Saint-Remy-de-Provence

    We left off in Villefranche-sur-mer and our excursion to Menton for lunch.  Since then, we've had a few beach days in Villefranche, a 4 hour drive West to Saint-Remy-de-Provence, and another 4 hour drive North to Beaune, in the Burgundy region.  (If you know how to pronounce Beaune, no pun intended).  I'll start with St. Remy and try to keep it short and sweet.  We drove from Villefranche to St. Remy in a diesel Renault Clio.  The speed limit on the autoroutes in France is 130 kph unless otherwise posted.  That translates to roughly 81 mph.  Needless to say, it feels even faster in a little jellybean of a car.  I got used to it pretty quickly, and we had a nice safe drive, learned about the toll system and how it's illegal to use the left lane unless passing or in traffic, it's a great system.

    As we approached St. Remy we noticed some big differences.  Almost all the streets were lined with huge trees in nice straight lines, planted when the roads were paths.  Needless to say the roads are very narrow, and pretty active.  We also noticed some fields of lavender, and olive trees.  Allison has a major thing for olive trees which you can see in the pictures on flickr.  When we arrive in St. Remy it's a gorgeous little town with cobble and mortar buildings and filled with the scent of lavender.  It is bursting with bakeries, meat shops, olive oil shops, basically anything food related. This is a culinary and art based town, and it's very obvious right away.  Vincent Van Gogh institutionalized himself in St. Remy and a lot of his famous works were painted in town and the surrounding areas.  Nostradamus also lived in St. Remy.  Fun facts fun facts!!  When we arrived at our hotel we were greeted by the very friendly owner, who was very excited to ask about our honeymoon and congratulate us.  She offered us a free drink when we were ready.  She also upgraded us to the best room, which is a separate little stucco cottage, with a private patio.   It's sits under a giant fig tree (the hotel is actually called Sous Les Figuiers which translates to under the figs in English), filled with ripe figs. YUM!  We were very happy with our new place, it was just perfect.

  While in St. Remy we did a lot of strolling, walked in a few shops and did olive oil tastings, and plenty of eating.  Figs are the big thing in St. Remy at the moment, as they're in season so they were on most menus.  We had read about a chocolatier prior to traveling there named Joel Durand, who is ranked as one of the top 5 chocolatiers in France, so we had to find his shop or my wife would have had a fit.   His shop is located right in the center of town.  It has racks of hundreds of little square chocolates with letters on them.  Each letter is a different type, and there is a menu with very detailed descriptions.  These things ranged from Lavender, to Szechuan pepper, to a standard Almond.  We bought a pack of nine, and have been snacking on them now and again.  Rosemary was really good, and the coffee was also excellent. That was a great find.

    We got up our second morning and drove a few miles to some ancient Roman ruins called Glanum which are actually the largest Roman ruins outside of Italy. We walked around there for about an hour taking pictures, imagining what it must have been like.  There were artistic renderings throughout the ruins which illustrated what it would have looked like prior to the town being abandoned in 260 AD.  Really amazing stuff and some of it was really well preserved.  After that we took a scenic drive through the local villages.  This drive can't be compared. We drove up a mountain through narrow passes, with great views of the town of Beaux.  We drove through wine and olive country, passed fields of lavender and beautiful slope side villas.

    We were there for two nights and had two great meals, one in the courtyard of restaurant serving traditional yet modern food, with great service and ambiance.  The other, called Mas de L'Amarine, was off the beaten path.  It's a boutique hotel with a restaurant which was very modern but whimsical and very fairytale like.  It sounds cheesy but it almost felt like Alice in Wonderland.  The pictures don't do it justice.  The food was amazing and inspiring.  The service was fantastic, and the setting was unreal.  Oh and we found out later that the owner and our server was named Alice.

    Today we are going to explore Burgundy, maybe we'll drink some wine.