Provence travel log 2006-12-29

We left the house early this morning to make the longish drive to the Pont du Gard. This famous Roman aqueduct was the largest of its kind. They began construction in 16 BC, erecting a structure only 2 yards shorter than Rome’s coliseum. Of course, the really amazing thing is that the Pont du Gard has stood for 2,000 years, surviving countless floods, wars, and even stone theft (medieval construction workers couldn’t resist the perfectly cut stones). The pictures really speak for themselves:Afterward, Nathan, Anna, and Mom split off to go wine-tasting and cheese-tasting in some nearby villages. Sam, Dee, Lauren, Dad, and I went the other way to see the Palace of the Pope. After parking near the palace, we first grabbed lunch at L’Isle Sonnante, which was listed in Dad’s guidebook as a cozy, rustic place for a bite. It was so small that they couldn’t even seat us all together, so Lauren and I unintentionally got a romantic lunch date out of the deal. Our main course was pork stew, polenta, and a smattering of veggies. For dessert, I had a chocolate terrine with a small scoop of vanilla ice cream. Chocolate terrine is apparently French for “a big pile of the best chocolate you’ve ever tasted.” I shared half with Lauren, and spent the rest of the day bragging about my self-restraint.

From there, it was on to the Palace itself. It was fun and worth seeing, but in this case, Palace is apparently French for “a very large, very cold, mostly empty stone building.” The audio tour also went for completeness over impact, so eventually we stopped neurotically listening to all of the audio tour stops. We instead just enjoyed the view and imagined what the palace must have been like during the hundred-odd years that the papacy was seated there instead of Rome.After the Palace, we reconvened at home. Nathan gave us his most impressive French display yet as he made the dinner reservation on the phone. Then we all headed out to dinner, except for Lauren who diagnosed herself as “over-excited and in serious need of a nap.”

Dinner was 20 minutes from home in a town called Salon de Provence. The restaurant was part of a posh boutique hotel called Maison du Soleil, and the chef was Francis Robin, who I assume is a big deal since his name was everywhere (even painted on the plates). Dinner was the most French meal we’ve had. I had a guinea fowl salad, hearty rabbit in a Bordeaux wine sauce, and then about 5 different sweets. Oh, and a prune.It’s worth noting that the restaurant was way off the beaten path, up a hill in a residential area. It took many tries and wrong turns to find, and we felt like we’d really accomplished something when we made it there. Definitely not the kind of restaurant you could just stumble onto. Hooray for good guidebooks!