A very Busy Journey

Dear Friends and Family, Relief! The extended driving is over for a while; we have arrived in the quaint village of Puy L’Eveque for a 3 week stay with our friend, Ann. It is almost like coming home. But first, the journey. On Friday, around noon, I picked up our cute little car,

From the train station: A little Fiat. We chose the train station because when we head to Paris, it will be by the TGV. I had, of course, walked the route from the train station to our apartment a couple of times making sure I knew the route exactly. All went smoothly and I even had a parking space (a rarity in any French city) in front of our apartment. We through in our bags and with one right turn, a trip across the river and a left turn, we were out of Lyon and on our way, headed for the town of Mende, about 225 kilometers away! Along the way, we stopped at one of the motorway rest areas, complete with gas station and restaurant. We thought we would share a little pitcher of wine, but when we tried to by it, we were informed that you could only have the wine with the purchase of a full meal. No sneaking wine into the car or drinking only. So, we debated and finally gave into a huge plate of mussels and French fries. They were actually quite good and were pleased that we had been forced to eat. We eventually arrived at the town of Mende and checked into the Deltour Inn hotel, a place I had booked on the internet a couple of days earlier. Once settled in the room, we wandered down town Mende and sat in front of the cathedral in a little square and had some wine. Mende seems to be divided into an old town and a new town. We were obviously in the old town, with a main thoroughfare

quaint little side streets

And some very dramatic architecture that has been nicely maintained

We had a nice dinner at the restaurant just across from the hotel and turned in early. As I have said before, driving in a foreign country is stressful and we were pretty wiped out. The next day we were on our way be about 10 am, heading to Le Grau de Roi, a beautiful little village on the water just south of Montpellier. It was about 200 kilometers away, so we had time to get off the beaten track. We did that for lunch. We saw a sign for Roquefort (yes, like the cheese!) and decided to investigate. It was about 20 kilometers out of the way, but well worth it. We had a delicious lunch at this little restaurant.

We had a salad named for the place and it was delicious, with greens, tomatoes, bacon, walnuts and, of course, mountains of Roquefort cheese. We added a half litre of Rosé and sat in the sunshine enjoying every bite. Before leaving, I did capture this photo of Polley (and my finger) against the dramatic backdrop.

Then it was on to our hotel which I had also reserved. To avoid the hassle of getting into Montpellier proper, I had booked a place just west of the city, in a place called St-Jean de Vendas. For more than 45 minutes we wandered around trying to find it. Time was wasting away as we were scheduled for dinner with Julie, her husband, Franke and their children, Julieann and Thomas. Julie is the sister of Natacha Price, our French friend in Portland who ran the Madrona Hill Bakery for a number of years. This was to be our second visit to Julie’s. As we wandered, panic began to ensue. Finally, I decided to give up on the hotel and head to Julie’s hoping to find something else along the way. Polley and I desperately wanted to change the clothes we had been in for two days. We got near to Julie’s place, a very popular weekend holiday destination and everything was completely full. It was not only Saturday, but it was one of the weekends of something called Bull Stock Days. It seems to be a kind of drunken Pamplona event with bulls released in the street and crazy car races with people holding onto the roofs of cars (I looked for Mitt Romney and his dog, but no luck!). Anyway the place was packed, so we quickly decided to retreat from the ocean and just by luck found a small hotel at a secondary airport in Montpieller. A quick change of clothes and we were headed back to Le Grau de le Roi. Julie and Frank are delightful people. Since we last visited them two years ago, Julie has had a little boy, Thomas. Both of the kids are wonderful

and Julieann is truly the drama queen. It was a great evening and Julie made a Moroccan dish to die for. Lots of wine, of course, and good conversation. That is something the French can do, seemingly forever, talk! We finally excused ourselves for we had a long drive the next day, nearly 250 miles to get to Ann’s in Puy L’Eveque. WE left about 9:30 on Sunday and by 4 pm, we were pulling up to Ann’s lovely farm. We felt truly home. She had us for dinner and we caught up on both our lives for the last two years, before falling flat, truly exhausted from another day’s driving. This morning, however, we realized why we had come as we awoke to a beautiful sunrise

and were ready to begin our 3 weeks in this picturesque petite ville.