Avignon, the Luberon, and more great eats!

Aix-en-Provence, Friday, May 17

Well, we have yet to try poutargue, but we certainly enjoyed yesterday.

We arranged for a small four person tour of Avignon and the interior of Provence, the Lubéron, famous for lavender, not yet in flower.   We began about 10 AM in a van with an excellent guide and a couple from Buenos Aires, Marcelo and Lilly.  The road to Avignon became tri-lingual!  

Avignon

inside the Pope's Cathedral

The Annonciation in carving

Although there was no dancing on the four remaining arches, of the original 24, of the Pont d'Avignon, we did an extensive walk through the city.  Avignon, the center of Catholicism for seven popes who fled Rome for the safety of France, is right at the top of a grand hill overlooking the Rhône.  Quite a site, looking down on the river.   The palace, built in large part by Clément VI, is grand and imposing, but more a fortress than the grand St Peters of Rome.  In part, we suppose, because it was a time of great unrest and the walls were necessary to maintain the city's safety.

Waterwheels: now decoration

From there we traveled across the Lubéron to three villages.  The first, Isle sur la Sourgue, was a textile manufacturing center with the factories powered by waterwheels pushed by canal waters.  We enjoyed the ducks in the canal while we tasted a lovely rosé from Vaucluse, the local area, and salades grénobloise with tiny ravioli on a bed of lettuce topped with cubes of mild blue cheese, croutons and walnuts.  

Gordes

Gordes square

Our next stop was Gordes, a hilltop village, where the local limestone was put together for the local buildings carefully without mortar! Now they use mortar to reinforce the old stones, but the village has an air of the Middle Ages and the narrow walkways are quite fascinating, much like most of the area, as they wind through the habitations.

Rousillon in ochre

Rousillon, our fourth stop, was another hilltop village, this time ochre-hued.  Ochre was a local iron-oxide used for dyes, now mainly used in this region by artists and to paint the buildings of Rousillon.  Among our visits--an old museum dedicated to olive oil manufacturing.  Unfortunately Provence's olive trees were destroyed in a massive frost in 1956, and even now there are not anywhere as many as Spain or Italy.  

We got a little bonus tour of Marseille so that our guide could drop off Marcelo and Lilly.

Les Vieilles Canailles

Home to a dinner, at a restaurant recommended by Leo, our excellent guide from Provence-Explorer, at Les Vieilles Canailles (translated as the "old scoundrels").  This dinner was by far the best meal we have had so far, and probably ranks in the top ten meals in France.  Up a small alley in the very oldest part of Aix, it's tiny.  Six tables with the maitre'd, Fred and two other waiters managing the house and the chefs visible behind them.  Fred is an equal opportunity restauranteur seducing gay (of which there were a significant number) and straight patrons into delicious meals and wines.  The excellent cellar produced two wines for us: a Bandol from Toulon, and a red from Lubéron.  Our courses ranged from stuffed zucchinis and sablé, a form of biscuit, with artichokes and parmesan, then lamb sweetbreads served with Jerusalem artichokes for John and a local organically raised guinea hen cooked with vin jaune from the Jura with white asparagus for Ben.  We resisted Fred's guilt-inducing entreaties of "you will regret" not ordering the fresh chocolate donuts with Ben's:  "Je ne regrette rien."   However we could not resist the triple-cream Saint Nectaire cheese.

We should include at this point, an excellent meal on Wednesday at La Cintra on La Rotonde, a brasserie that produced a superb magret de canard for John and a nicely done loup dourade for Ben, though he did not fine the fish quite to his taste and it was not properly filleted.  We had a wonderful deep red local Provençale Pigoudet Première with that meal too.

Not traveling today, over six miles walking yesterday!