Girls Gone Abroad

This morning we were up and out of the hotel the earliest we have moved to date – (9:45) and Sandy chose to drive (this turns out to be my nightmare today). We headed a short trip down the road to Grasse, the parfum capital of the world, one of the things on my list was to visit a parfumerie. We came upon Fragonard first and so that is where we stopped, with extremely good timing as 2 tour buses joined the fray 10 minutes or so after our arrival. We received a nice tour of the parfum factory (in English) from a nice Chinese girl and learned a whole lot that I didn’t know before. In the end we hit their store where we smelled several different types of parfum (natural, sweet, floral, and oriental). I found a fruit category one I liked and so I bought it – one more thing off of my list!

From there we made our way to the gorge du verdon with a stop for a nice, long French lunch at a small restaurant, Chez Marius, between Grasse and Castellane in a village called Villaute. The food was great and a three course meal to boot that we all chowed down. I had a smoked salmon appetizer with some type of fish mousse, Shan had a deli tray (charcuterie) and Sandy had gnocchi with a crème sauce and walnuts for our “appetizer” course. Then I had lamb with polenta, Shan had chicken with gratin potatoes and Sandy tournados of beef with roasted potato. For dessert, Sandy & I had triple chocolate mousse cake and Shan had a red wine soaked pear with vanilla ice cream. Sandy ended with what she says was "the perfect cafe au lait" and she wants to take this picture to Starbucks to show them!

So after our 2 hour lunch stop we were back on the road headed toward the gorge. Already we had been on some STEEP, VERY CURVY, NARROW roads, and I was FREAKING OUT with Sandy driving! It is like the Indy 500 and she thinks if there is a curve it means to go faster and with a stick shift in hand it is worse! She was actually leaning back and forth like on a motorcycle in her seat – CRAZY! On another note the Gorge du Verdon is beautiful – very narrow roads – but beautiful! It is supposed to be like the “mini grand canyon” and it isn’t really like that but it is a green version of many of the canyons in Utah for sure. Tons of motorcycles – buzzing by us like we were standing still – and we weren’t! We stopped off for a couple photo opportunities but kept on trucking for the most part.

We stopped at Moustiers Ste Marie at the far end of the canyon near the Lac de St Croix and did a quick hike up to a small catholic chapel at the top of the village. We wished we had more time since the village looked cute and fun, but drinking and driving isn’t an option here at all, so we passed on any drinks or browsing and back in the car for Bonnieux.

After Moustiers Ste M, the road was still twisty some, but not so much along the cliffs and drop offs like before, so I started to relax into Sandy’s driving style – that is until she was going around a curve and looked away from the road – the curve straightened out, but Sandy kept on like the curve right towards a concrete barrier pole – no joking (she admitted tonight) we missed it by 6 inches (on my side of car) and it scared the living daylights out of me! She and Shan were in comic relief – I was crying – don’t know why, but it was just such an adrenaline rush I couldn’t help it… Luckily, since I am blogging now, you realize we made it with no problems – but crap that was scary! I think I will drive and navigate myself from now on…

We’ve settled into our village house here in Bonnieux and it is great. Not terribly big compared to any of our houses in Colorado, but the biggest yet for the trip. We each have our own big beds (whoo hoo) and rooms and 2 bathrooms which is a blessing in disguise! No more sharing of biological functions if you know what I mean… We have a great terrace off the top level (pictures will come later as we just settled in) and it is at the top of the town so we will get plenty of exercise going to and fro. Tonight we headed out for a quick bite and ended up at a brasserie, La Terasse, for a pizza and some salads and of course wine (we took last night off, that was enough) and it was great. Our waiter even bought us a round which was so sweet of him, so we obliged and drank another glass of wine (S&S 3rd my 4th (trickery this was)).

Now, home, laundry, planning and such… It is a nice night, but it is also 12:20 AM and we are headed out early tomorrow to Isle Sur La Sorgue (largest Sunday market in Provence!)

Bon Nuit et A Bientot!

PS – My plug adaptor has broken and is not working so our time blogging may be short lived, not to mention no WiFi here at house – have to go to La Terasse (bummer ). If you don’t hear more – don’t worry and I apologize in advance I will try to find another adaptor tomorrow or more likely Monday!