From: grob@chorus.fr (Lori S. Grob)
Newsgroups: rec.travel
Subject: Re: Touring Provence (France)
Date: 6 Oct 92 15:34:12 GMT

I have a trip report (of sorts) about Provence that I 
have been working on in my few spare moments since I got 
back from vacation in August. 

Rather then wait until I have finished it, which is likely
to be never, I will post the 1st part now, so if the person
asking about Provence reads the group he/she can 
profit by it. 

But I have to say that people who post and say everyone give
me some information and send it to me since I can't bother
to read this group so no one else will ever profit from it,
don't exactly inspire me to go out of my way to be helpful.

If someone nicer than I (not too difficult) wants to send
it to him/her please feel free. But I am posting it so
that anyone who is a reader of the group and is looking
for some tips about Provence, the Rhone Valley or Burgandy
can take advantage of it. Also, its nice now to be reminded
of my vacation.

L S. Grob
---------------------------------

But better late than never here it is:


Before I left on vacation there were a number
of questions about Provence, the Mediterranean Coast, renting
apartments and houses in France, etc. Now that I have
just returned from my vacation and while I am still smiling
I thought that I would post a description of some of the things
that we did and saw and some of the places that we went.

What I am trying to do is give a sense of what we saw and where
we went.  I am not going to give a lot of details that are best
gotten out of a guidebook. This is probably going to be long
winded enough.

For exact information on sites and what there is
to see I  recommend the Michelin Green Guides
for Provence, The Cote d'Azur and The Rhone Valley.

I will post the prices of things where I remember them.
I will try and say what would be more or less accessible
to people who don't speak French. 

------------------------
For the 2nd year in a row we spent a few weeks this summer
on the Mediterranean Coast near Bandol. We rented an apartment
in a little place called Six Fours le Plage. It exists basically
as a summer community but it is in between two small and
charming little fishing/pleasure ports and just right in back
of Six Fours, when you are 10 minutes from the coast, there are
plunging hills, steep cliffs, farms and country that looks lovely,
wild and isolated. Where ever you go the air smells of the lavender
and wild herbs that grow there.


To get there from Paris you can take the train or you can
drive. The train takes about 6 hours. Since we were staying
in this small community on the coast and we wanted to drive around
to various little hilltop villages we drove down.

The whole drive could probably be done non-stop 9 hours with no
traffic. But we are talking about France in vacation season, right
after the trucker's strike, so no traffic on the autoroute would be
a fantasy.

Being in no rush, and knowing that even if we tried  to leave
early, we would really end up leaving in the afternoon, we decided
to take a few days to get there. This would allow us to stop
on the way in some favorite places and explore some new ones.

Burgandy
------------
The first night we stopped in Avalon. This is a small
town about 200km from  Paris, in Bourgogne. It is a lovely
town with an old town center of winding cobblestone streets.
The original walls of the town are still standing.
The town itself is pretty and interesting to wander around.

We were staying in a small hotel about 5kms outside of town.
The hotel is in an old mill, thus is built over a stream and 
is in a forest or woods. This was not the first time we were 
there and my impression is that it is always quiet, tranquil
and cool. They serve tea and drinks in the garden along the
banks of the stream, at the edge of a dark woods. In the
morning there was no noise except birdsong and the clop
of the occasional horse along the road. I reminded
myself once again to come back in the autumn when the leaves
were changing.


The hotel itself, Moulin du Ruats, was not wildly expensive,
at least for my definition of not wildly expensive. It was certainly
not cheap but for 450FF for a large room with a luxurious bathroom
and a view of the woods, it seemed reasonably priced. But they knew that
unless you had iron control they would get you on the restaurant.
And they did, sitting in the glass walled dining room looking
out at the woods, we were putty. The result was an extremely good
meal, great wine, a couple of glasses of cognac and a slightly 
fuddled look at the stars before bed. (Oh well, it was the 1st night 
of vacation)

The Rhone Valley
-----------------
The next morning we headed off for the Rhone Valley.
While still in Burgandy we passed so many favorite places
Semur-en-Auxerois, Beaune and the Cote D'Or, Vezelay,
well there are lots of weekends in the fall and no doubt
there will be friends visiting to take around.

Traffic was so light that after a couple of hours we 
got off the autoroute and figured we would do the last 250km
on the side road that runs along the Rhone river. This is 
not an area that either of us knew. What struck us?

Well the little towns along the Rhone south of Vienne
were the kind of old stone villages, with flowers blooming
everywhere that I always find so beautiful. There were numerous
old chateaux and town markets along the side of the road. There
were terraced vineyards, arranged at impossible angles.

We spent the evening at small hotel, La Mas des Source, with only 5
rooms.  The hotel was high in the hills near Donz'ere. It looked
down on 3 departments (geographic divisions of France). We ate
out on the terrace, looking down over the vineyards towards
the Rhone river. It was absolutely quiet and peaceful. As it
got darker they put candles on the tables and the only lights
were the candles, the stars and the lights coming up in towns
far away across the Rhone.

This was also our first touch of Provence. The food 
was served with lot's of fresh fruit, olives, garlic and sweet
peppers. For people who are interested in that sort of thing,
we had smoked salmon and then filet of duck with figs.
Afterwards we had some local cheese mostly goat.
Not being as familar with Cote de Rhone wines as we were
by the end of the trip, we asked the owner to recommend a wine.
As in most good places, he recommended something that was 
among the least expensive on the list.

The couple who ran the place were very nice and welcoming. They
talked about how the strike in the previous few weeks
effected them. When you have only 5 rooms and someone doesn't
honor their reservations, it is non-trivial. They talked 
about having to send people on to other hotels, because 
they were obliged to hold rooms for people who never showed up.

Of course at this point they had been booked for weeks.
We watched sympathetically from our table on the patio
as a couple of english only speakers drove up, looking
for a room. The owners had assumed that they were there
for dinner. Concerned, they suggested a few other places
and even called around for the couple. Didn't they know 
that this was a big weekend for travelling in France?
No of course not, how could they. Well don't worry
we will find you something.  Finally they tried a motel
at the edge of the national route, which is really rather
charmless. No luck. The unfortunate pair headed off back
to the autoroute, where no doubt they found something in
the nearest city. Morale: While its great to just arrive with
no reservations, if your taste runs to small charming
out of the way places, reserve.

Meanwhile, the sun had gone down over the hills.  The lights
of the little towns had come up.  There was absolute silence.
We looked at the dark shapes of the grapevines going down
the hills and smelled the lavender which grows all around.
With very little discussion we decided to stop here on the way
back up to Paris if there was room.

Provence
---------
Before starting to come to this area of Provence our experience
was mostly taking the TGV down to Avignon and driving around there.
It is a beautiful area (around Avignon, Vaison la Romaine, St. Remy etc)
full of roman ruins and interesting things to see.  The character of the
coastal regions is quite different. However the distances we are
talking about here are small. In theory it always seems like we
will spend part of our vacation driving around Aix-en-Provence
and Avignon and when we are in Avignon we talk about going to the coast.
But in fact in any one area there is so much to see and do that
we end up not travelling as much as we thought was possible.

The  Coast
----------
The next day we got a moderately early start and arrived
at our apartment. We had rented an apartment in the same
area the previous year. To our astonishment, since neither
of us are beach goers we decided to go back this year. This is
highly unusual for us.

The apartment is on what is called a private domain.
This is an area of private property with about 20 small
apartment buildings laid out over it. The "estate" is green
with hills and a couple of small lakes, a pool surrounded
by grass and flowering trees (so you lie in the shade under 
the trees on the grass, instead of on concrete or lounges),
a running path around the lake, some boules courts (this
is Provence after all), tennis, a restaurant and a path down to the 
beach. 

The beach is an inlet from the Mediterranean with a 
small beach on each side. The little bay is full of windsurfers
and there is a small port. There is a little restaurant on the 
beach which specialized in seafood, salads, lamb, boullabaise
and paella.  Out in the distance are a few islands and light houses.

This area is west of what people call the Cote d'Azur
or the Riveria. It is less glamerous and frantic
and more oriented toward families.

The apartment itself was a typical vacation apartment.
It had two bedrooms and slept some improbable number,
like 8. I am tempted to say that every piece of  furniture
turned into a bed. But really only the couch and arm chair.

These apartments are designed for 2 families or a family with
children and parents and grandparents who want to  spend the vacation
together. It is reasonably comfortable but is designed with the idea
that you will be there really only for meals and sleeping. I have
seen other apartments on the same  domaine that are more for really
living in. But this one had a view of the Mediterranean from the
bedroom, a terrace and a windows on 2 sides so we were happy.

We were there for 15 days. What sorts of things did we do
and see? You mean when we weren't exploring the art
of doing nothing or admiring the view?

Cassis
------
Several times we went to Cassis. Cassis besides being a kind
of berry and a berry flavored liquor which gets added to wine
or champagne to make a kir; is a port town in Bouche de Rhone.

The drive from Bandol to Cassis can be done either along
the coast on a small road which is beautiful, but 
can be hair raising as the locals tailgate you to make you
either pull over or go faster. The road has many farm stands
where you can buy fruit or roast chicken or small pizzas.
These exist as a supplement to the many outdoor markets
one or two days a week in every town. The further
obstacle in taking the small road is the beach traffic.
People searching desperately to park or chasing their
errant children along the road.

Either way, the autoroute or the coast road is a beautiful
drive with the road twisting and turning through the
hills. 

The town is surrounded by high white cliffs and so you descend down
small, twisty old streets to get to the port. Once there
the port is full of all kinds of  vessels. Along the edge
of the quais are restaurants and people selling crafts.
On the cliffs above the port is an old chateau which is more
in castle than the country house style. The town itself is 
very picturesque and much beloved of artists.

Once you are done wandering around the port, it is 
time to take a boat out to the calanques. The calanques
are inlets set below high cliffs which continue under water
to form  some very deep under water mountains. The calanques
continue from Cassis to Marseilles and there is a national park 
along the top of several. They form a protected swimming area
accessible only by boat or long hikes. There are boats from
Cassis which take you on a tour of the calanques and will leave
you off at one of the calanques which has a beach on the end of it.

You are then at the end of a deep inlet formed by the V made by two
sheer white cliffs. The top of the cliffs is covered with forest
and there is nothing but the cliffs, the sea, the forest anfd sky.

After you spend the day either hiking around the calanques
or swimming or boating, its time to go back to Cassis
and have dinner in the port while the sun goes down.

There are a couple of restaurants built at the top
of the cliffs with views out to the sea as well.
Cassis is also well known for a light delicious white wine
that goes well with shell fish. So before we left, we 
tasted and bought some wine to carry back to Paris.

Castellet
----------

Castellet is a walled medieval provincal village built on top of
a hill. It is is both highly picturesque and highly touristic.
For any fans of the french cinema the film, "La Femme du
Boulanger" was filmed there. Like most provincal villages
the streets are more vertical than horizontal and there
are beautiful views over the valleys towards the sea.
The valleys are green farm land, where  fruit and vegetable
are grown. There are spots of woods and those same chalky
cliffs that you see around Cassis. 

We went to Castellet a few times. The previous year
they had had for the first time a medieval fete. 

This year they had made some changes to the dinner and the
"fete". The host talked about the armies of mercenaries
that had been brought into Provence in the 14th century.
How instead of a solution to the problem of the Saracen
invasions, they quickly became a problem in themselves
and how the local lords had put together an army to
try and restore some peace to the countyside. The purpose
of these contests being held in the course of the evening
was to decide who would be the leader of the army of defense
being formed by the lords of these several neighboring 
towns.

You sit around the foot of the old chateau at long tables.
While you gossip with your neighbors, who are a mixture
of townsfolk and vacationers. They serve a nice
dinner and local wines. At the same time there are actors
in costumes of the medieval period and there is jousting
and dancing. The daylight fades and there you are in
a dark medival village, while people in  period costumes
dance and play. It is very effective. The children who
attended were entranced. So were we.

All of the action was in french and the tourists were
largely french as well. I think it would be lovely even
if you don't speak french but you would follow less of
the action and of course have a harder time socializing
with the people around you. 

After its over, a quick walk around the town and back
along the winding roads to the coast.

The second time we went to Castellet we went to visit a couple
of wineries in the area and have dinner. Although Castellet
is full of creperies and pizzerias, there is also an
extremely good restaurant called Castel le Lumiere. 
It is built just next to the wall of the town and 
so has breath taking views. The food is excellent, centered
around foods traditional to the area, fish, duck and lamb. 
The wine list is formidable, but it is best in its devotion
to the excellent wines of the region, reds from Bandol, roses
also from Bandol, and whites from Cassis. The restaurant uses 
mostly local ingredients so there was an enthusistic use
of local honey, lavender and herbs.  Like many of these places
the restaurant is also a hotel. The rooms are inexpensive, knowing
as they do that you will eat in the restaurant which is not inexpensive.
But they have several excellent multicourse menus which make
it reasonably priced.  

The winery that we went to, which is just one of many in the
area is called Pibernon. We had decided to buy some of the
wonderful Bandol reds, but only at 2 places. This place
had just gotten a rave review in the Revue des Vins Francais,
a professional wine magazine, so we decided to go there
and taste some. I sort of remembered seeing a sign as we
were driving around the hills.

So confidently we set off. Of course the address I had from
the magazine and from when I called had only the name of
the commune that they were located in and nothing like a
street. We headed off in the direction I remembered.
We found the sign which marked a sharp turn off the main
road onto a small path. The turn was not only sharp
in the sense of off the road, the road itself dropped sharply
down.The road was wide enough (almost) for only one car. Our
old Renault built along the same principles as a tank barely fit.
This being Provence of course this road was 2 ways. There is a well 
established etiquette for who backs up when you are climbing
and descending these incredibly steep roads and you meet someone
coming the other way. We drove  through a valley, twisting and turning
through plunging ravines and started to climb up some hills.
We came to an unpaved road through the woods, still climbing. 
We were positive that we were lost. Suddenly we came
to a clearing with a lovely 2 story provincal mas on the edge
of a  cliff. It looked deserted. But there was a bell and a sign
to ring it. So we rang and we were led into the cellars. 
We tasted the reds and the whites and decided that the 
RVF knew what they were talking about. They advised us
to keep the wine for at least 7 years before drinking it.
These are big, spicy red wines. Afterwards one of the
men who works in the winery offered to let us follow 
him back to the main road. Hard to believe as it was,
the twisting turning route we followed was the most direct
way.

Bandol
--------
Bandol is the big town thereabouts. It is a smallish
pleasure and fishing port which is lively all the year
round. It is the center of the local wine region. There
are boats which will take you on fishing trips or to
interesting islands.


There are a couple of small booths sponsored by the local
wine growers association and you can taste and buy many of
the wines there at the same price as at the wineries.
For some of them, the quantities are limited and if you want
a case or two you are better off going to the winery and
being persuasive.  But it is a chance to taste them and decide
what you like.

Unlike some wineries in Napa, the prices at the wineries are
generally as cheap as you can get it.  The wineries themselves
 may have different prices for professionals, people who buy 
large amounts but the winery price is usually the cheapest price.
There have been a number of surveys which say that the majority of 
people in France who buy wine, buy it directly from the producer.
(For what that's worth)

There are lots of inexpensive restaurants in Bandol and it
is the local center of night life. So after a day at
the beach or driving around the hills, it is to Bandol
that we would go for an ice cream or a walk and
window shop.

Twice a week there is an outdoor market which has lots
of tomatos, peppers, fruit and other vgetables, fish
and stands with an enormous number of different types
of olives, anchovies, and tapanade. There are also a
number of breads stuffed with cheese or anchovies or other
things that are characteristic to the region.

A warning to the wary, like all outdoor markets it is dangerous
to say "I will go pick up a couple of croissants for breakfast
and stop at the market on the way home before eating". If you arrive
hungry there is no resisting everything that smells and tastes so good.
You come back with much more food than you can eat and in
the warm weather in Provence things don't keep. MFK Fisher the writer,
talks about things you buy in morning starting to soften and
go bad before lunch and that's pretty accurate.


Bandol can be pretty crowded in the evenings since
everyone in the area seems to have the same idea.

Marseille
----------

We spent one day in Marseille. It was the first time
that we had been there. We wandered around the old section.
We had planned to take the boat out to Chateau D'If, 
the prison in the Count of Monte Cristo. But on the day
we were there the heat and blinding sunlight defeated us.
After having a great Boullabaise at the Miramar on the port
we fled back to Six Fours promising ourselves to come
down in the fall from Paris for a weekend (5 hours by train).

Going Back - Traffic Troubles
------------------------------
About a week into our vacation I saw a paper which gave
the traffic predictions for the weekends the rest
of the summer. As vacation rentals in France tend to be from
Saturday to Saturday or for a month or the last 15
days of a month there is the potential for a great deal
of movement at the same time. This year the month of July 
ended on Friday meaning lots of people would be on the road
on Friday and Saturday.

The domaine where we were staying for instance had people
from all over France and Switzerland.  Except for those
who owned their apartments and could leave whenever
they wanted most people were leaving the same weekend.

We had planned to drive back taking our time.  We had changed
our reservations from where we had intended to stay at the top
of the Rhone Valley to spend another night at Mas des Sources.
This would let us leave after lunch and have a last morning
at Six Fours. Yet a few days after arriving I noticed that
the day after we were leaving, which was when we had expected
to cover most of the distance back to Paris was not only a
Saturday but August 1st. This meant that not only would everyone
leaving for an August vacation be on the road, but anyone who
had a weekly rental ending would be on the road as well. Indeed
the paper listed it as a black day for traffic which is
the worst catagory.  We decided that this would be a good
day to avoid driving most of length of France.

But the Mas des Sources couldn't keep us an extra night.
Even though it was 3 weeks in advance they had been booked
that night for months. Well with only 5 rooms we weren't too
surprised. They recommended a place called Hostellerie des Rosaries
in Grignon. They happened to have had a cancellation. We were not
very happy as this room was more than we expected to pay,
but as it was the only room we could find we took it.

We had kept lovely memories of Mas des Sources and were
eager to return. Even though we had passed a wonderful
2 and a half weeks on the coast, we were ready to head
north and find some cooler weather. 

The day after staying again at Mas des Sources we headed off
somewhat resentfully for this unknown hotel in Grignon,
about 30kms away.


Grignon
----------
The next day we drove to Grignon taking tiny scenic roads
through the lavender fields. We had expected all the
lavender to be harvested but we passed field after
field just being harvested by people using hand scythes.
The scent of lavender and wild thyme was enough to make
us almost dizzy.

Grignon itself is a village which climbs up and around a hill
to a chateau. It is well known not only because of the interesting
theatrical presentations there but also because Mme de Sevign'e,
the famous french letter writer, wrote most of her letters to
her daughter who was the Countess de Grignon. The count and countess
lived there while he was fulfilling duties for Louis XIV
in Provence. The letters contain many descriptions of the
chateau and countryside.

The Hotellerie des Roseries is a house built at the beginning
of the 19th century for a doctor and his family. It is very
classic looking and looks much older. It has about 15 or 20 rooms
all of which are astonishingly pretty (especially after weeks
in an apartment at the beach). When you stay there you have the
impression of being at the country house of friends. There
is a small swimming pool, a single tennis court and a ping pong
table under the trees in the garden. The guests drag hammocks
and chaise lounges around. The garden is full of flowering
trees and little promenades. The whole thing is large enough
to be comfortable but small enough that you have the impression
of intimacy.  Of course there are roses everywhere.
Like Mas des Sources, it is owned by a husband and wife who run
it together with a small staff.  The hotel is at the foot of the
village so that although you are in the country you can walk
across the street and be in the village.  You can look for a
newspaper or a book or a pharmacy.


The next day we spent touring the chateau and swimming
while listening to reports of traffic jams the length of
the Rhone Valley. We felt very happy not to be spending
hours baking in the sun on the A7, praying that the temperature
gage on our car wasn't creeping up.

What is there to do in Grignon? Well there is the village, the
church and the chateau to see. There is a small wine  cooperative.
There are many small roads and interesting sites for bicycling.

-- 
L.S. Grob
Chorus syste`mes			phone +33-1-30-64-82-17
6 avenue Gustave Eiffel			fax   +33-1-30-57-00-66	
F78182 Saint Quentin-en-Yvelines	email grob@chorus.fr	
FRANCE					      grob%chorus.fr.uunet.uu.net
-------

--
L.S. Grob
Chorus syste`mes			phone +33-1-30-64-82-17
6 avenue Gustave Eiffel			fax   +33-1-30-57-00-66	
F78182 Saint Quentin-en-Yvelines	email grob@chorus.fr	
--------