The wine district of Châteauneuf-du-Pape

After a hot day in Avignon we decided to cool ourselves down with some wine drinking in the Châteauneuf-du-Pape (The popes new castle, has probably something to do with the popes staying in Avignon centuries ago?) wine region just around 40 minutes north of Avignon. The wine district is considered as one of the best in France and is famous mostly for its red wines they do have white wine as well but its very limited.

Since it was Sunday we were initially a bit worried that a lot of the vineyards were closed for visitors and indeed the seemed deserted while we arrived. However after some driving laround we found the perfect spot on a hill, a château with pool, the Fines Roches wine cellar and finally they were serving a 4 course dinner just in front of the château (with an amazing view over the Southern Rhone valley).

Most often in France at least of what I have experienced so far you receive a treatment not very service minded, however this time it was different the castle owner visited all tables during the dinner making sure everyone enjoyed their stay and that the food was good. The food was of course excellent.

A Short visit to Avignon

Avignon was a nice surprise, the town is situated in the Provence region next to the Rhone river.There are a lot of old and nice architecture tight streets which are nice to stroll around in and of course the tourist attractions such as the palais de papes & the famous pont d'Avignon (which is not that much of attraction).

Saintes Maries de la Mer en Camargue

Late may (yes I know I'm almost 2 month behind), anyway we decided to go south exploring the Camargue area staying in the small and cosy coastal town Saintes Maries de la Mer.

For some reasons the town is a popular destination for gypsies and almost in every corner of the town there is a guy playing Gipsy Kings songs or at least the songs they were playing sounded very familiar to Gipsy Kings.

Some other notable events that took place while were there except watching flamingos and white horses (they were everywhere) was watching a bull fight. Well it wasn't a classical bull fight killing the bull in the end, it was more of playing session pulling a razor between the antlers.

And not to forget, the huge beaches that surrounded the village the sea temperature was well above 20 as well. Quite nice when coming from Grenoble where the weather hasn't been that good (note that this was in May, weather for the last 4 weeks has been really good with degrees above 30 every day).