Friday: Friday afternoon, we all met
up at Part-Dieu to take the train. Our first train ride was about two hours to
Marseille. We had a bit of time in Marseille and it already looked like a
beautiful place just from the train station – I’m excited to go there in a week
and a half. After that, we got on another train down to les arcs de draguignan.
There, we were picked up by our guide Jean and taken to where we were staying
Friday night at l’hôtel le Domino. Once we dropped our stuff off in our rooms,
we headed downstairs to eat at the restaurant owned by the same person who
owned the little bed and breakfast we were staying in. Jean and his wife
Justine joined the rest of us for dinner. As an appetizer they gave us little
crackers with cheese and ham as well as sea snails, which, despite our valiant
efforts, were inedible for almost all of us. After that, our first course
arrived. We had a salad with hard-boiled egg, sundried tomatoes, anchovies and
green beans. Normally I love salads, but I really hated this one except for the
green beans. After that, we had a cod dish with a bunch of vegetables including
green beans, cauliflower, purple carrots… It was delicious and I was relieved
that the whole meal wasn’t a bust. Finally, for dessert, I had a carpaccio of
pineapple (really, really thinly sliced pineapple) soaked in a lovely sauce and
topped with vanilla ice cream. It was a wonderfully light and delicious
dessert. After dessert, Dana and I hung out for a little while before going to
bed.
Saturday: Saturday morning we woke up
and headed back down to the restaurant to have a little breakfast. We had a
lite breakfast of toast and tea, but the homemade apricot jam that they had was
really good. After breakfast, we all piled into the van (me, Dana, Jose,
Ansley, Janee, our program director Barbara, our guide Jean and his wife
Justine) and headed to this little town called Trigance. It was full of quaint
architecture and we even saw this adorable little donkey. Apparently all the
houses there were designed without any architects, which we were really
impressed with given how cute the place was. All the houses were built very
close together to try to preserve space for agricultural lands. On our way back
to the car, we stopped off to use the toilets. Unluckily for us, in all the
little towns that we visited, they only had Turkish Toilets (basically a nicer
name for holes in the ground), which are not the easiest toilets to use! After
that, we got back into the van and headed to this little boulangerie. Our guide
told us that they had the most wonderful bread and pastries there. We watched a
really interesting video on the bread making process including how to make the
fire, how the bread is made, etc and then bought some stuff from there to eat
at our picnic for lunch. Next, we drove to the nearby town of Castellane to go
to a really cute little market where I bought some delicious honey and green
olive spread. After spending some time exploring the market, we headed on a
long winding road through the mountains to Verdon where we had a lovely picnic
lunch. After lunch, we all changed into our bathing suits to go into the little
river. Dana and I had left our stuff up at the van and so had to walk back over
there. We had to change by the van on the side of the road and try not to flash
all the passing cars. It was really a hilarious experience full of funny
mishaps! The river was absolutely freezing and it was relatively windy despite
the sunshine. Dana and I really struggled to get into the water. Jose and
Ansley had to almost pull us in. Once we were in, they tried to get us to dunk
our heads, which we refused to do, resulting in a ton of screaming. I screamed
so much and so loud that I almost lost my voice. Once we were in the water, it
was very nice, but we really couldn’t feel our legs and once we got out, my
legs were pretty painful since they were so freezing cold (you could clearly
see the line of how deep I went into the water from where I was bright red from
the cold). After that, we went on some more winding roads (we were all pretty
nauseous during these rides) to head to the panoramic Gorges du Verdon. This
has even been described as France’s Grand Canyon and it was unbelievably
beautiful! After that, we took a hike down to this very pretty bridge and to
the river below. It was so incredibly blue and the contrast with the rocks made
for a fabulous place. After a lovely little hike, we got back in the car and
headed to the incredible medieval town of Moustiers Ste Marie that is known for their blue earthenware
products. In the town there is an awesome church up on the hill that is a
pilgrimage site. It is known for the star that hangs over it to protect it that
is on a wire that is connected to the two sides of the hills. We hiked up the
hill to the church. Once we got up there the view was simply spectacular. It
was incredibly windy, but it was certainly worth it. The church itself was dark
inside and only lit by a few candles by the alter. It made for a really unique
ambiance in the church. Something that I have yet to experience in all the
really elaborate churches I have seen in Europe. We wandered back through the
town, popping into a few of the shops before getting back into the car. Jose
had left his coat at the hotel we stayed at the night before, so we had to
drive back to that hotel to pick it up before heading to the hotel that we
stayed at Saturday night right by the Mediterranean called Relais de Maures.
Once settling into our rooms, we headed down to dinner. The restaurant there
has actually won some awards in the Michelin guide, so it certainly had a lot
to live up to. For the first course, I had a fabulous crab soup. The flavor was
spot on and it wasn’t too rich, which was just prefect. Following that I had
guinea hen in a rosemary cream sauce with a side of vegetable spring rolls. The
hen was fabulously tender and perfectly moist, but the real highlight of the
dish was actually the spring rolls. The filling was just so perfectly seasoned
that I wished I could have had more of them! Finally, for dessert I had a pana
cotta with strawberries and pistachio madeleines. The pana cotta was
incredible. It was creamy, but light and the strawberries and strawberry sauce on
it was just to die for. After a wonderful dinner, Dana and I headed back to our
room to hang out for a bit before going to sleep. At one point, I took a shower
and Dana ended up falling asleep for a bit on the bed. Once I was back in the
room getting ready for bed, she sat up straight in bed and asked me if I had
just taken a shower. Then she freaked out and started yelling: is it morning?
Is it Monday morning? She was so out of it and I was so worried, but it was a
hilarious moment.
Sunday: Sunday morning, we woke up and
headed to breakfast at the restaurant downstairs. We had delicious, freshly
baked, warm croissants and tea. The croissants were truly melt in your mouth
good. After breakfast, we walked down to the Mediterranean to one of the
beaches of where the Allies landed in 1944. Our guide Jean explained to us a
lot of the history surrounding this and it was really quite interesting. After
that, we all piled back into the van to head to this pretty little village
called Bormes les Mimosas. We strolled through the town and took a ton of
pictures of the beautiful place. It was truly picturesque and the amount of
flowers and beautiful little buildings was incredible. I seriously wish that I
could live in the town it was so great! We wandered through the little shops in
the town and just took in the spectacular view of the town overlooking the
Mediterranean sea. We spent a long time in the town just taking in the beauty
of it. After that, we hopped back in the van and headed to the Mediterranean
sea to a great little spot. We had a little picnic (we hadn’t bought enough
bread for all 8 of us…) and then got our bathing suits on. The water was a
little bit warmer (barely), but it was so rocky that it was a little painful to
go to far into the water. Dana and I waded in for a bit and then just relaxed
on the beach in the beautiful sunshine. It was a bit windy though, so I ended
up having to borrow Jean’s jacket to wear on the beach. After we all got out of
the water, we headed to the little café next door, right on the beach to get
some drinks and relax for a bit. After that, we all changed back into our
clothes, packed up all our stuff and headed back to the train station. It ended
up taking us a little longer than we had expected and we were a little bit
worried about missing our train, but luckily we ended up making it to the train
station with a little bit of time to spare. We headed from les arcs de draguignan
to Toulon, then ran to our next train that left 10 minutes after our other one
got in to Avignon. In Avignon we had about 25 minutes to get off the train,
find some food, wait in line, buy everything and then to get onto our train. We
ran on just in time to catch our train back to Lyon Part-Dieu. Once there, I
took the metro back home and relaxed a little bit before going to bed.
Overall I had an absolutely fabulous
weekend. We were so fourtunate with the weather because all the predications
had indicated rain and bad weather, but we ended up with beautiful sunshine
(even if it was a bit cold). We had delicious food, saw some extraordinary towns
and had a wonderfully relaxing weekend!
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