Sorry peeps, but just wanted to do a quick post to bring you up to date and then I am unsure if I will be back online until possibly Chicago airport. I can't remember if our hotel for the last night in Paris has internet, but even if it does I think it will be a whirlwind day there trying to send some stuff FedEx and getting last minute gifts and having our last French meal!
Last nights dinner at Capelongue de Bastide was amazing - and tres French! If you can believe it when all was said and done it was 11 courses and even Shannon was finally full! I will write soon about the complete experience and post some pictures from Shan's camera. But, suffice it to say it was a really cool thing to do and a LOT of food. We also enjoyed two good bottles of wine and had the cutest sommelier - not in looks necessarily but in personality! Man did I ever wish then that I spoke better French so I could have had a conversation, since his English wasn't great and my French wasn't great we did as much talking as was possible but was very little!
This morning was Bonnieux's market day and it was a quaint market and we found lots of last minute things on our list to take home - great stuff! I won't indulge with the details since some of the purchases were gifts and I don't want to ruin any surprises! The cash machine here in Bonnieux was out of money, suffice it to say it was probably a good thing and we treated it as our destiny and stopped buying when we were out of money - I'll let you decide if the amount we started with was big or small!
From there we were off for a hike on the Lioux Falaise. A Falaise is like a butte for all intents and purposes, so we hiked up around to the back side and then out on the falaise itself and down the other end of the cliff. We had brilliant views of Roussillon, Gordes, and Bonnieux and La Coste in the distance along with views of all the vines, orchards and farms directly around the falaise. It is a very nice day again and it was a nice hike and not too long or taxing. We had lunch in Rousillon, but I don't know the name of the restaurant, it wasn't too exciting one way or the other, but the beers were cold and tasted good after our time in the hot sun.
We made a stop at the Bonnieux Cave (wine cooperative) and purchased a few bottles of Rose to bring home - we ultimately decided that we have liked some of the white and red wines of the region, but nothing "wowed" us with those, but since France produces some great Rose wines that we just don't yet seem to have in the US, we focused our effort on Rose - so yes, we are bringing home pink wine! I'm sure it won't last very long when we get home, but if nothing else we have learned a bit more about French wine and which regions and/or chateaus we like, so it should make buying more French wine from home a bit easier if not cheaper! I don't know if I have mentioned, but wine here (good, decent wine) is CHEAP! I'm talking $6-$10 a bottle, not euro mind you, dollars! The shelfs have many good wines for 2 to 4 euro a bottle and most less than 10 euro unless you are at a boutique wine store! It has been great, and even with that we only had 8 empty bottles on the counter for 6 nights here so far - for the three of us together that is an excellent feat!
Well, gotta run, exciting news - Charley and Kathy Wood, slow travel old timers and bloggers have arrived in Bonnieux and we are going to have a get-together (GTG) tonight before we leave town! I'm psyched since I spent hours combing Kathy's blog about the area before we came and I actually feel like I know her already!
