Our first dinner at Chateauneuf du Pape

We have checked into Hotel la Sommellerie which is located just outside Chateauneuf du Pape.
This place prides itself on upmarket service in combination with top line food.
Ex guests have flooded Trip Advisor with post stay comments, both in the positive and negative.
The bottom line seemed to be that it was the best food available in the region however customers felt the pricing for both food and accommodation was over the top.
Too bad. We booked four nights and like a fool I chose the "Sejour Gourmet" option which basically translates to Half-Board, bed and breakfast with a top line evening meal thrown in, however you have to cough up for the wine and let me tell you they weren't holding back with their pricing. Mind you, we are talking top line plonk, none of your house reds in sight.
We sit down at 1930 in a great looking room. 
Let's get the food out of the way first. It was just fabulous, give the chef a Michelin Star. Everything you could have expected, and more. The only problem was that by the time you had thrown back a couple Kir Royales to get the ball rolling, then dived into a magnificient rabbit terrine followed by duck magret (what else?) then enough cheese to block up anyone's system, then a dessert that packed maybe 2,500 calories, all washed down with a couple of 2001 Chateuneuf du Papes, well you get the picture , it was a killer meal.
However the highlight of the evening had to be our waiter and our fellow guests.
For starters, when we initially arrived at the hotel I was really surprised to see a monster black BMW with Russian plates sitting in the car park.
When we entered the restaurant that was all explained with the presence of a thirty something trainee Russian mafia type hood who was seated in the corner along with his trophy blonde spouse . This guy  immediately got offside with the temperamental waiter by demanding "I vant a good red and it better be cheap. Does you understand me clearly. No rubbish you here? And no fancy price"
Self preservation is a wonderful thing, the waiter wasn't about to disappoint this guy.
Seated directly to our left a a couple of well dressed and aged French diners. They had dragged along their fluffy grey poodle for the evening , an animal which resembled an untrimmed, untrained toilet brush. The waiter is all kisses, even with the dog , then dives into the kitchen and comes back with a small rug and a rather large meat dish on a fine china plate. My immediate thought was how the hell can these French be served so quickly, then I realised the waiter was all about getting the mutt up to speed prior to attending to its owners.
All very interesting stuff.
The couple to our immediate right were young and French. This dinner was obviously a special celebration heightened to the extreme when the guy finally copped his eyes on the wine prices. Julia had a clear view and whispered to me that the poor sod nearly choked on the spot and obviously spent the next five minutes feverishly scanning the red list for something under forty euros (tough  lucky Sonny, in this joint, prepare to be raped and pillaged).
The last guest was the mayor of Chateauneuf du Pape. We had actually sighted the guy earlier in the village when we were having a late afternoon drink in an outdoor wine bar. I had happened to notice the guy because he had parked outside our bar and his vehicle was one of those two stroke cylinders cars that has an engine so small that you need a jeweller's eye glass to find it and therefore the French residents don't need a vehicle license to drive them. As an aside these micro vehicles make one hell of a din when fired up. He didn't seem to mind. Why should he care , he is the Mayor. If he wants to drive a car impersonating a fat man farting, be our guest, who are we to argue.
Anyway all these fellow guests were an interesting lot and things were swinging along quite nicely until exactly 2122hrs , when an English chap entered the restaurant and plonked himself down at a spare table .
Our temperamental waiter must have known this guy quite well as the second he spotted him he rushes over to his table (whilst ignoring the rest of the diners who all immediately had their collective antenna's out) and in a rabid tone says" you are late, we held the table for you until quarter to nine, the kitchen closes at nine. It's now nine twenty two , it's too late for dinner."
And with that the waiter scuttles off into the kitchen.
Then about a minute later (this lis like Faulty Towers  on steroids) the waiter sprints back into the dining area and says "The chef is not happy, not happy , do you hear me, what do you want to drink (answer , water) large or small (answer , small) Wine? ( answer, white) I will get you a large one and because you are late you will just have to take what you get."
And with that the waiter screams off back to the kitchen.
We diners are all staring at each other with half smiles on our faces wondering what's going to happen next.
Well, we didn't have to wait long.
Suddenly from behind the kitchen door the chef and the waiter start screaming at each other. This chef is now in Gordon Ramsay mode. He has completely lost the plot and is giving the waiter the verbal thrashing of his life.
The waiter in response is fighting back as only a French waiter can.
It was priceless.
After about a minute of screaming suddenly a deathly silence envelopes the kitchen and dining area.
Eight pairs of eyes are intensely trained on the kitchen door waiting ,waiting. Even the four legged toilet brush was cocking an ear.
Out bursts the waiter with a huge glass of red in hand which he promptly slams down on the Englishman's table.
The English guy flicked the red-faced waiter a none to subtle 'merci'.
And then the weirdest thing happens.
The whole dinner scene returns to normal as if nothing had happened.
I love this restaurant and I love these highly excitable Frogs.
God, 1930hrs tonight can't come soon enough for us.
I just pray we can witness a follow up bout.

When it comes to "money shots" the Provence hillside village of Gordes ticks all the boxes

The Final Night of The Proms. It's a biggie!

Nailing tickets to the Last Night of the Proms

In recent years we have always tried to take in The Last Night of the Proms on TV . It might not be everyone's cup of tea however both Julia and I really enjoy that particular concert, what with all it's crowd interaction.
When we were based in London back in 2010 I completely stuffed up any chance of getting into the ballot for finals night.
So this year I decided to give it my best shot
Round one kicked off at 0900hrs sharp (UK time) on Saturday 12th May.
At that time yours truly and God knows how many tens of thousands of  other classical music fans all logged on to the Albert Hall website.
Actually, we couldn't all log on at once so the system sticks you in a holding line, that is, if you are one of the first five thousand to hit the enter button.
I was a bit slow out of the blocks and didn't attempt to log in until one minute past the hour so I received a message confirming that the queue was full and I should log back in later when traffic had slowed to a manageable flow.
As we were checking out of our accommodation at Pechboutier I had no option other than to drive off to our next destination of Belvianes et Cavirac and trust I wasn't too late to nail tickets to at least the required minimum five concert total, an order that would allow us to go into the ballot for the final night.
When some hours later I finally managed to get into the Albert Hall system  I started off at something like 3,800 in the queue.
No problem, I had free WiFi so Julia and I just kicked back with a couple of drinks and watched as the queue number slowly whittled itself down.
Maybe forty minutes on and I'm finally into the booking section.
Most of the good seats were long gone and one particular desired concert was already fully booked  however we managed to get half a dozen firm bookings so we were set for the Final Night Ballot.
On 1st June we received an email confirming that yes, we were lucky winners and if we logged in at 0900hrs on 8th June we could book a maximum of two tickets.
This time no more Mister Nice Guy!
When the clock clicked over to nine I hit the enter button, quickly booked two tickets. However, in my haste instead of selecting "quantity 2" I accidentally hit the "physically disabled" button and then to compound this fiasco I instinctively  hit the "quantity 2" button and for reasons I still can't understand then also requested two car parks (obviously I was looking for a safe haven for our two Oyster underground tube cards).
Major meltdown time , I proceeded to throw the laptop into a suitcase and with Julia in tow stormed off to a wine bar, all the while castigating myself for being nothing short of a complete plonker.
A couple of hours later we returned to our room and I started the process all over again, however this time there was only a queue of around 700 in front of me.
When I finally enter the booking system I carefully steer clear of the physically disabled box, completely ignore any parking or restaurant requests , hit the "quantity 2" button and when invited to select within a price range , immediately hit Best Available.
And blow me down, there were still two seats waiting for us to select at Tier Level 2 (a fantastic location) in a box just forward of the stage.
I just couldn't believe our luck.
Roll on September 8th
One more tick on our ever expanding Bucket List.

Cheers

After the days drama, time for a couple of shots to confirm we are still alive and kicking

A shot from the safety of our bedroom window looking back towards the offending mountain range in the back right. Its a little hard to believe that the saddle of this sucker is 7,350 feet up. Trust me, I counted every foot on the way up and twice on the way down. 

Our digs at the Chateau des Magnans in Jausiers

The Perfect Day for a Hassle Free Drive in the Country

It started off OK. Our host Giles (pronounced Jeeels) at Roussillon asked us what our next port of call was. I informed him that we were off to Jausiers , a small village in the Alps hard up against the Italian border, a drive of 200km and 3.5 hours. Giles then dials up Google and announces that if we wished to get the best out of the day we should reroute our trip via a wide arc south that would take in the Gorges of Verdon. The suggestion was that at most this was a small deviation from our planned route.
What could we say? Giles is French, he knows the territory like the back of his hand. In fact in the six winter months Giles and wife Monique hang out in the Alps whilst he does his ski instructor thing, so,he is very familiar with this territory. It is another cloudless day, the sun is shining, the temperature is going to hit the late twenties, we have time to burn prior to a 1500 hr check-in, so we throw new coordinates into TomTom and head south.
The first couple of hours were fantastic, the scenery was just stunning as we wove our way through fields of Lavender and Wheat, and seemingly endless plots of vines.
Down through Manosque, through Greoux-les-Bans, up to Riez, then headlong into Gorges du Vedon ( just incredible scenery) then up to Castellane.
At this point I dialed up the coordinates of our final destination Jausiers, and after dwelling for a couple of minutes on the fact that this final 100km's was going to take some hours to traverse, I turned to Julia and suggested that maybe we might be in for a bit of a hill climb.
Some of you may be aware that I hate heights, a condition brought on thirty plus years back when I suffered an attack of vertigo when climbing the bell tower of Hamburg's main cathedral (that was prior to the introduction of a lift to accommodate fat American tourists. God bless America!)
So here we are,we have reached St Julien du Verdon, and I finally and very reluctantly pull the rental over so I can check out our map in detail.
And guess what? Between us and our destination stands the Col d'Allos , a mountain pass that tops at 7,350 feet. 
This is Ed Hillary territory and frankly, I'm scared.
Off we go. After two or three minutes we are on a seven degree incline, navigating our way up a mountain slope on a road the width of a cycle-way that resembles a partially paved goat track with no side barriers.
Guys, if you are not scared of heights you simply have no comprehension of what I was about to put myself through.
For the next hour my eyes were locked on the road immediately in front of me, my knuckles were translucent white as my sweating hands gripped the steering wheel and my heart was pounding like a jack hammer attacking concrete tarmac.Three  years of good work generated by twice daily doses of blood pressure tablets were vaporised in an instant.
And as for Julia, well she was scared rigid as she trained her eyes forward and refused to look to her immediate right, a view that would have revealed that our outer wheels were tracking maybe twelve inches from the side of a cliff face that at it's height dropped at least four thousand feet directly down into the valley below. 
I finally managed to slot our vehicle in behind an old Swiss guy who obviously knew a couple of things about mountain driving. So every time a vehicle came from the opposite direction our Swiss man either sped up or slowed down to ensure he was positioned in a part of the road which would allow for vehicles to pass each other. We just hung onto his bumper and prayed.
How close were our vehicles to passing traffic? Let's put it this way. The oncoming vehicles have their wing mirrors folded inwards. We did the same. Yet in at least 50% of the vehicles that we passed, our closed wing mirrors scraped against each other. This is terror territory on two wheels.
And as if things couldn't get any worse on the accent I happened to look up the road and what I saw damn near gave me a heart attack. Julia spotted the camper wagon heading in our direction at the moment I sighted same  and she lets out a groan.
My immediate thought is bloody hell, what's this looney doing driving this four tonne monstrosity on a mountain pass. Is he insane? He can't be German. Those guys are far too rational to risk life and limb in this act of sheer lunacy. And he can't be a French driver. They value life too much.
No, it's got to be a Dutchman. They are the only guys stupid enough to ignore safety. The van gets closer. Julia yells ' I can see the number plate...NL..yep, they are Dutch'. I said ' Why the hell couldn't this sucker save us all the trouble and do the normal  Dutch  holiday thing  and hang out all day naked in a campground whilst getting stoned on cut priced dope?' There is no room to pass, the Swiss driver in front of us starts waving his hands in all directions.  This is one stressed out Swiss. 
All parties stop in their tracks.
What to do? What to do?
Finally it falls to this idiot Dutchman to resolve the problem of his own making. This death wish merchant starts backing his motor home back up this ten degree cliff face road. He finally locates a half metre of extra road width, and with that, the Swiss and yours truly take off in first gear and slowly scrape our way past his camper van.Julia told me later that as we passed she took a peek out the window and could see that our wheels were within six inches of the cliff edge. 
The descent was just as terrifying.
When we reached the bottom of the valley I pulled into the nearest parking space, killed the motor, turned to Julia and announced that I had never been so scared in my life to which she replied, join the club.
After we spend three nights here in Jausiers  we are heading back to Provence and Chateauneuf du Pape.
Trust me, we are taking the valley floor route out via Gap.
Our hearts just don't need the stress of another mountain pass.

Roussillon

A shot of the hillside village of Roussillon from our bedroom window

Getting geared up to dive down some old Ochre mining shafts

A closer shot of Roussillon from the cemetary ,which incidentally occupies prime real estate territory

A local working abbey. In a couple of weeks the lavender will have come into full bloom which will no doubt be quite a sight. Its a pity we won't be there to see it

Roussillon

A week in Roussillon (Provence)
What's to say?
This region in our opinion is as close as it gets to heaven on earth. It is like living in a dream, a colourful painting or a film set. 
The Luberon in Provence with it's red ochre hills, rolling fields of lavender, golden wheat fields, bright green grape vines as far as the eye can see and heavily laden cherry trees is as rich  and vibrant as you could imagine.
Each terra cotta village has it's own magic and charm. Everything moves at a quiet pace except the speedsters on the roads, but that's another story.
One could easily just immerse oneself into this balmy lifestyle sipping wine, visiting the markets, indulging in all the seasonal foods and live here forever in a state of contented bliss. It is an arty place with many galleries and a lot of pottery. The clay is red and abundant. The spectacular countryside attracts artists like a magnet. 
If I ever go missing, you will know where to find me.
Warm days untroubled by .........anything.
Our afternoons are spent outside among the lavender and pines in the spa or steam room with views directly over the vineyards up to the hillside village of Roussillon.
We have a wall heater in our room that can dry clothes faster than any clothes dryer. For travellers on the go this is a God send.
Pre-dinner drinks up in the local village with killer views out over the surrounding valley.
The biggest hassle each day?
Deciding if the main meal will be lunch or dinner.