Football, France and the Fatherland: Day 13 - Monday, August 12th "Mont Ventoux and Wine Tastings"

Alarm at 7:30 am. Another blue sky warm beautiful day in Provence. Our early departure is to get to Mont Ventoux as early as possible. It will take about 90 minutes to get to the top of this mountain. Breakfast at 8:30 and into our car by 9 am. We make it to the top of Mont Ventoux at 1911 metres by 10:30 am. Quite an adventure driving, but worth the effort.

In case you may not know the significance of Mont Ventoux, it is famous for its Tour de France stages. Many a tour has been won and lost on this 23 km climb. In fact, the 2013 Tour de France won by Froome was ensured when he basically destroyed all his competitors on the climb. Mont Ventoux can be seen from almost everywhere in Provence. We follow our GPS as it takes us on very winding small roads. Lots of trees, vineyards, roadside construction. The roads are very narrow and steep in many places. Eventually larger roads with dividing lines. Some detours along the way, but we finally navigate to the bottom of Mont Ventoux. There is a festival happening in the village at the bottom of the mountain so more detours. We do find the road that will take us to the summit. Hundreds and hundreds of cyclists testing their stamina and will power on this steep and long ascent. Constantly coming up on cyclists on the narrow road. Rarely get into third gear. Many of the cyclists decide to ride in the middle of the road or side by side or three beside each other. We need to pass slower vehicles who won't pass the cyclists. In passing on this narrow road, you need to be alert to cyclists speeding down and the occasional car flying down.

I have even more admiration for the Tour de France pro cyclists. This is quite the climb. Towards the summit, most of the trees disappear. Mountain goats and jagged pale rock gives it a moon landscape. At the top it is still pretty warm despite the altitude. At top, cars parked all along the road.

from the road looking up at the iconic top

Mountain sheep

Fans of the Tour de France will paint on the road for their favourite cyclists

At the summit

Quite the view from the top of this mountain

Another view close to the summit, but still a distance

Great views of Provence and Languedoc regions. Stunning! Some smog below. Totally blue sky. There is a restaurant with outdoor seating and a toilet. The prices are outrageous for a blueberry tart and Perrier water (10 Euro) so you pay for the view obviously. The server couldn't be any slower? We soak up the view until two families sit near us and one of their little boys has a screaming meltdown so the quiet is gone for good. All their kids are blond haired. Very crowded now. Lana buys two shopping bags that are rectangular in shape with sturdy woven plastic and should last a long time. Cost 7.50 Euro each so they should be good. I am looking for a pink polka dot shirt Mont Ventoux jersey that represents the King of the Mountain rider in the Tour de France. Walked around the summit for views from all angles.

In the car for the long trip downhill avoiding cyclists and passing much slower vehicles on this narrow winding road. Decide to head for famous Chateauneuf-du-Pape as we were prompted to visit Cave Du Verger des Papes. This is a high end winery built near an old castle. Our GPS acted up a few times close to Chateauneuf-du-Pape. We parked on top of the hill overlooking the town and above the high end winery. Super hot and sunny today and no shade for the car. We discover this winery is closed around 1 pm. Make it down the long stairs and find the village. Go into Domaine Les Girard du Boucou for a wine tasting and restaurant recommendation from the young fellow serving the wine. We paid 2 Euro each for the wine tasting. The first and only time we pay for a wine tasting. We discover though that degustation means tasting. We stop at a small village restaurant "Le Maisouneta" for lunch. Table for two close to the air conditioning. Server not too fast or friendly, but we have come to expect that.

Lana orders the Menu du Jour comprised of cheese stick with salad, flank steak grilled with peppercorn sauce and the dessert was a meringue in creme anglaise. Yummy, but bad service and timing of food. I have the charcuterie with a glass of white Cote du Rhone wine.

Charcuterie plate

Dessert

More wine tasting is in store. We walked into Domaine Olivier Hillaire and strike up a long conversation with the server Iben from Denmark. She is very talkative and married and living in the village of Chateauneuf-du-Pape. Sampled some good red wine. Learned that Chateauneuf-du-Pape is its own small appellation and part of the Côtes du Rhone gigantic appellation. Their production is much smaller, but they only use the best grapes thus improving their quality and justifying their much higher prices. Good conversation with Iben and learned a lot about this wine area. Walked into a couple more shops for wine tasting. The famous cave on top is still closed.

Into the car, turn on the a/c and head to the Gigondas wine appellation. This is a communal arrangement where the smaller vineyards bring their grapes and make wine with the other wineries. You can sample at least 30 different wines if you like. I found their wines too acidic. Maybe they need a couple of more years.

Next destination is Domaine des Amouriers in the Vacqueyras wine appellation. All these wine appellations are within the larger Côtes du Rhone wine appellation although separate of course. Our GPS can't find the winery, although it finds the road. We are off by at least five kms. With persistence we locate the winery. The grandson spoke some english while his grandmother spoke no english. As usual, we managed to communicate in our limited French. We chat about many things and then the owner (patron) Igor arrives. We bought a white wine blend of Grenache Blanc, Roussanne and Viognier to drink in Wiesbaden with our friends. They try to get me to pronounce Viognier properly. Hmmm....pretty funny. LANA: Turns out Igor is Polish and by some strange twist of family relation, he ends up taking over the family winery. The family tells us "it's complicated". The french pronounce Viognier in very distinct syllables: vee-ohnnn, nee-yaayyy. After several attempts Igor slows down the word and breaks it into these pieces. Finally, Randy is able to repeat to the satisfaction of Igor who smiles. He's probably thinking to himself "these crazy tourists can't even properly pronounce our wines!!". We'll never mis-prounounce this wine again.

Getting late so we decide to head back. About 45 minutes and the GPS works mostly. Arrived back around 6:45 pm. Update the travel diary and send photos to my Macbook. Air conditioning on of course. Wifi in the room dies again. Frustrating. Lana gets downstairs early as she wants a good table to watch the paella being prepared. She takes lots of pictures. Gazpacho to start with complementary side dishes of tomato, cucumbers, onions, peppers and croutons that you dress your soup with as you like. Blue skies above us and the usual breeze. Paella ingredients are sautéed onions and peppers, chicken, rabbit, baby octopus, tomato sauce, clams, mussels, peas, shrimp and stock. All very good! Our red wine matched well with the paella. We skipped dessert as it was a sorbet and we wanted to get to our room earlier. I update one more day in the travel blog and load pics from today.