Marci and Steve Go Back to Europe

As we finish our adventure in the South of France, here is my rendition of the song MyFavorite Things from the Sound of Music.......sing as you read. Liquettes on women and market day fromage Red wine for dinner but lunches of HOMARD Rooms of toile pillows with cafe Au lait These are a few of my favorites today. Driving thru villages seeing the shutters Painted With colors from ochre to butter Winding through renaissance lanes of such charm Drifting through groves of tuit'olive farms Bonjour Madame , pardon Monsieur, always be polite When I am trying to know myFrench words, it rarely if ever is right! AVIGNON  Some days things work unexpectedly well -you are driving in the middle of nowhere and stumble upon a quirky  little museum or a restaurant just when you are hungry and some days no matter how much you plan, the timing is just off.  So began the next leg of our journey from Lagnes to Avignon. Our first stop was in L'Isle s la Sorgue near our home base to mail our fir...

Add to the shopping list black French espadrilles for Steve. Note: you really could shop all the time here with a bigger suitcase and an unlimited budget. Tips for those of you planning a vacation in France...things you may not know or will make life a bit less surprising once you are here. 1. In France BnBs, no matter if quite nice, they do give you a bed but they apparently do not make it for you. The room is yours and breakfast is exactly the same each day. I think the only difference is the surprise of which pastry you get and if the hostess makes their own preserves. if they do you will be treated to apricot lavender and strawberry thyme, yum. 2. In France BnBs, in the country, the towels smell wonderful from being hung in the sunshine to dry but that does make them a bit rough. 3. in Provence you will see the LIPPO everywhere you go. Do not be alarmed as this is just another car participating in the Lost in Provence Pulling Over. you will recognize this as a small Pue...

I Like the NYT, I believe as a responsible blogger I must when necessary have an 'un petit' section of corrections. So to correct the post regarding Steve's 'bathroom faux pas', he actually meant not to say piscine (swiming pool, one of a few French words that has stuck in my head) but Bain de Soliel which is sunbathing. Either way Marie was still confused and I was still hysterical. Today will be our 'down day' so I am going to try to catch up and blog all the things I have been jotting down in the little notebook I constantly now carry. Funny, I remember doing the same thing last time I spent three months in Europe and still have that tucked away in some memory box probably in the basement of a generous relative. We are winding down our week in Provence and I am thinking, would I have liked to do a Peter Mayle and do a year here? Yesterday we visited the village he based his year and story on and voila,it was just that,a small village, nothing spec...

Truth be told, I am not really a blog reader. In fact there is not one blog I follow. Once in a while Shelby tells me about a great blog I should read or one that she reads but it is really not my thing. Up until now I have not had time to read even the NYT every day, let alone other people's thoughts. So the approach to our Euro blog is just being made up as we go. Steve assumed it would be a sentence or three a day saying where we were or what we did but if you have been reading, you know it is much more about observations and life and yes FOOD. So we need some feed back....are you reading this? We see all the hits but not the who. What is fun to hear about?Most importantly, we still want everyone to stay in touch by email-you may feel like you talked to us because you know what we are doing but we have no idea what is going on back home, so write! Now for the actual blog entry for today. Steve thought he was getting so good at French. He had just mentioned that he would know...

This is a posting about French Design.  This is particularly about the haves and the have nots. I am sure you are thinking this is about having money or taste but no monsieurs et Madames, this is about having to clean bathrooms or not having to clean bathrooms! In this case you may want to be a have not but if you are in France, and you are a 'have' to clean your toilette, at least they have found a great design.......really the ingenuity of Americans and we still make toilets with flush handles that run and you have to jiggle? With curlicues on the base that trap shmutz? And tanks that you can ever paint behind?? Let's take a lesson here.....for sure MY next abode will look like this. This is reason #4 why I want to be European, flush flushers on the wall clearly marked for petite et grande flushes and a simple wall mounted bowl. Nothing to clean except the floor!!!!

So how do you know you are officially old and retired?  You arise at 6:30 to welcome the day,you are the first ones at breakfast to savor your cafe and croissant then you set off across the Provence landscape, taking a few wrong turns but eventually arriving in Arles via St Remy wondering of you may have made a mistake by not hiring a guide to do the driving that should have taken an hour by all accounts but took you two.  You wonder the streets of this work-a-day town and stumble upon the birthplace of Notradamus to discover he was Jewish???? How did we not know that??? The day was magnificent and thanks to Rick Steve's (my personal hero of walking tours and some restaurants),  We ended up at the 'casual bistro' of the best chef in Arles, Jean luc Rabanel. OK I again digress to FB (food blogging, please note and keep track of my abbreviation , FB) because it was an incredible lunch. I had a Half of a grilled HOMARD (ok if you don't speak French or regularly visit...