Messages: 6866 Location: Pacific Northwest
Registered: July 2005
Nice little trip..
Sun, 05 April 2015 20:38
My wife and I just got back from a 10 day trip in France and although it was nice I am really happy to be back. I just wanted to say that the perp made a wonderful travel companion because if it were not for this watch I would have no clue what day, date or time it was:) I really did not take any photos of Paris because it probably would have consisted of me sitting down, eating, drinking, people watching while they watch me and well, following my wife into the different handbag boutiques. So I will start in my favorite location, wine country:)
Although Burgundy,Bordeaux and Champagne have wonderful wines and beautiful scenery. We wanted to focus our trip on 3 areas I love for wine. Chateauneuf du Pape (CDP), Cotes du Rhone and Gigondas wine. Plenty of histroy to be found on Wikipedia about these areas but if you have not tried the wine from this area it is an absolute must.
The Popes palace in Avignon from where CDP was named after. Avignon is a wonderful quaint town that has a large stone wall fortifying the town to supposedly keep out the black plague and I'm sure to protect the city as well from would be intruders.
The vineyards, they are bare right now because they were just pruned getting ready for the season. Notice the round rocks everywhere around the Grenache vines. These act to trap heat from the daily sun and works to continue to warm the soil through out the night. The French constantly talk about "terroir" as they believe the true winemaker is the soil not the person. The winemaker is only there to facilitate what the soil has already produced.
Looking pretty in the sun.
What you don't want to see, water logged land from over-tilling of the soil. Talk about expensive land that can't produce vintage.
Some vineyards still do the old way of tilling with a horse and not a tractor.
The town of CDP
Off to the town of Gigondas as the day was getting away from us fast.
The city of Lyon, not really known for their wine but the culinary scene here is everything it's cracked up to be.
I will try to come back and post more later but I seem to be having quite the issue with photobucket, but in the meantime I hope you enjoyed the little I gave:) Happy Easter Everyone!!
- jp884