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

Eating in Provence

Would you believe me if I told you we didn't go out for dinner even once for the whole week in Provence? It is true. And strangely it was very nice! I think we all just loved watching the view each evening from our porch.....

A few nights, after Dayne's delicious martinis, we just continued snacking on French cheeses, charcuterie and funny snack chips like roast chicken crisps and bacon cheese puffs. One night we went down to the only restaurant in town and ordered the only thing they make- pizza- and brought it back up to the house. It was soooo good with interesting toppings and the best salumi and olives of course.

A couple of times we shopped at the local town markets, there is an evening one in the town of Valleron that we thought was quite good. This was mainly locals, and most not speaking much English which made it really fun. A few stands had these strawberries that you could smell almost from the parking lot!


Have you ever seen such gorgeous squash blossoms?

We had chicken for dinner on that night...

One of the nicest days of dining happened when we went to visit our friends Abra & Shel in Uzes. First we took a walk and shopped at the market (in these posts the term market refers a local farmers market vs a grocery store) for our evening cook together dinner, coming up with the dishes as we saw ingrediants. The market was small, in the center of town, and very cute with venders selling everything from seafood to olives and perfumes. There was a basket of kittens and even a snail farmer.















It took us a while to make it back home. There was bread to buy, pastries to pick out for dessert (and a brief lesson in how to inquire about nuts and/or peanuts as an ingrediant) and of course wine to choose. Once we returned Abra set the table with an amazing lunch she had put together. It was so nice to sit on the beautiful patio and catch up with our friends and hear more about the area.

After some pool time, nap time and a stroll through town we all started working on an amazing dinner. Dayne, Paul and Forest made up some cocktails using a cherry liquor Abra had made. We noshed on tomato slices, dressed with fresh garlic and squash blossoms stuffed and baked. Then the appetizer of duck breast baked in a salt crust and served with a meurette sauce studded with foie gras. Main course of melons du veau and sauteed baby zucchini. Lots of wine. Amazing cheese and then a chocolate torte. It was quite a feast!

There was one other big dinner event, at our very own chateau where all 26 guest teamed up to make a big dinner on the last night that we were all together.


There was an amuse of cold soup with chicken, salad chevre chaud, incredible deboned and stuffed chicken, ratatouille, tarts and lots of wine. Lots.

Provence!

What could be better than spending a week in Provence? Spending it with super fun friends in a chateau that had started being built in the 8th century!

I do feel incredibly lucky. We have wonderful friends who invited us to spend some time in Chateauneuf de Gadagne where they had rented an amazing chateau in years past. And when I say chateau I do mean it in the most medieval, French, palatial and stunning sense of the word! WOW!

We took a beautiful train ride down from Paris with our roommates for the week and rented cars in Avignon- just 20 minutes from our town. Well 20 minutes if you have GPS or are a French highway mind reader maybe! Armed with maps and directions it took us 3 hours to shop at the Carrefour for provisions and drive 11 km to our chateau. Oh well...... we were ready for cocktails once we loaded in!

Our village sat upon a hill giving you amazing views of the Rhone Valley that changed daily with the light. Some days you would notice red steeples, other days you'd see white cliffs and others you'd see many many castles and chateaus like ours.

There were 23 of us total, divided up into 3 main "houses"- ours downstairs and the old wine cellar was near the beautiful gardens and gorgeous pool. I really can't say enough about how amazing the chateau was and the pictures can't really do it justice. I was incredible being around such ancient architecture!
We were really lucky to be in the area on a Sunday when the awesome l'Isle Sur la Sorgue market happens. During the morning the entire town is set up with farmers and crafts stalls then they pack it up in the afternoon allowing you to have a nice lunch and shop the amazing antique shops that the village also has. People come from all around to this market and you can get just about anything here. We bought lots of sausages, cheese and herbs from various vendors but none of us got a slice of this roasted stuffed suckling pig!

This town was so lovely, we had a great time walking around exploring until we realized that it was Sunday and we hadn't picked up any wine and it is very hard to find wine shops open on Sunday! After much searching and asking around we finally located quite an amazing selection at the local gas station mini mart. Only in France would you find aged Bordeaux at the gas station!