Saturday, January 29, 2011

Settled in the South of France

In June of 2008 we joined 21 friends in Provence for a week’s holiday in a grand chateau east of Avignon. Now a week might not sound like a terribly long time to be someplace, but for us as Americans our vacations are so limited that 2 days here and 3 days there is the norm.

Châteauneuf de Gadagne is tiny! Two bakeries, 1 bar/pizza shop and the post office. That’s it. The chateau sits atop the hill gazing at the town below. Each day we would stop at a neighboring village’s outdoor market and pick up fresh strawberries, a chicken, some sausages or salad makings. And wine; lots and lots of wine.

I guess I haven’t mentioned that these friends of ours (us included) are “foodies”. Serious, serious foodies. Many of us have been known to travel the globe just to eat at a certain restaurant or by a certain chef.

But this time we never went out for dinner. Not even once! In an area with Michelin- starred restaurants peppering the region we stayed at home. We enjoyed watching the sunset each evening from our patio over plates of local cheeses, olives and bread. And then on the last night all 23 of us created an amazing 5-course dinner and toasted our wonderful holiday.

The week felt luxuriously long and we felt like we had a home in Provence.  Slowing down and settling in connected us not only with the town but also with each other.
This post has been entered into the Grandtourismo HomeAway Holiday-Rentals travel blogging competition

2 comments:

  1. Thanks so much for entering our contest! Apologies for not saying so earlier - I did get here to take a read, along with the other judges, but it's been a frantic month being our last weeks of our Grantourismo trip, so I think I forgot to leave a message.

    The entries were all so good this month, so thanks for contributing such a high quality post. At last - at long last - we've announced the winners of our January HomeAway Holiday-Rentals Grantourismo Travel Blogging competition. Details here: http://bit.ly/hYq2VB

    Thanks again for your entry. We're announcing the February contest details a bit later today - the final contest is going to be a very easy one! Please spread the word :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks Lara, it's always fun to enter. Looking forward to the final round! :)

    ReplyDelete

36 Hours in Mexico City

Trip date: October 2023 This trip was all about finally getting to Oaxaca with my friend Aaron, but as I had to fly through Mexico City to d...

Popular Posts