Well today was such a full day my head is swimming. We got up and got ourselves to the meeting place to meet the tour for Provence. This morning on our wine tour there was only two other people on the trip. They were a young couple from London and they were charming. We were so busy we didn't get a chance to discuss much but the wine we were sampling. They were so fun and cute. Apparently 95 % of the wine made in Provence is Rose. Who knew that the wine we enjoyed before wine was cool, is now cool again!! We got to try some of the grapes on the vine...small sweet and delicious. The young woman who led the tasting was very knowledgable and pretty fluent. Once we got past the scenic outside, the rest struck me like going on a brewery tour in Milwaukee, but on a much smaller scale. Making wine however is quite a science. Picking grapes before sun up so they don't get damaged, time the skin is left in the juice determines if the wine will be red or rose, assuming you are using red grapes, keeping it cold, but not too cold, storing it in hand made wooden kegs or cement vaults. Wow. We went to another winery too, but it wasn't as interesting.
After a lunch back in Aix, we got on another tour to some hillside villages in the heart of Provence.
We visited four places, with time for pictures, shopping and a little vino in each one. The streets in all four were steep and narrow. Again, nice people on our trip, this time from France, Japan, and South Korea. Everyone either spoke French or English so the guide did the tour in both languages. I kept dozing off in the van after wine this morning, lunch, warm weather, and listening to the dulcet sounds of the French language being spoken. The speed limit was 136 km...about 85 and the roads were smooth as silk.
We finally got back to Aix about 7:30, found a good spot for dinner and are now enjoying a beautiful warm evening.
But wait...the only trouble is a group of people out here on the terrace from Akron, Ohio who truly define the essence of obnoxious Americans. So far I have heard one guy talk about the breasts on French women, a husband telling his wife he knows that she wants some of that French (expletive). Lots of complaints that the hotel isn't nearly big enough, the hair dryer works like $%^t and the food sucks. There are 4 couples traveling together and three of them are trashing the missing couple. Wow. We are guests here...lets show some respect. Why would you travel if you need to constantly compare??
Ok to end on an interesting note,we saw the village Peter Mayles (A Year In Provence) lived.
Apparently when the book came out Americans rushed to move there too. It ruined jobs for the locals and he finally moved back to the States.
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