A spot of wine-buying
The main reason we booked a hotel in Carpentras was its proximity to the Cotes du Rhone wine region. Nearby are the famous villages of Beaumes de Venise, Gigondas, Vacqueyras and Chateauneuf-du-Pape, as well as the majestic Mont Ventoux. To try and salvage something on this leg of our journey, we decided to visit Vacqueyras this morning, maybe have a coffee and see if we could take home some of its beautiful red wines.
Sophie and I had a good night and slept well, thank goodness. We had breakfast in the dining room and enjoyed croissants and bread served with jam and coffee. Sophie couldn't believe this was all there was for breakfast, never having stayed in a conventional French hotel before! Le Troubadour was unusual in that it offered a buffet breakfast! I said the French are fanatical about bread and the baguettes and croissants were incredibly fresh and delicious.
We were all done and ready to go at 9am and took a delightful route to Vacqueyras through beautiful countryside and small villages. We could see the imposing mountain range, the Dentelles de Montmirail, in the distance and I really wished we had longer to linger in this gorgeous area.
Once in Vacqueyras we parked the car and had a wander through lovely narrow streets lined with rustic houses. We were delighted to stumble upon a café shaded by huge plane trees and ordered a coffee for me and a hot chocolate for Sophie.
The people in the café were very friendly and I spent a pleasant few minutes fantasising about what it must be like to live in a village like this and call in for a coffee every morning. Sheer bliss, I should think!
We sat in the café and chatted, enjoying the lovely ambience. There was a shop selling wines opposite, but we found another selling bottles from the whole region, so we decided to drive there. Sophie's Google Maps app took us onto a narrow lane, which turned out to be the wrong way, and I had to turn the car around on a very precipitous part of the road!
Rhonéa was like a branch of Majestic on steroids and stocked wine from all over the Cotes du Rhone region, including Gigondas and Chateauneuf-du-Pape. We wandered about looking at the different wines and picking out some bottles to take home. The last time Keith and I had visited the area, we'd taken Hugh Johnson's wine book with us to help with recommendations and had bought a case of Vieux Télégraphe from Chateauneuf-du-Pape. Back in 1993, it cost us about £8 a bottle so I dread to think how much it is now!
We ended up buying eight bottles of wine and Keith treated us to two bottles of Gigondas in memory of a happy time spent in the village years ago. We just about managed to squeeze them into the car and set off for the autoroute.
The road there was perhaps the prettiest of the whole trip, lined on either side by vineyards stretching into the distance. It was a wine lover's dream!
Auxerre again
We had a great journey from the Cotes du Rhone to Burgundy, passing through Lyon on the way and getting stuck in traffic for about an hour. We must have criss-crossed the Rhone a dozen times and at one point we were underneath it!
Once past the city, we stopped for sandwiches at an aire and carried on until the late afternoon, arriving in Auxerre at about 5pm. Our Airbnb was situated in a quiet residential area and was a flat with two bedrooms, a bathroom, a kitchen/diner and a living room.
We had another brief bout of bickering when I initially refused to drive the car into the gravelled parking area, as we were only supposed to leave it there briefly to offload our luggage. We then had to park it on the street, which wasn't a problem.
While Sophie showered, Keith and I researched restaurants nearby. I came up with two that looked promising and were both Italian. I tried to contact one, which opened at 7pm, but we decided to walk there anyway and try our luck. As we crossed the road near the flat, the breeze blew Sophie's dress and I realised she had it on inside out! I started laughing and couldn't stop, unable to breathe at one point as I thought it was so funny! I don't think my daughter was amused!
Walking through the quiet streets was very interesting and I picked out at least five houses that I would love to live in! The restaurants were about a ten-minute walk away, and before we enquired about a table we popped into a chemist to get some cream for Keith's bites, which were still troubling him.
La Tavola had good reviews and we were the first customers to walk through the doors. They were able, after a bit of bickering themselves, to accommodate us, which was brilliant. We were seated in a little conservatory and given menus. Sophie suggested focaccia to share as a starter, and we ordered an Aperol Spritz each (I wasn't driving... hooray!), a beer for Keith and a bottle of Italian red.
I chose ravioli for my main course, while Keith and Sophie opted for lasagne. The restaurant gradually started to fill up and seemed to be very popular with the locals. The focaccia was delicious and was topped with smoky ham and onions. Sophie and Keith loved their lasagne and I enjoyed my ravioli which was creamy and nutty.
We found room for a pudding of Tiramisu and chatted with the table next to us who were from the Netherlands and were very friendly and chatty. It was a lovely evening!
The walk back to the Airbnb was great and the streets were dark and quiet. Some of the large houses were all closed up and I wondered if they were just holiday homes? Back at the flat, we managed to link my Amazon Prime app to the television and we watched a very entertaining Grand Tour with James May, Jeremy Clarkson and Richard Hammond driving through Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia. The roads looked lovely and the countryside spectacular!
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