Summary
Best laid plans… buy picnic supplies, gas, drive to Provence via France’s “Grand Canyon”, the Gorge du Verdun with a picnic at a picturesque stop along the way. A trip of about 4 hours without stops. Drove to marché in Vence for picnic stuff. Gorgeous, narrow, winding drive up Col de Vence and down the other side with a ton of bicyclists. Gas, coffee, pee stop. Couldn’t find a picnic spot so had picnic on the car hood at around 1:30. Somehow by this time the Gorge was another 2 hours away and our inn another 2. So, sadly we decided to drop south to hit the autoroute. Arrived at our lovely accommodation, La Ferme de La Huppe outside of Gordes in time for an aperitif and dinner. Whew!
Details
Up early, we are supposed to be packed and gone by 10 am. Normally our VRBO would be cleaned and opened up for the next week’s guests, but we know that “Monsieur” is flying in from ? Oslo? Copenhagen? and he has projects.
We’re driving from our VRBO near Nice to Gordes, about 20 miles east of Avignon in the region of Provence. It’s a two-and-a-half hour drive but we have things we want to see along the way, so with that it would be more like four to five hours of driving. I’m not excited about doing that much driving.
We do get away on time. We believe we have all our belongings and left all the house’s stuff behind. Time will tell.
Our first stop is in nearby city of Vence (nearby, but not the same as Saint-Paul-de-Vence where we’ve been staying). Their weekly outdoor market is going on and we love those, plus we want to buy stuff for a picnic en route.
We park in a city garage that looks impossible to get out of. We’ll cross that bridge later. The marché is indeed going on. There are a limited number of vendors but enough for us. Unlike other marchés we’ve been to, this one doesn’t have a lot of duplicates. The flower seller has gorgeous peonies and Karen briefly ponders whether we need some in our rooms tonight. Thankfully she decides the car is already too full.
We do buy cheese and olives, and Karen inquires as to where we can buy a rotisserie chicken. We’re told: Through the narrow pedestrian city gate, over there, and into the “old” part of town. We find the place and the many cooked chickens look and smell delicious. 13€ a bird. So we now have lunch (along with our leftovers in our small travel cooler) and are ready to press on.
Our “even longer route” goes past the Grand Canyon of the Verdun, a beautiful part of France. In the US the term “Grand Canyon has a specific meaning. Over here the word “Grand” means “Big”, and indeed this is a big canyon, but not as big as ours back home.
Our progress is slowed by all the bikers (racing bicyclists) riding up and down the narrow mountain road we’re on. The summit (“col”?) is about 1,000 meters in elevation, so about 3,000 feet. The flowering bushes have all turned into pine forests.
Back in Vence we tried (not very hard) to get gas. The station itself was getting refilled by a big tanker truck so they had all of the entrances cordoned off with plastic tape. We figure we can always find gas further along, right? We’re now further along and there’s no gas. We ask GPS and it tells us there’s gas in 42 Km. The car says it can go another 70km before it runs out of fuel. Imagine looking for gas as you’re going over the Tioga Pass in Yosemite and you know what we’re facing. This may get ‘not funny’ fast. We’re in the middle of nowhere. We maybe throwing ourselves at the mercy of strangers. France likes Americans these days, right? (Wink)
Thankfully we do make it, with a few KMs to spare. And they do have gas (and bathrooms, to everyone’s relief). There’s a “vide grenier” going on in the parking lot. Literally “emptying out the grain storage” but we’d say “yard sale” or “garage sale”. Interesting stuff but we resist.
We press on towards some random city with a river flowing through it, hoping we can find somewhere to picnic. We stop at an old folks home with parking, a lovely grass area with picnic tables and lots of signs that say (in essence) “don’t even think about it”. We press on. We check out other options, down a very steep, busy lane, arriving somewhere that is equally unwelcoming. Retracing our steps we finally find a parking space with a nice view and have our picnic laid out on the car hood. The angle of the car is such that we have to use our bodies to keep food from sliding onto the ground. Lunch is funny, aggravating, tasty and filling.
Pressing on, we find that we are already 4 1/2 hours into our drive and we still have not seen the Grand Canyon of the Verdun. And we have more than three hours ahead of us. We throw the Grand Canyon out the window and opt instead for going straight to the hotel.
La Ferme de la Huppe, our auberge for the next four nights, is a welcome sight. We get a good view of Gordes, the nearest town of any size, on our way in. The hotel is quiet and calm and the pool looks very inviting (but we’re sure cold at this time of year). We check in and are lead to our rooms. It’s “the stable” for Ron and Nancy and “the coop” for Scott and Karen. For Ron and Nancy’s room I joke that if it was good enough for Jesus, it should be good enough for them. Thankfully, both rooms are nicer than their names would suggest.
We unpack and enjoy a glass of wine out on the grounds. We have dinner at the hotel, not cheap and not a lot of choices. The girls have the “coalfish” (aka pollack) so named due to it dark gray unappetizing color. Ron and I have the duck breast which is plentiful and tender (in places). We did have a second dinner here at the hotel planned, but we are now rethinking that, as the menu doesn’t change very often.
When it’s time to head off to sleep, we like the cool, quiet, pitch black setting.
Photos
[Note: to view the photos in chronological order, start at the bottom :-/ ]
