Aix and winery tour

We headed into Aix in the morning for a wander around the shops - I will soon have enough frocks to last me for the rest of my life!! I think the tally is up to nine or ten now... sigh.... but also YAY!!! We are also making a strong in roads into the various pastry treats which can accompany our morning coffee. I tend to stick to the eclair chocolat, but we have also sampled various custard, fruit and pastry concoctions!

Today I bought a beautiful photograph to take home for a souvenir, and we also sampled a slice of a massive spice cake (orangey - and a bit like a fruit cake without the fruit - yum!) which they sell here at the evening artisan markets.

I booked a haircut for tomorrow and we met up with Becky for a winery tour in the afternoon. We went to two wineries, at each of which we sampled the local produce - delicious!!! Sadly there was no option to send any home to Aus so I had to make do with buying a couple of bottles and making sure I made the commitment to drink them before I leave... Happily, this is a commitment I am willing to make!!

At one of the wineries they took us on a little tour and told us all about the wine making process. For an old winery visitor like me, it was more of the same, but it was still interesting. They tend to blend the various grapes to make the wines here. You can get AOC wine - which basically means it is made by the formula or by the rules of the region to be able to call itself a wine of Coteaux D’Aix-en-Provence. The other option is the VDP - Vin de Pays - which means that they have deviated from the “rules” by changing the percentages of grape varieties - maybe using extra cabernet sauvignon, or picking the grapes with machines. The VDP wines are often served as the house wine in restaurants, but they are great too! Each winery seems to make both AOC and PDV wines in Red, White and Rose. We tried them all!

One of the wineries had a library of past vintages... sadly I couldn't find the 1974... must have been a good year!! Here is the 1975.

We had a bbq dinner tonight featuring a bottle of red from one of the wineries - as if we hadn’t had enough wine today!! Happily we are all giggly drunks so it was great fun!!!

The glory and beauty of the markets!

We headed into town for the giant markets on Saturday morning. Incredible!! We met up with one of the girls from school who has been living in town for a few months adn was able to direct us to the best bread guy, peach woman, cheese guy and tomato stall. Fantastic!! I was able to lead us to the fresh pasta guy - black truffle pasta - YUM!!!!

The markets are a gourmet and photographic dream! The food, the smells, the colours, the variety of everything was mind blowing. Emily literally stood us still before we entered the markets, looked us in the eye and said “remember, you don’t need to buy everything!” I must say though, this was the day Megan and I both bought beautiful red handbags!!!

We took our purchases to Emily’s apartment for lunch and enjoyed beautiful bread with four types of cheese, three types of olive, two types of tomato and about four types of olive oil. Emily is an olive oil connoisseur and Megan was luving it!!

A couple of the girls from school came out to watch a practice polo match in the afternoon and we enjoyed a little apperatif before they returned to town. Another lovely day!

MUST VISIT FARMERS MARKETS WHEN I GET HOME!!!

Friday - drinks at school

After a big day on Thursday, we started our day pretty slowly on Friday and then headed into town so I could show off my town “Aix” and go to the “end of two week” drinks at school. I was saddened to see my favourite cafe was closed for the holidays so I couldn’t show it off, or use their free wifi... :)

We enjoyed some pastry treats - there is a theme developing here, and headed up to school for some wifi and apperatif action. I was pleased to introduce Megan to some of my school friends and a bunch of us went out for lunch and a bit of shopping afterwards. Lovely! We also headed to Monoprix for a bit of grocery shopping, before heading home. The girls from school invited us to join them at the movies that night. The film started at 10.15pm... do they know who they’re dealing with??? We, of course, were well and truly tucked up in bed and snoozing by the time the movie started!

The four dolphin fountain - one of about a thousand fountains in Aix...

Cassis, Calanques and Kayak

Thursday was a day of adventure, Megan, Becky and I embarked on a road trip!! We headed down to Cassis by the sea with the intention of hunting out some sea kayaking action around the Calanques. These are the tall white cliffs and coves that run along the coast between Marseilles and Cassis (I did a boat trip a few weeks ago). We arrived in Cassis after some pretty groovy navigation and driving and headed straight for the beach. Not the bigger, busier one in town, but one a little further west which is in the direction of the kayaking place (we hoped). Like any good road trip we had stopped for treats on the way down and enjoyed some eclair chocolat, chocolate brioche, apple tart and vanilla slice!! Gotta love a quality boulangerie!! (bakery).

The water was beautiful and as soon as we three managed to walk/hobble/stumble down the stony beach to the waters edge it was delightful!! We envied the little booties worn by some better prepared swimmers. Once again we were slightly surprised by the amount of topless bathing and general wandering about, but overall our swim at the ‘beach’ was fantastic. There was even some jumping off rocks into the crystal clear, very deep water. We stayed for lunch in a cafe by the beach and then headed off on our expedition in search of kayaks.

Without too much trouble we found Port Miou - which is the place we had seen on the internet as having some kayak expeditions. We parked the car, paid our 5 Euros and headed off. We walked right along the cliff top, then left - we could see some kayaks down below - but how to get down there?? We walked right again... asked directions of the parking attendant, walked further left - asked some other tourists, they were also looking for the kayaks (unsuccessfully). Turned around a couple of times and split up heading left - some took the high road and some took the low... A happy cheer - “I see some steps!!” We headed for them, saw a tunnel in the cliff, and then a gate with two large red signs basically saying ‘no entry’.... then we noticed some smaller writing in black nikko pen - ‘kayaks’ and an arrow! We braced ourselves and headed through the gate towards a guy wearing raybans and carrying a walkie talkie. ‘Go straight through’ he said - no problem! We found the kayaks, run by a bunch of older exsurfie guys who would have been at home in Aus, one of them had been there ten years before, and we were off. 3 in a kayak, 30 Euros, 2 hours - perfect!

IT WAS WORTH IT!!! It was a beautiful sunny day without too much wind, and we paddled for about half an hour to the first of the calanques where there is a lovely secluded beach - only accessible for us kayakers. We passed a few tourist boats on the way in, and bounced around a bit on the waves - what fun! We swam for a half hour or so, took photos and headed back. It is so beautiful in the calanques - white cliffs, green shrubs, blue sky and crystal clear blue water - magic!

What a BEAUTIFUL day!!!

Back Home!!

Wednesday was a quiet day at home, washing, cleaning the house and generally hanging out after the business of being a tourist in Paris. We watched a practice match of Polo in the afternoon and went into Aix for dinner at a beautiful little restaurant.

Aix has some ridiculous number of fountains - maybe a thousand and I gather there are about the same number of restaurants. It makes choosing one a little difficult, but happily we were with the locals so they took us to a fantastic place. I had the fois gras for entree which was absolutely beautiful, steak and a chocolate mousse cake thing for dessert. Of course accompanied by the Kir - as an apperatif - and some white wine with the meal.

If I haven’t yet taken the time to explain Kir, please indulge me for a moment. Kir is basically a small amount of Cassis (a blackcurrant liqueur) in the bottom of a wine glass topped up with white wine - any will do, but Chardonnay is best. If you can get both from the Bourgogne region then you are a step ahead. Sweet fruity goodness! Absolutely delicious on a hot summer afternoon, happily I have the makings at the Cabinon now, so I am able to enjoy an apperatif pretty regularly!!

Paris Day 5 - Arc de Triomphe and did I mention the Caramel Macaroons?!

Our last day in Paris, and I must admit, a part of me was very happy to be heading back home to Aix and my little cabinon. The big city was, well, BIG - and full of yucky tourists!!

We started our last day by wandering through the Latin Quarter including a visit to the Jardin de Luxembourg. We took up the Champs Elysees where we had left off on our first night in town and wandered along towards our last big attraction - the Arc de Triomphe. Pretty impressive, but we decided to leave climbing it for our next visit to Paris - now we have to go back some time!! We have made a little habit of offering to take photos of other pairs or families at the various monuments... and then they’ve taken ours! Its been great! when looking for someone to take our photo we look for someone with a fancy camera in the hope they will know what they’re doing. :) Its important to wait until after the massive orange tour bus goes past!!

Our last mission for the day and for Paris was to utilise our metro passes to the extreme - really got our money’s worth - and travel to the other side of town from our accommodation and hunt down the world’s best caramel macaroon. Near the place de Abesses - at the metro station of the same name... around a corner, you will find a boulangerie called “Coquelicot” www.coquelicot-montmartre.com Delicious!!! I can personally vouch for the macaroons and chocolate eclairs and I can tell you on that day (Tuesday) around lunch time there was a line out the door, permanently!! we had lunch in a cafe on the other side of the road. We bought a couple of macaroons and some other treats. We even managed to save one for the TGV.

On this day we also discovered the yellow cherries - divine, and I reunited with the green plums - delish, not to mention numerous nectarines, peaches and apricots - gotta luv summer!!

We made the cross town journey back to the hotel, had our last little chat with Valerie, the guy who worked on the reception desk and loved Megan as she learnt a new phrase to practice on him each day, and headed off to the Gare de Lyon for the TGV home. A great few days in Paris.

We made the TGV and got home to Aix with no problems. The lovely Becky picked us up at the bus stop which was great with all our bags and we had a beautiful BBQ dinner and cocktail party with the gang here. A wonderful homecoming and introduction for Megan!!

Paris Day 4 - Mona, Venus and a bit of Michaelangelo

Our number one plan for today was the Louvre and we arrived there after wandering through the Latin Quarter and along the Seine. At this juncture (yes I know you love it when I use that word) I will relate a little of the magic of the metro in Paris. On Day One I purchased a one day ticket which covered the zone out to the airport, but on Day two, we both purchased three day passes which allowed us to go anywhere within the Perifique - the inner sanctum of Paris - inside is cool, outside not so much.. we were staying on the inside, just in the 13th Arrondissement. We could use the Metro, RER (above ground train), trams and buses all day, every day - SO convenient!! The map needs to be seen to be believed, but we managed to navigate around without and problems at all.

Another map, with which I was not so successful was that for the Louvre - good grief that place is massive and confusing!! Wings here and there, floors up and down, and about a million people! However, we managed to find our way to the Louvre first lady - the Mona Lisa. It is quite amazing how much more beautiful she is in person. Of course she sits alone on her wall and looks down with her half smile on the hundreds of people with cameras who crowd to see her. We slowly worked our way to the front of the ‘mosh pit” as she smiled benignly down at us. Lovely!

Next we made our way to see the Venus De Milo... also lovely, but somehow not as impressive as I had expected.

After a bit of wandering around, and around - stupid lourve map - we found the two slave sculptures by Michaelangelo. There is something about his sculptures that I absolutely love - they are magnificent - they’re not the David, of course - but in their own way, they are beautiful.

We saw many other sculptures and paintings as we wandered the halls and really enjoyed out visit. We headed to the Place de la Bastille and found a cafe for lunch. We wandered along the Rue St Antoine intending to shop up a storm on the Rue de Rivoli but found a great little boutique before we got there and the storm arrived early!! I bought two dresses, one for work and one for fun, and Megan got a great frock for a wedding she has coming up. This was the end of us, so after stopping for a chocolate macaroon we headed to the Champs de Mar where we sat on the grass and took photos of ourselves with the Eiffel Tower in the background! gold!!

We had a lovely dinner back at the cafe in the Place d’Italie before heading home to bed - another big day!