We woke up to a cold, rainy, windy day with plans to go for a hike and then hit some of the other perched villages in the region. We bundled up, to the best of our ability, in our “hiking clothes” and I set off for Henri’s with computer in hand to see if I could get a signal from the café on the corner – Henri’s company is much better than the guy at Cesars! We got our croissant, pain au chocolat etc… I tried the computer – but no luck we were still too far away – so I wrote my blog for the day in word and got some pictures ready for posting while sipping tea and eating my delicious chocolate breakfast treat – they were fresh out of the oven this morning.
The girls took off to walk the town in the rain, life is a bit more back to normal and they can’t sit still for long periods of time, and I headed to Cesar’s Café to get my internet fix. I spent a good hour to 2 hours posting, reading comments, posting pictures, downloading new pictures etc while I drank some tea. Sandy and Shan found the bike shop and reserved our bikes for tomorrow and then found a specialty food shop to get some gifts.
Finally it was noonish and still cold and blowing and raining and we were hungry, and I found the girls researching winerys (chateaus in French speak). So, we ditched the hike due to the rain and jumped in the car to head south to Loumarin for lunch and then to some of the southern Luberon chateaus. We had sandwiches at a small café in Loumarin then wandered over to a big castle (also chateau in French) that we saw on our way into town. Turned out the chateau had been purchased by a man in the early 1900s when it was intended to be torn down, this man then restored the entire chateau and furnished much of it. When he died in 1927 ish he left the chateau to the arts college or museum in Aix en Provence and they keep it as a museum and a place for young artists to board and to display their art. Anyways – it was really cool and we decided to go in and check it out along with checking out an artist that had an exhibition that day – too bad the dollar is so crappy because she had some beautiful things that would have been somewhat affordable if we weren’t paying 1 ½ times. So, we grabbed a couple of the cheap reproductions…
Amazingly when we popped out of the chateau, the sun was starting to shine and it was warming up. I grabbed the good camera, loaded with black and white film, and started to take some shots – well tried, but the camera was flashing error. I tried to figure it out, but ultimately we had to call Rocket back in the US to try to remedy the situation. We figured it out and I hopefully got some good shots!
Next we were off to do some wine tasting and were able to stop at 2 on the list Chateau Constantin Chevalier and Domaine de Fontenille. Sandy and Shan liked the first one best and I liked the second one best. After our second tasting it was time to be headed to Velleron for the night farmers market. This is a unique market that is every night but Sunday and is mostly only produce, and I believe it is mostly direct from the farmer, so there is only for sale what is in season and it is extremely fresh. We picked up some strawberries, asparagus, baby potatoes and biscotti (not on the list), then quickly popped into the center village of Velleron to grab some chicken, bread and dessert. We had chicken thighs and legs with a provencal rub roasted with the new potatoes and my special asparagus a la the microwave! Of course preceded by cheese, strawberries and champagne and dinner accompanied with a bottle of white wine Vin de Bourgogne; Macon-Villages -2006 made with the Chardonnay grape and it was quite good. These simple whipped up meals at home with the fresh market ingredients have been so tasty and made for nice nights to just relax.
