Hotel de France Valence

... the vineyards of the famous Chateaunuf-de-pape region. It is better than you thought, seriously. We found a couple domaines in the hills that were actually open on Sunday, and then headed into the town where we had probably the best experience on our entire trip. We came upon a small wine shop, and the owner poured us the best wine we'd ever had, and topped it off with stories about the wine, his family, life in the Rhone, you name it. It was ...

found a great little town in Provence.. and as they say "when in Rome (Provence)"... we had a great meal in true french restaurant... happy to be away from tourist food... and had some very nice red wine........ just a stopover but a friendly little place and nice hotel...

on the road again...

... en bois dur. Souvent ce sont des bois presque fosilisés dont on peut voir de façon très marquée les veines celles-ci dessinent des arabesques qui vont être utilisées pour donner sens à la sculpture. Au départ le sculpteur n'avait pas le droit de modifier la racine , juste la polir aujourd'hui il a le droit de sculpter le bois ...

... qui a donné à la maison sa configuration actuelle au 16ème siècle déjà, la chambre Claude Frère, Président du parlement de Grenoble qui fit percer la rue au 17ème pour donner un accès direct à son hôtel particulier et la chambre Lesdiguières, dernier connétable de France et ...

la Drôme un département extraordinaire
La Drôme, c'est la rencontre des Alpes et de la Provence dont elle a déjà l'accent chaleureux et parfumé... La culture y est omniprésente : de châteaux en Palais comme celui... Idéal du facteur Cheval, de festivals de musique et de théâtre en artisanat d'art à découvrir dans de vieux villages préservés. Ici ...

... off lentils and bread for the next 10 months.

The house is wonderful - built in 1789 and made of lichen covered stone, heavy rough hewn beams and rough whitewashed walls. The garden is filled with cowslip and lavender with forest on all sides - some evergreen pine forest and some is natural forest with birches, elms, oaks, hawthorn, chestnuts and bracken. Yesterday we saw two red deer ...

... and swimming (lovely cool fresh water from the Alps and
the Massif Central). This huge flat valley, surrounded by beautiful
mountain ranges on both side I imagine would also be an ideal location for a family holiday.
The Chateau itself is really lovely and the 63 acres of grounds include
a forest, private 'mountain' with 100 mile ...

... to suit qll kinds of lqnguqges:

Qs I sqid before it cqn be auite fun::::::

here is zhqt the keyboqrd looks like in Frqnce,

the nu,ber roz: & é " ' ( - è _ ç à ) =
the top roz of letters, a z e r t y u i o p ^ $
the ,iddle roz of letters; q s d f g h j k l m ù *
qnd the botto, roz of letters; < w x c v b n , ; : !

Zritten by Sqndy; qll ,istqkes qre purposeful::::

Only for Brenda! Driving down the upper Ardeche gorge on the outside of the road with 1m retaining walls and vertiginous views. Big lorries using all the bend were coming the other way ...

Hello again from the farm here in southern France. There really isn't a lot to update but we figured if we didn't post soon, we'd lose you as our captive audience so now what to say... Life on the farm is still dandy. Every morning and evening we do our animal chores. The rest of the day is filled with a variety of activities. We're still doing some berry collecting and jam making but the mushroom ...