Saint Remy de Provence

We drove across southern France on May 25 to our next short stop in St Remy de Provence, which was a wonderful drive on French motorways, even with their tolls. We had some car issues which were speedily resolved, thank goodness, and we arrived at our AirBnB only a little later than expected. We managed to communicate with our host via the Internet by making several motorway stops to get wifi (or in French weefee). It is surprising how reliant we become on our electronic ways of communicating. Why the mobile phone was not used is another long story.
Our B&B was a little way out of the town, which was really good, as parking is always a challenge in town.

This was the house where we had our rooms. Breakfast was served on the terrace overlooking the pool and the view of the Alpilles in the background.

 The view from our room, with nice clear air as the mistral was blowing very hard, even the locals were complaining.

On our first walk to the village we came across the Church of St Martin which was quite impressive, although in some need of restoration. You can see in the above photograph, much of the lower part of the murals on the walls and columns has been worn off!

There are a number of shady squares where you can eat or have coffee and watch everyone as they pass by. We could get used to this.

Great local food and we did find a restaurant that was sheltered from the wind, so we could eat outside. These small fried fish were one of the specialties on the Tapas menu.

We were fortunate to be in St Remy on market day and this one was quite spectacular. Many stalls, from fresh fish, vegetables, cheese and olives, to arts and crafts and soap.

And even barbequed pork.

Vincent Van Gogh came to this village in 1889 and stayed for about a year in the local mental institution. During this time he produced over 200 paintings and drawings. There is a "Vincent" walk from the village up to the hospital where he stayed voluntarily and where art was a form of therapy.

The walk is punctuated by copies of Van Gogh's art, which are posted on the roadside as you walk towards the hospital.

Looking back to the hospital towards the rooms that Van Gogh occupied. It was quite remarkable to look out onto scenes that were the subjects and inspirations for his art.
There is a reconstruction of his bedroom and it is very interesting to look out of the barred windows today and see the landscape pretty much as he would have seen it.

The original tiled floor where van Gogh must have paced.

We were fortunate to have seen the original in Paris before we came to visit here.

We had been told of a hill town not far from St Remy called Le Baux de Provence and set off to find it. The car's GPS found a way there which took us along a wonderful mountain road, luckily with not too much traffic.

This was the best view where you can just see the castle and the town surrounding it. The houses have been built out of the local "tufa" stone and partially constructed underground.

The village was absolutely packed with tourists and nowhere to park, so we did not stay. Instead we went to visit the local Roman ruins!

There is much more to see, but we were a bit hot and tired and called it a day. I believe the Romans hung around here until about 400AD and then went home to take care of other business.


As we left St Remy, the mistral died down and it was most pleasant, but beginning to get hot.

Saying goodbye to our host Danielle.

I think he was saying "come back soon".

Onward to Italy.

Saint Emilion

Leaving the Loire area, we drove south towards Bordeaux where we had our next accommodation booked. The early part of the route was through a mostly agricultural area with good uncrowded roads, most of which were as straight as far as the eye could see.

The remainder of the trip ,which was about six hours of driving, was mostly easy with the motorways having only minor truck traffic, wonderful. Yes there are tolls on the motorways, but all of the roads we experienced were in beautiful condition, maybe some of the toll money actually goes towars road upkeep.
 We stopped for lunch at a motorway facility which was very modern.

This structure, plus further extensions were in the restaurant area, but we did not discover its purpose; maybe some kind gallery maybe.

Arriving in the town of St Emilion!

Our rental was this 13th century refurbished windmill or moulin. It was within walking distance of the town and, not surprisingly, on a small hill.

The view from our "front door" with the town in the distance. St Emilion is in the middle of the grape growing Bordeaux region and there are wineries everywhere.

Heavily planted in grapes.

These vines were next to the moulin and looked to be pretty old.

The town itself has quite steep streets which are mostly cobbled with much of the center pedestrian only, with some minor exceptions which we could never understand.

Just to give a little idea of the streets,

A pretty significant church built on a high part of town.

This was a fun "street", very steep and cobbled, I can imagine it it would be pretty treacherous in wet weather. It had restaurants and shops along it's length.

A view over the rooftops to the castle.

It gets to be a bit tiring going up and down the hills, so we took a leaf out of the local's book and took a break on some handy parts of the stone buildings.

Did I mention it's wine country!

We met Paddy O'Flynn of "The Wine Buff" who was a delight and gave us a great "tour" of the local wines. Paddy has lived in the area since 1988, speaks fluent French and also has a string of wine stores in Ireland. We spent several hours tasting and shooting the breeze and we did end up buying a few bottles. It is one of the few stores that offer tasting, which we found surprising.

Since we were close to Bordeaux we decided to take the train and spend half a day exploring.

The train stop in St Emilion, in fact, several kilometers out of town. No place to buy a ticket, you had to buy it from the Conductor on the train.
I was a bit disappointed with Bordeaux, just a big gritty city with some pedestrian shopping streets, mostly closed on our Sunday visit.

A fine old church which had a separate bell tower.  Built next to the church because it was feared that the vibrations from the bells would damage the church structure if it was an integral part of the church itself! I thought it significant that the bell tower was still standing,

I thought this restaurant sign was funny. We should have eaten here, the sushi we had in the city center was certainly the worst we had ever eaten.

Back to St Emilion where you can also buy a vine as well as you favourite vintage from the same shop.
I need to say what an experience it was staying in the moulin. There are four levels, basement is the bathroom, the entrance floor is the kitchen, next one up is the sitting room, with bedroom on the top floor. Access to all the floors is via a staircase that spirals around the inside walls.

The inside diameter of the structure was about 10ft, so you can imagine it was a bit of a tight squeeze.
The walls were about two feet thick and it was quite surprising that they had managed to put all of the plumbing and electrical wiring inside the stonework, quite a renovation feat.
We stayed in St Emilion for three nights and then drove to our next location across the south of France.
Stay tuned for St Remy des Provence.

Fontevraud Abbey

We left Giverny after a great visit and good weather to make our way down to the Loire valley and a visit to Fontevraud Abbey. We were booked into a wonderful country house hotel called Domaine de Mestre which was an interesting navigation challenge, but we found it in the end.

The entrance to the courtyard was quite impressive, but it took us a moment to find the reception desk. Check-in was easy as one of the staff spoke good English having lived in Scotland for a while. We were escorted to our room by the owner, who regaled us with a continuous stream of French, of which we could comprehend little, but that small fact did not deter him one bit. We had a great suite with two bedrooms and a huge bathroom!

Part of the courtyard.

The front of the house, and one of our windows looked out onto this scene.
We also had dinner in the hotel which was very upscale, with high ceilings, chandeliers and decorated in tasteful French style. The dinner was very good, Diane had fresh fish and I had the rack of lamb, the tenderest I can ever remember eating. French are very serious about food, and we want to take full advatage if that fact.
After breakfast the next day, we made the short drive to the Abbey in Fontevraud.

The Abbey was founded in the early 12th century and was headed by an Abbess with powerful connections to the royalty of the time. The Abbey maintaned these connections for many hundreds of years until the the monastery's disestablishment during the French Revolution. The above photograph is the cathedral part of the Abbey and is striking in it's lack of ornamentation.

No stained glass, but spectacular, to say the least.

The whole space is given to four tombs, these two are of King Henry II of England and his wife Alienor d' Aquitaine. Henry died in 1189 and Alienor in 1204.
Also buried alongside these two are their son Richard I (Richard the Lionheart) and Isabella d' Angouleme who was married to King John of England.
Lots of complex history, most of it bloody and feudal!

The exterior of that very bare but majestic space.

Another view of the courtyard and some of the quarters where the nuns once resided.

I just love these covered walkways that surround the courtyard.

 

Some ornamentation in other areas of the Abbey

 

One has to wonder about those who have trodden these tiles over the centuries.

This intriguing structure is very visible as you enter the Abbey grounds and we discovered it was the "cookhouse". Inside each of the round tower structures was room for a large fire, and the center cone- like roof was likely intended to vent out any interior smoke. Just imagine what a scene that must have been.

Back into the town, we looked for somewhere to eat, away from the touristy bits, and found Chez Teresa. We had a divine quiche and salad lunch with cups of tea.   Then discovered the owner was English and had been in Fontevraud since 2006. The cafe and shop was a fun find.

Teresa's cool sign.

Nearby we were intrigued to hear that there were cliff dwellings where they had made a form of dried apples in the past.  We found the area and were somewhat underwhelmed, interesting but.....

Needing a bite to eat, but not a large meal, we wandered around Montsoreau and discovered that no one served food until at least 7pm, it is Europe after all.
We found the local bar overlooking the Loire river and ordered the local cider to await the arrival of the cook.

It turned out we were in the local sports bar with betting on horse racing going on around us!

Looking out into the bar.

The river Loire outside the bar.

A couple of photographs to give you some idea of the interior of our hotel.

Diane catching some sun before we set off on the next leg of our journey.
St. Emillion and the moulin.

Stay tuned.