First stop on the cheese and wine track was Nice on the Côte D’Azur. Centred in the French Riviera, Nice is very nice!!! We arrived late in the evening and checked into our hostel. We then had a quick wash and headed out to Vieux Nice (Old Nice). Old Nice is a tangle of tiny 18th century pedestrian passages and alleyways full of quaint little French bistros with not so quaint price tags. Shocked that some people were paying more for a seafood dinner than we were paying for two nights accommodation we quickly invested in a supermarket bought dinner of salmon, brie and a baguette all washed down with a pretty nice white wine. We took our purchases to the shorefront and had a lovely moonlit evening.
Day two saw us head to the beach for the morning. We felt pretty flashed reclining on the pebble shore and splashing around in the fresh clear sea, hob-knobbing with the rich and beautiful. By lunch we’d had just about enough and headed in for some BBQ chicken that would have rivalled morty’s! Afterwards we spent the afternoon shopping and organising the remaining days of our trip.
The next day we rose early and boarded our train to Avignon. Avignon, engulfed by almost 4km’s of stone ramparts is a remarkably enchanting city. With its sweet cobbled streets weaving between the most romantic architecture I’ve seen, we quickly fell in love with it. The first night was spent taking in the Palis des Papes (Popes Palace) from the outside and wandering the main street. The second day following some advice from the tourist office we manufactured our own walking tour. We spent the better part of the day wandering the streets, walking on a small section of the ramparts and taking in the sights. One of which is the Pont St-Benezet, built during the 12th Century but partly destroyed in the mid-1600s and is therefore now simply a bridge leading to no where. Our final night was spent watching our favourite Indian acoustic group and waiting to see the light.
On the way to Bordeaux, we had a quick stop over at Toulouse. Toulouse proved to be quite an interesting place complete with its own monopoly game. We spent our one night there checking out the old town, the river and tasting our first crème brulee. The next morning we headed to our final destination Bordeaux.
Bordeaux proved to be a real highlight and satisfying end to our European holiday. We had managed to score our very own apartment for our four day stay just outside the centre of town. On the first day we headed straight to the tourist office to book ourselves on 2 tours, a visit to some Chateau’s and a wine and cheese tasting evening. We then spent some time looking around the city and picking up some groceries at the local supermarket. On Thursday afternoon we headed into town for our wine and cheese evening. A pretentious but fun evening that taught us how to appreciate the finer points of wine. Also, having been held in a cheese restaurant we were treated to 250 different varieties of cheeses that we could sample till our hearts content. Afterwards, we headed back to our apartment and promptly fell into a cheese induced coma!
Our final day in Bordeaux we headed out to the countryside to take in two lovely Châteaux’s in the Graves appellation. Graves is the oldest Bordeaux wine producing region, specialising in sweet whites, dry whites and red. Our first stop was Châteaux Myrat followed by Chateaux Beau Site, both small family run vineyards where we sampled some wonderful produce. We returned to Bordeaux (purchase free ) and spent our last evening stuffing our faces with a 3 course meal of , Salmon and Chocolate Mousse.
Next up are 4 wonderful nights in London, cross your fingers customs lets us back in.
Stay tuned…
In Avignon's main square.
Avignon's Pont St-Benezet, bridge to nowhere.
Where's the coon? Some of the 250 cheese's in Bordeaux.
At Chateuax Myrat in the Graves appellation.
