Date: 04-20
Location: Avignon, France
Weather: Exceptionally windy but a fine sunny day (23c)
Today we traveled from Lyon to Avignon by Train. Travel time was 3hrs(a TGV service is also available which cuts this down to 2 hours, theTGV station is outside the old town of Avignon, a 10 minute 1.10euro bus will ferry you to the old city) Avignon (pop 80,000) has a very well preserved walled old town as its main attraction. Most of the old town's roads are one way. The small city is a cosy little, attractive spot. With parks and fountains spread across various blocks, statues, gothic buildings lined with gothic charicatures on their window cills, there is lots to see in Avignon. Arriving around lunch, we dropped into the tourist office (of whoms attendants speak perfect English) and organised one (of many available) 1/2 day tours. The tour we initially chose was full (a trip to Les Baux deProvence) so we opted for a wine tour. Cost was euro50 pp and included our knowledble guide, Pascal. Tour was via miniibus which seated 8 people, ours consisted of us, 2 British and 4 Canadians. Our first stop was at a prestigious wine grower outlet (name escapes me). Aparently the vineyards around the area are never sold due to their high value. Once you own some land here, you own it for life. A lot of the vines are grown with a mulch of small orange rocks, aparently the rocks absorb the heat during the day and then at night when it cools they slowly release the heat which assists in a better grape crop. Good crops are a mixture of harvesting conditions, soil, environment andtime of picking we're told. Picking occurs in September and usuallylasts a few weeks. Inside the (unknown??) vineyard showroom we visited the wine storagearea, huge 300l barrels stacked 6 high adorned the room. Our guide explained how they carefully choose the wood to create the barrels for storage (another important step in the wine growing process). The naming of a
vineyard's product is called by region/provence rather than by the type of wine (ie Merlot/Shiraz) We were tutored in the process of testing/tasting wines (a bit overthe top in my humble view), swishing it around, sniffing it 3 different ways, swishing some more, sniffing, checking its color, then... finailly, actually tasting the stuff. Like any good non wineconissier's Clare and I preferred the cheaper, younger variety of red's rather than the pricy, smooth vintage on taste. We left vineyard #1 (still unknown) to travel to a small town shouldered on a hill (a common thing in these parts). It was a lovely little town, with a small chapel at its peak. Untouched by the tourist industry there was not the overflowing array ofpostcard/trinket shops lining its narrow streets. 30 miniutes on we're back on the bus off to another wineyard showroom, this one's name was 'The cave', or something similar to that. They produced moresweeter, dessert wines, of which some alikened our pallete. Aftertasting we were treated to a cheesy 10 minute video on the localfamily's history of wine making. After that it was off home to Avignon. Arriving home, we explored the village some more, of which they do a good job of lighting at night. We saw the Palais des Papes, a 14th Century fortied palace for the popes. We then had dinner at one of very few places serving chicken. The consistent snobby waiter service greeted us as our best attempts at speaking French obviously did not impress. A simple meal of Chicken and Lasange (unforgivingly not a very standard local dish) was had and then it was off to bed
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