11/6/12

So this last weekend we went down south. We left somewhat early on Thursday, about 10 am. It was a super nice day finally. We drove for about an hour and a half or so to the small town/appellation of Cairanne. One of our buddies from work recommended we stop there and check out the wines at this shop that has product from all of the winemakers in the area. Super sweet. The guy behind the counter tasted us through quite a few wines…

We bought some wine and then drove a bit east and up to almost the top of Mount Ventoux. What a beautiful place/view!

On the way down the sun was setting over Avignon, our destination!

We stayed the night in Avignon at this sweet hostel and had quite a long night. The next day was even more gorgeous than the first. T-shirt weather.

We cruised around Avignon and shopped for a while, then took off and drove to the Gigondas wine appellation. We got there in the mid-afternoon so we went to basically a similar shop as the one in Cairanne. Except at this shop they had about 50 different producers, and they lady attendant didn’t want to promote any specific winery, so she refused to give us recommendations. It had been a long time since I chose wines off of name and vintage year. What a joke. But the wines were pretty good. I got out with a rose and a red. They have no whites in this region.

 We then drove to Arles and spent the night. That night we got tapas for dinner. It was a nice refresher from all the French cuisine. The next day we cruised around the city and then drove further south to the swamps of Carmargue by the sea. It is actually a bunch of salt marshes. There are wild horses, cattle, and flamingos. We spent a couple of hours there just walking around on the beach and in the marshes themselves. It got a little muddy!

We got some ice cream and then left Camargue. Our next destination was the city of Marseille. The drive took about an hour or so. Once we arrived, we decided to park and walk to find our hostel.

After it was located we stopped by a bar to grab a quick pint and watch the second half of the Saint-Etienne/Paris Saint-Germain game. We (Saint-Etienne) won! Allez Vert! We got our stuff and set up camp at the hostel. We then cruised out to eat. We got dinner at an Indian food restaurant of all places. It was very good minus the fact that the tikka masala was NOT SPICY AT ALL. The French really need to step up their game with the spicy foods. Afer dinner we went out to bars etc. We went to the third Irish Pub of the trip (one in every city), because they seem to be a popular hangout. It was a great night. We met a lot of people, every one of which asked me who I was going to vote for in the election. Everyone is concerned about the politics of the United States.

The next morning we got up, ate a nice breakfast at a café nearby, and got on the road towards Cassis. Cassis is a small town on the southern coast, very posh/expensive, but quite picturesque.

After walking around for a bit we got a quick bite by the sea. One kg of mussels and frites for 9 euro!

We left here and decided to go to La Ciotat, a wonderful beach town that I had been to before. There was a route we were told about that hugs the cliffs over the water sometimes reaching heights of almost 200 meters. It was so socked in and raining that we could barely see 50 ft in front of us! Pssssjbdkjhbejghfvw! We took it real slow as to not drive off a cliff, then eventually dropped into La Citotat. We did a short driving tour and headed to Bandol in hopes of tasting some wines. We got there about 430 pm, everything was closed! Sunday I guess. So much for that, so we decided to call it a day and get an earlier start back to the Northern Rhone. It started off ok, minus the pouring rain. Then we hit traffic. Dammit. Pouring rain in traffic is not the best combination to have after a long weekend of fun. Talk about a buzz kill. Anyways, we made it home safe and sound, all in all a killer time off.