the wrong shoes for the climb. This I was made extremely aware of because I had already slipped three times, thinking each time I was going to fall and crack my head. The Lords of Baux and their minions would apparently wait for invaders to climb up toward the heights of the fortress and then, as they scrambled desperately for a foothold, push them off into the valley. I thought that their craftsmanship would surely have been more than adequate protection from anyone with my klutziness.

Sur Le Pont D’Avignon

I wake up because my companions are calling me to look at something. It is the Palace of the Popes. According to the history that I pieced together from my extensive research (which included watching something on the discovery channel on the Knights Templars and wracking my brain for what I can remember from grade school history), it seems that around the 14^th century in 1309 (ok, I looked that date up), Pope Clement V makes the move and Avignon becomes the Christianity capitol. The French Popes began building this beautiful palace, calling in artists from Italy and the best furniture makers and all that. (The Rhone wine known as Chateauneuf-du-Pape takes its name from this palace: literally, New House of the Pope.) Toward the end of the 1300’s there seems to have been some disagreement with the cardinals and there were Popes elected willy-nilly – sometimes three at a time – one in Avignon one in Pisa and one in Rome. The various Popes spent some time excommunicating each other and arguing. Finally, they got it worked out, which of course is neither here nor there since we essentially drove up to the Pope’s palace and looked at the outside. Then we drove past the Pont St-Benezet, which is the first stone bridge across the Rhone. I tried singing the Sur La Pont D’Avignon, but I couldn’t remember all of the words. Finally, we reached our destination – an internet café – where naturally, after struggling with the French keyboard, I was unable to post anything. Century, Popes were finding it more and more difficult to deal with the political climate in Rome and decided to move their headquarters to Avignon, which was part of the Papal territories.

Breakfast The French Way

I spent half the night up coughing and the other half listening to the church bell and the trash truck. The lack of sleep didn’t help my illness and I woke up feeling like I had been crushed in the back of the trash truck. We went down to breakfast and found it too cold to sit on the terrace, repairing instead to the sweet indoor dinning room. Here we feasted on baguettes and jam with yogurt and super strong coffee. Sadly breakfast did nothing to help my head or my aching body. After breakfast we set out to find an internet café, but Scott thought it was time to find a doctor for me to see. Seeing a French doctor is my worst nightmare. In the end we agreed on stopping in the Pharmacy. Erin and I head in with high hopes, but after a few minutes of this woman gesturing toward her nose and asking something Erin can’t understand, I start to get a little worried. I can’t tell if she is asking me if I have a running nose or a stopped-up nose. Finally, the bewildered pharmacist calls over her co-worker who speaks some English and sets me up with some pills and something I am supposed to poke up my nose every few hours. I crawl into the back of the car, take the pills, poke and squeeze the spray up my nose, pull some sweaters over me, and drift off as Scott and Erin launch into some French lesson.

Dinner Extraordinaire

We unpack and change quickly and head out to dinner. We are going to a place called Les Florets, which is another Inn that Scott has been wanting to stay at and usually doesn’t have availability (we are actually staying there on the way back). The drive there is truly amazing, the fields of green are filled with round bails of hay and those straight funny pine trees; it truly looks like something out of a Monet painting. Erin and I are aghast at the beauty and I am jittery with anticipation of a full on French meal with cheese cart! Yum. Of course we will now be launching into the food portion of our blog, I can’t stop myself with the food photos even in the super fancy restaurants. The dinner began with Scott and I having classes of Cremant de Loire, a delicious champagne-like sparkling aperitif. This was followed by an amuse bouch of fromage blanc that had been mixed with herbs and toped with a tiny half of a hard boiled quails egg; it was light and refreshing and I could have eaten a large bowl (in fact, it is the thing from that meal that I most wish I could eat again). Erin and I both started with an eggplant dish that had feta, tomatoes, tepenade and amazing pesto. Scott choose a smoked salmon filled with incredibly smooth asparagus mouse that had chunks of crab and was served with a langoustine; it was truly amazing. Scott chose the wine from an extensive list of Gigondas, Vacqueyras and Chateauneuf du Pape. The inn is actually in the town of Gigondas and the owners also own a winery. Scott chooses a 1998 Domaine Les Goubers, Cuvee Florence, a Gigondas from one of the best recent vintages in the Rhone Valley. The dusty bottle arrived at the table at the perfect temperature and when decanted and finally poured into our glasses it was a beautiful burgundy color. The taste was deep and rich had many layers of flavor and, just when you think it has, ended there is another burst of flavor before it dies away. Thanks to the bottle-aging, there was no harsh tannin, just luscious fruit. Scott’s joy was evident on his face every single time he took a sip of the lovely liquid. Erin had a nice white fish for her main course, that was the most “provincial” of all of our dishes: it was on a bed of bulger with olives and tomoatos. I feasted on Scallops with sweet potato puree and covered in this almost sweet caramel sauce. Scott had lamb two ways – grilled loin and grilled lamb rib chop with pureed garlic and some kind of rich sauce from the pan. We were all satisfied. Then came the cheese! The man arrived with a huge cart, with the cheese broken into sections – goat, cow and ewe. They were designated oddly by small ceramic animals. We each chose four different cheeses to taste – in essence we got 12 unique tastes – it was like heaven. Scott expounded on the superiority of unpasturized cheese and the idiocy of American laws not allowing it in. Erin and I thought of ways we could smuggle it in, and I thought maybe I could just learn to make it. Of course, my ability to make cheese that is the equal of the cheese produced by villages that have been perfecting their craft for hundreds of years may be somewhat in doubt. However, since my culinary self-confidence knows no shame, I figured at least I could give it a shot, I mean making any cheese has got to be some kind of accomplishment and I think Erin and Scott would both eat it without too much complaint even if they hated it. I called the waiter over to find out the name of the cheese I particularly liked, but I couldn’t understand him, so he wrote it down for me: Picodom (from the Drome area, a small village called Derier Le Fit). Erin’s best cheese was Saint Felicien from Grenoble. Dessert came afterward and was amazing, with all sorts of lovely tastes mingling and creating new tastes depending on what bits you ate together. The whole meal took about three hours. The restaurant apparently had many more guests than they had anticipated and managed to serve them all. The service was such that all of the waiters belonged to the whole dinning room, at any one time a waiter would show up and look at the ticket on your table, then bring out the next course, or someone would come and clean away your tables. The wonder was how in the world theses places make any money: you essentially book hour table for the whole night, they are not looking to turn it over – and really, with a dinner that lasts for 3 hours, how could they? The price was also not outrageous; this is something that I am really going to have to research. We drove home in a food coma and I almost forgot about the plague that was wracking my body.

L'Orangerie

We arrive in Piolenc which is close to Orange, in Provence. We are staying at a small inn called the L’Orangerie; to get there we must drive down streets that were made for one guy on a skinny horse, not for ou Rav4 – and to make matters worse they are two way streets. Not that you could or would possibly drive two cars on them at the same time, just that you have to develop some sort of innate sense of when someone might have chosen to drive on your street the other way. If you have not yet honed your tiny-street-driving-sense, you had better hope there are no other tourists around that have no car coming in the other direction radar or you will have to back up. We pull into a beautiful little courtyard off of a tiny street and see our lovely little hotel. The architecture is so different from the German. In Germany it is all old buildings with red tiled roofs and wooden accessories. These building seem to be some kind of light yellowish sandstone and blocks of stone mortared together, with wrought iron filigree making all off the accoutrements from chairs to disease it is quite lovely if slightly spare. The European bathroom disease is a terrible affliction you should make sure your bathroom avoids at all cost, unless you are some kind of martyr that enjoys showering in a plastic box the size of a small coat closet. Showering in these boxes you are constantly challenged to a race with the water seeing who can finish first and thereby prevent the other from reaching their goal. The water will try to fill up the bottom of the plastic box and you will try to get all of the shampoo out of your hair before the bottom of the box is filled with water forcing you to turn off the shower. The malady also can include a balconies. We head in and our porter takes us up two flights of stairs to our room. The staircase, with wrought iron banister, is the kind you would have expected in John Astor’s house or maybe one of the Rockefeller's – for sure it was very grand when this ancient house was first built. Our room is at the top floor and aside from suffering the European bathroom lingering sent of sewage coursing through the air. A very common symptom that accompanies the unreasonable time required to flush the toilet, you will need to perform the flushing action 3-5 times in order for it to work. It requires 7-10 minutes to refill the tank between flushes which is strange since there is never enough water to actually make the toilet flush. At any rate, if this is not your idea of fun you should inoculate your bathroom against this ailment as soon as you can or when you start noticing signs of it behaving badly – toilets getting finicky, shower looking to race you by starting to fill up, that kind of thing, consult a professional immediately! Although we have ordered a triple we are given two separate rooms, which is a nice touch. The set-up implies that it could have been someone’s apartment with a dressing room attached, or perhaps servants quarters, or perhaps I am just being melodramatic. But it is like we have a tiny apartment. The only draw back – a church bell that seems to ring all night long and the tiny street outside that sounds like giant trash trucks are picking up every night after 1 AM or so. But, in general the dark wood and the hominess of the room are really quite pleasant.