Their car was waiting for us at Marseille airport, and after an hour's hair raising drive up the motorway we arrived in Avignon. Detailed instructions brought us to the little dead end street where the house is located and to the underground parking garage a few minutes walk away. Rue Carreterie is a one way street (except for bikes!) in the university district. There's some pretty interesting graffiti, some of it very artistic, cafes, restaurants, local shops and that rare thing in France; a couple of charity shops. The house is L shaped, around a little courtyard, with three floors. Our bedroom is on the top floor, flooded in light and with a great view of the roof tops gardens and balconies of the neighbourhood. Our exchange partners had left a fridge full of local delicacies, wine, champagne and a Provencal recipe book for us.
After a good night's sleep we explored the neighbourhood.
We made a day trip to Pernes les Fontaines, which as its name suggests has many fountains and a free map from the tourist office helps you discover them in the winding back streets of Pernes. Also in Pernes we discovered a super little restaurant called Au Fil du Temps. Husband in the kitchen, his wife doing front of house. A simple sounding Menu du Marche but much more interesting and complex when tasted. An amuse bouche of fois gras mousse with a sliver of smoked fish and pearls of green apple, followed by deconstructed Pain Bagnet, a main course of Carmargue bull, very slowly cooked and meltingly soft on the inside, but with a crispy outside. And the pudding a cold rice pudding with dashes of fresh apricot, lavender, orange, raspberry (in a tiny jelly sheet) and some herbs. Completely delicious!
All this food called for some exercise and we were pleased to discover a 50m open air pool on the island in the middle of the Rhone river. The prices are clearly designed to keep the riff raff out, but it was clean, almost empty, with comfy sunbeds and it acted as a magnet, attracting us most afternoons for 1500m of lap swimming, some sunbathing and reading.
One of the main reasons for taking this particular house was its proximity to the village of Verquieres and our favourite restaurant in France. Le Croque Chou
We've been going to this fantastic little place almost since it opened around 9 years ago and it's as good as ever. The Folz family, with chef Seb, dad and wine expert Daniel and mum and front of house manager Monqiue are in their element in this Slow Food restaurant. Their mission is to take local, usually organic produce and turn it into fabulous, tasty and artistic creations. They build a relationship with all their suppliers, both of produce and wine, and often have evenings where a local wine grower offers a tasting, followed by one of Seb's wonderful menus. They now also have a couple of bedrooms, which avoids arguments about who is going to drive home. We always meet lovely people there and this time was no exception, with an introduction to a vigneron from Vaison la Romaine, who's vineyard we will certainly visit next time we're down here with our own car. We also met some family friends Arnaud and his lovely wife, with whom we shared thoughts about the drunken youth of Britain and mused on why teenagers in France don't seem to need to get tanked up on cheap vodka before heading out for a night on the town.
Anyway, the wine tasting was super and the food was excellent as always. We slept very well in their new B&B rooms and had a simple breakfast before heading 'home' to Aivgnon. But, we're going back again this evening for another wine tasting and dinner experience.
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