Today we left Lyon around 9am and headed to Entrecasteaux. Michael and Ellen drove their car - a rare 4 door sedan which was good, as the trip took about 4 hours. Having never seen the French countryside, I don’t have anything to compare it to, but it was beautiful. Vineyards feature heavily, and lots of stone ruins and not-so-ruins.

On the way down we stopped at two places: Orange to see a fantastic ancient roman amphitheatre, and another place where we saw the bombed out ruin called Chateaux du Pape, which was the summer home of the pope when the papacy was in nearby Avignon.

The amphitheatre was fairly messy. The original roof burned out sometime ago, and the rainfall has done heavy damage to the scene face over the years. They are building a new roof to keep the rain off, so the entire face was covered with scaffolding. The scene is built in stone and is obviously a permanent structure. The plays and operas staged upon it are adjusted to match. It seemed large enough to handle just about any circumstance.

This also turned out to be a good chance to buy postcards, which I had forgotten to do in Lyon
We bought some sammies for lunch at the Chateau-Neuf du Pape ruins. The views from the chateau were [note to self: come up with more words for “nifty”].

Finally we made our way to Entrecasteaux. It’s a postcard village of about 200 people halfway between Nice and Marseille. The main feature of the village is an ENORMOUS chateau which has only been recently inhabited by someone rich enough to restore it. It overlooks the village and it’s “front yard” is a garden avec fountain designed by the same gardener responsible for the garden in Versailles.

The streets are generally only navigable by foot or motorcycle. Ellen and Michael’s house can be reached by car, and their cul-de-sac is the only available parking in the village. All other’s must park in other odd places and walk up. The house is actually two houses across the street from eachother. The main house is about 4 floors with a small footprint. You enter at kitchen/street level and move up from there. Across the street is the guesthouse which was rebuilt from the ruins of another building brought down many years ago. Michael has been building this nearly full time for 2 years, and had just installed the hot water heater the day they came to Lyon.

The main house

The guest house

Views from the main house

There are two restaurants, and a handful of other businesses. I am writing this on the street seating of “Bar Central” the main watering hole and social spot. Wine is the cheapest item on the menu, followed by coffee, tap beer (too wheaty for my taste), and bottled beers. Bottled water is not cheap, though I could drink from the public fountain that sits about 20 feet from me.

Ellen took us on a lovely walk through the village. We circled around the chateau and along the river (and through the woods) to see the local wash house - river water is diverted into an open structure with basins for local washing, and is actually used by some folks.

Afterwards we sat around chatting and preparing dinner which was tomatoes and zucchini stuffed with tuna, and smaller tomatoes stuffed with rice.

We had some champagne on the terrace of the guest house, then, finally, off to bed. I woke up in the middle of the night to discover I am coming down with a cold, but I just. Don’t. Care. I can still taste, and I’ll collapse with pneumonia when I get home. At least I have a nice quiet village to spend time in while I work through that.