The beautiful images and impressions of the Middle Ages become simply a backdrop when you focus your attention on the smells, tastes, and ambience associated with drinking the wonderful wines of the Provence. I spent a great day visiting the chateaus of the Luberon valley with my knowledgeable and entertaining tour guide, Francois. It was a really nice small (7) group of us, five from the US and two Aussies. We visited four vineyards and had lunch in the village of Loumarin. We also visited Menerbes and Cuceron, postcard perfect Provence villages. Driving through the area the commentary (besides all things wine) is a who’s who of the rich and famous who can live here in quiet and relative obscurity in the bucolic splendor of the vineyards and olive groves. Actors, writers, fashion designers, artists and the like visit the same market days as everyone else with rarely a second thought. Our driver did say though that when they own and live in the chateaus on working vineyards (like Johnny Depp and Jolie and Pitt), the tasting rooms are not open to tourists when they are present.
I’m back now to spend my last two days in Avignon. My airbnb is so comfortable and pleasant that is nice to just stay put here and have the highlight of the day be the busy Avignon market – a site unto itself and dinner in one of the Michelin worthy restaurants nearby. I’m also doing the mundane and necessary things – banking, laundry, mailing a parcel home, a hair cut and pedicure (though I pity the poor pedicure person who has to take on my Camino weary feet!)
So will finish up here and have a brief stop on the Riviera and head to meet my friend John in the Dolomites. It almost doesn’t seem real!
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