Hotel restaurant des Doctrinaires Beaucaire

... we were nearly blown to Marseille. Tomorrow we are going on a lunchtime cruise on the Rhone with more food and wine and before that visiting the famous bridge and hopefully we will have time to go over to see the nearby fort in the afternoon.

Then we start the final run north - first a night at Beaujolais, then 2 nights at Strasbourg and one last night at Munich before we leave Big ...

We have enjoyed many good meals in France, but two stand out from the vast number in restaurants that tend to offer a menu with generic dishes (well prepared though), rather than distinctive cuisine. This could relate to our budget of course.

Nimes
We arrived in Nimes in the late afternoon and booked into the Hotel des Tuileries, a lovely hotel in the old part of town very close to the Arena. The host, Andrew, recommended a ...

... and i haven't been in touch, but i'm here now.....i think i will just need to have jason drive me there before i loose my nerve....

so i was told at dinner that the ******* had plateaued off today as i did not feed him any salad. i think thats a bit of a misnomer, as plateau seems to imply level off to normal levels, but in this case, its like level off at 80% instead of 120%. so basically, i am destined to a life ...

Lucy asked for it and we got it. Today we experienced the beginning of the Mistral season. Each fall and winter Provence is swept by a wailing wind. Lucy made the mistake of saying that she'd be interested in being here for that. She got her wish and our last day was very windy. Luckily, the temperature held and we stayed comfortable, despite having bits of sand and debris swept into our eyes as we walked around.

We visited three towns ...

... made reservations because we saw more than one couple turned away tonight. In fact, when we asked if we needed reservations, the owner said, "Oh yeah!"

Lucy started with the trio of salmon: mousse, tartare and smoked. I had a vegetable terrine with parmesan cheese and tandoori flavor with parmesan cheese ice cream. The tandoori flavor was very subtle and the ice cream was a nice counter point, I thought. Dill ...

Believe me you don't want the story but here are a few photos and videos of what was a wonderful adventure for the most part.

The bull running was a random and free event - just next to lovely beach. Camargue horses are breathtakingly beautiful in the wild.

Unfortunately no photos of characterful and cultural city of Arles because only took the camera out one day - the day we went to The Camargue obviously.

... is impressive, the outskirts dead on a Sunday but eventually we worked our way into the centre of the city to find a bustling cafe scene and many rugby lovers about. The afternoon was spent watching NZ v Scotland, our Aussie friends joining up after their game for some drinks and dinner for 12 (became 8 & 4 as it was way to hard too find tables). Monday 25th Sept - Again we headed to Beaucaire but only ...

... and arches. Then we drove through the Camargue area of marshes,what the French call beaches - wild,white ponies,pink flamingoes and bulls with long horns which are used in the bull fights where the matadors pick off rossette from their horns. The bulls are not killed but I have to say we bought some bull sausage from local vendors and it was delicious. We took a day drive to Arles - another ...

... them full time. Quite a lot of English people live fulltime on the Canal and of course, many modern craft trawling up and down. May 1st was a holiday and none of the locks were open so we organised ourselves to be in a stretch of the canal where we enjoyed the peace and cooked gourmet feasts on board. When we reached a shower and water topup spot, we headed straight ...

... office(nothing is easy for find in France). Spent 2 nights in a so-so hotel in Agde which we thought would be a lovely village as it was originally a trading port for the Greeks. There must be a great shortage of money for most of these towns as they are in poor repair, doggy doo everywhere and generally disappointing. But the weather was holding at this point. Next morning we headed off to the boat yard with much anticipation. The ...