Buxy, France 9/6

Today we are in Buxy, a little town (aren't they all?) about an hour south of Dijon. Our hostess is Laurence. She has a beautiful house, in true IKEA style. Very modern, uncluttered and clean, with a big back yard and a couple of apple trees. We were very nervous about staying in someone's home, especially since we were arriving a couple of hours before she got home from work and there would be a key under the mat.
We found the house easily and appreciated the great pictures on airbnb.com that assured us we were in the right place. We decided we should walk to the nearby store and get more meat, cheese and some produce for dinner. Remember our first gasoline experience? Yeah, it went a little like that... turns out, when you buy produce, you weigh it out yourself in the produce section and the scale prints out a label, which you then stick on the bag. We found this out when the clerk, who tried to explain it to us first, had to go back to the produce section to do it herself. She looked a little perturbed. But we ended up with some nice fixings for dinner, and also found that if we stick to the grocery stores, we'll have no trouble staying near our budget. We can't believe how cheap and tasty the food is here.
We got back to the house, cracked a beer and sat on Laurence's back porch until she got home. She's a lovely woman; she's a PE teacher at the middle school down the street. She had just come back from her summer break, 2 months on a sailboat in the Riviera. And a nice house. My god, how much do they pay teachers here? Anyway, she talked to us for a little while and gave us tons of information from the tourist office nearby (and a homemade madeleine), offered us bicycles for the day and suggested that we ride them on La Voie Verte (The Green Way) which is a lovely bicycle and walking/running path between towns through Bourgogne (the Burgundy region). Good call. Then she made herself a little scarce for the rest of the evening while Bryan and I drank far too much of the region's wine. If you read my fb post last night, you'll know the bottles were $6. Just wow.
This morning, we had a nice little breakfast of toast and Laurence's homemade fig and peach jams, and some yogurt and coffee before walking to the store for more meat and cheese (and to watch someone weigh and label their produce) then jumped on the bikes and took La Voie Verte north 6 miles to Givry. We needed the exercise :)
We rode around the town and up into the vineyards a little before finding a small park where we sat and had a baguette with meat and cheese, then stopped at a bar to have a beer. We rode the 6 miles back to Buxy and stopped at another bar where we had another beer :) then rode to the town center and explored a little. Buxy is just charming and I'd recommend this place to anyone wanting to experience small town French life. All the towns that we drive thru have looked similar... small, stone, quaint... but Buxy seems to have a little more class and appears to be more maintained in some way. Maybe there are more flowers in the window boxes or something... anyway, we don't have to head out tomorrow for our last town, Annecy, til the afternoon so we are going to make a stop in a place called Cluny to check out a bar with supposedly almost 200 beers of the world. Tomorrow and Sunday, it's supposed to rain. So we'll end our trip like we began it... cold and snuggly.

Au Revoir, Club Med et Bonjour B&Bs!

We had such a fantastic stay at our Club Meds. It's hard to pick a favorite. Vittel was the most impressive architecturally, Opio was probably the most fun and mountainous Valmorel was the most stunning. The weather has been fantastic for us, sunshine every day which is apparently rare in the northeast countryside, even this time of year. Today we headed out from Vittel on our way back to the Burgundy region to our first Bed & Breakfast, which is actually just a room in someone's home. The website AirBnB.com was an invaluable resource for us. Club Med, being all inclusive is, of course, the cheapest way to travel, but we have 4 nights that we are on our own and were lucky that we found out about it. Thanks, Meredith! I researched many properties online before settling on 2 of them. I knew the areas I wanted, the price I was aiming for, and the 2 most important factors were a homeowner who spoke some English, and WiFi. I probably should have included laundry, since we didn't have that option in Vittel, and missed the cutoff time for the laundry room our last night in Opio. Oh well, finding a laundromat in Buxy, France could be an experience in itself...

Vittel Le Parc -9/4

Oh... my... god. We had second thoughts about coming here. We had thought maybe one day might not be worth 8 hours' drive and $200 in gas and tolls. Within 2 hours of our arrival last night, it had already been worth it. There is no better word to describe this place than opulent. The architecture is absolutely magnificent. The Club Med here is "housed" in 2 buildings. The Curtilles, which is a block or two down the street in town, so to speak, and the main building, Le Grand Hotel. Originally, we were supposed to stay in the Curtilles but when we arrived, we met Caroline, the Chief De Village's wife and reception manager, who is the nicest, most beautiful woman. She upgraded us to the one remodeled room in the main hotel. It's called "the concept", like a model home. I guess it's redecorated so that corporate has the chance to see a final draft so they can choose to pour a ton of money into the rest of the hotel if they decide. This decision process takes quite a while, from what I understand of Club Med. Understandable, with just under 80 clubs worldwide. We're also lucky enough to have a connecting room... side by side rooms with a main outside door and an individual door into each room. So if you want to open both individual doors and close the one door to the hallway, it becomes a double room for families. Last night, Caroline gave us a key to both rooms so we could take pics of our redecorated room, and the other which is the standard room that is offered right now. We were going to open up both rooms last night and close the hall door, but frankly, the hotel is just a little too "The Shining" for that. The hallway creeps us out at night. :):) I forgot what year it was built, but it was a hospital in the early 1900s, so that means people died here. Ooo... Love it!

The Drive From Opio to Vittel 9/3

The French do so many things right. Pique-niques, espresso, well-suspensioned small cars, the most fabulous Brie I've ever tasted... I could go on and on. But today we had some challenges with our first freeway (autoroute) experience. To start, we had no idea how to pay the tolls... everything I'd read about them gave no real indication of when you pay, or how to pay. It's been inconvenient to say the least to realize our credit cards don't work here at either toll gates or gas stations with no attendants. The U.S. hasn't started putting chips in our credit cards yet, like the whole damn country (or maybe continent) over here. So even if the machines say they read magnetic strips, they still may not work. So that has left us with only one good option for gassing up... at the attended stations right off the freeway, which are about 1€68 per litre, or about $6.35 per gallon. That's about 60 cents per gallon higher. Even at 40mpg with A/C on and maybe 45mpg without, that's still pricey. Our drive today cost us about 85€ in gas and 85€ in tolls to get here.
Another thing we had to get used to was if we were headed the wrong direction on the autoroute (which happened) it was hard to find our way off and make a u-turn. Or if we got turned around in Lyon (which happened) it was hard to negotiate killer traffic to make a legal u-turn. But once we actually got going again on the A6, it was easy sailing...
On the positive side, the French are very conscientious drivers. They NEVER drive in the fast lane if they're not passing and they get on your ass and flash their lights at you if you are. That may be something that drives us insane when we get home. We've covered a lot of miles on this trip and haven't seen one police car except in the cities and towns, maybe 6 total.
Our route today from the Riviera to Vittel Le Parc in the northeast took us west to Aix-En-Provence, then north through Avignon, Lyon (the gastronomic capital of France), Dijon (in the Burgundy wine region where we will spend the night at a B&B on Thursday and Friday), and up to Vittel. The countryside was mostly vineyards through the burgundy region and grassy fields north of that, with the autoroute flanked by tall, lush trees most of the way. It looked a lot like the Northwest U.S. We're looking forward to spending some leisure time exploring the club and lounging around tomorrow.

Opio, Day 3 - 9/2 - day trip to Grasse, Antibes and Biot

For our last day in Provence, we woke up early and drove to the towns of Grasse, Antibes and Biot. Grasse is relatively large and much more seedy than any of the other towns we have been to (or will be from here on out) and has been the perfume capital of the world since about the 1700s. It's still built the same as all the other towns, tall stone buildings and skinny, cobblestoned streets... as a matter of fact, upon driving into the city and trying to find parking, we wound our way up a hill and followed a little truck that was no wider than our teeny car. The streets became thinner and the truck turned left at a T in the road. We attempted to turn as well, then lost our nerve and turned around. It seemed impossible to drive thru, even though we had just seen it with our own eyes. We found some underground parking and walked around a little, but without a landmark to find our way back to the car, we didn't stray far. Kind of too bad... I was enchanted by the dark, gritty ambiance of Grasse. I'd like to go back someday. 
We then headed to Antibes, on the coast, where we swam in the sea and laid on the beach for awhile. Not too much to describe there... seen one beach, you've seen them all. About the only remarkable aspects were that the beach itself was that it was much skinnier area of sand than I'm used to  (maybe only 20 feet deep) and that you'd see an occasional topless woman. Most don't do it, but it seems like its just a non-issue, which is cool. There were a few women at the Club Med pool who were topless, too. Not even the teenage boys seemed to be staring. Anyway, I'm glad we were there on a Monday... I can't even imagine the French Riviera on a weekend (or prior to Sept 1st.) Thank god we just missed tourist season!
We considered driving through Nice but were running out of time for the day and still had to swing by... that's right, another little hilltop town called Biot, famed for it's local artists, particularly, it's ceramistes. I was jealous of Bryan's purchase of a ceramic planter yesterday in Tourettes and wanted to find something for myself. I didn't. But we still came out of the place loaded down with stuff... including a bottle of Mead and a bar of violet nougat to snack on back at the resort. We finished out the day pleased with our stay at Opio and our excursions into all our little towns.

Opio, Day 2 - 9/1 - recap and day trip to Gourdon, Tourettes and St. Paul De Vence

Okay, we'll try this again... I lost 2 full blog posts last night while trying to publish them and got so frustrated that I decided that I was done with it, that everyone would just have to just wait until we got home to hear about the trip... but I didn't want to disappoint everyone so I'll give it another shot...
We are just finishing our 2nd full day at Club Med Opio In Provence. Our drive here was amazing. Again, Bryan wanted to take the mountain passes so that we could spend as much time in the mountains as possible. They were endless. It has amazed us that Eastern France is nothing but mountains... all the way down to the sea. So far, all of our driving has been easy. We've gotten turned around a few times, mainly in small towns, but it has never taken us long to find our way back in the right direction. The most difficult task has been dodging the astounding number of bicyclists and keeping up our speed along narrow, winding roads. Oh, and the passing! The drivers pass you all the time, always barely avoiding a head on collision with an oncoming car. We've even done it a couple of times. And of course motorcycles weave around you all the time. Bryan is a very skilled driver, and good with directions. If you come to Europe and are planning to rent a car (which you should) you should definitely hire Bryan as your driver. Or just take the train and spend more money. I had budgeted into our expenses about $400 for gas. So far, we've driven from Geneva to Opio and done a little excursion to 3 towns today and have used not even 1 tank of gas. Extraordinary, especially considering all the inclines. When we fill up again on Tuesday before heading on our longest drive to Club Med Vittel in the Northeast, we'll do the math for the gas mileage. I bet it's 50mpg. Why can't America do that?? Also, why don't we have roundabouts instead of stoplights?? It keeps the traffic moving so much better. It's like we just decided to do things differently because of pride, or a grudge or something, same thing as the metric system... don't get me started.
So yesterday, we spent day 1 here hanging around the club, getting familiar with it, lounging by the pool and relaxing. Club Med maintains one of the largest olive groves in the region, with 647 trees, some are 400 years old, and the grove produces 2000 liters of oil per season.
We've got a lot of pics up on fb, not nearly as many as we've taken, but certainly enough to make you sick of mountains and winding roads... but get ready... today we visited the towns of Gourdon, Tourettes-Sur-Loup and St. Paul De Vence. (Janis, dad and Pam - they all looked silmilar to Eze, which is why I chose them :)) I would like to say that I have had my fill of crumbly, stone, medieval villages, but I HAVE NOT! We shared a pan bagnat (don't even know how to spell that out phonetically) which is like a salad nicoise in a little round sandwich. For dessert, we got violet ice cream cones. Violet may be my new favorite ice cream flavor... think they have THAT in Phoenix?? It also pleases me that in Tourettes, Bryan found a great new wallet that he seems to love as much as my purse that I bought in Rome 8 years ago and haven't stopped talking about yet... glad someone finally understands me firsthand. He also got a cool self-watering planter for his patio. So he won the retail therapy badge for the day.
It's a shame that we only have one more full day here in Provence. I may cry.Tomorrow, we're going to hit the coast. Bryan wants to swim in the Mediterranean. And so he shall. Maybe Nice or Antibes, who knows...
The food in Opio is amazing, very fancy and impressive. Bryan's favorite so far was salmon with a butter sauce made with white wine and shallots. Is that  beurre blanc??  I guess the food here is better than Valmorel and apparently much better than what we'll get in Vittel, according to one of the G.O.s (employees) here.
Too bad I've been sick for the last few days and haven't eaten much of anything. I finally got a little lasagna and dessert down me tonight.  It happened our last night in Valmorel. It may have been exhaustion from a killer hike that day, or altitude sickness, but I'm certainly glad it seems to be letting up...
Oh, something funny that Bryan overheard at happy hour tonight (cinq a sept (pronounced sank ah set)) was a mom and her son, about 4 years old with a deep British accent. Mom: "Oh, this tastes like pâté. That's lovely. Should I put some on a plate?" Little boy: "Oh yes, mummy, that's quite nice." What manners. Cracks me up.

Valmorel Day 2 - 8/28

We've just finished our last hiking day in the Alps and we're both toast. Both yesterday morning and today, we walked down into the little village, just below Club Med and took the gondola up the mountain. Yesterday, we made it up to 2185m. Can't tell you where we started, maybe I'll do the math later. But it was awesome. One of my favorite moments of the trip so far was seeing a valley far below where we were hiking, full of grazing cows. Free range of course... and each had a cow bell around its neck. It was the most beautiful sound. When I get home, I'm going to buy a wind chime full of cow bells. We passed a couple of herds of cows on our trek up the mountain and something that struck me was that they all looked totally healthy. Their eyes were clear and bright and not bothered by flies.
So after we made it as far as we wanted,we headed back down and hit the gondola again to return to the village, where we stopped at a little restaurant, Le Perce Neige, for some Marguarita Pizza and a beer. The guy inside didn't speak English but it was pretty easy to order. We just pointed :) The rest of the day was spent getting some pics on our fb timelines, sitting outside on the deck drinking coffee and beer and getting showered and dressed for fondue. We ran into the Chief De Village, who for those of you not associated with Club Med, runs the show at each resort. We actually asked him the way to the specialty restaurant and didn't realize it was him until I asked Bryan if he could have been the Chief. Point for Chris. Fondue was good, but it was total carb and fat overload and I have done meat fondue and dessert fondue and was kind of hoping for that too. Oh well, glad we did it.
Last night was the weekly kids performance and it was a huge production. There must have been better than 50 kids of all ages on stage throughout the show, having rehearsed all week. The crowd was rowdier than at any other time here. The French certainly do not act like Americans... first, Bryan was quick to inform (warn?) me that they aren't big day drinkers, which is a steep departure from what I'm used to at Club Med. I've been to Cancun, Ixtapa and Turks and Caicos which are all centered around alcohol. I guess this one is centered around children, at least this week. But the show was hilarious and super cute. I got pics and video, all of which will get put on YouTube when we get back.
Since this isn't a party club, there's one large lounge area and bar in front of the stage. That's it. This is the last night the resort is open until mid December so we'll see how many people are around tonight.
Today we took the gondola up again and headed a different direction, around the side of the mountain to check out the ravines and waterfalls, and just be surrounded by green... Our intention was to not be on the mountain as long today but when we got back to the gondola, it was a little after noon and apparently the gondola operators take a siesta between noon and 2, just like everyone else. So we figured, how long could it take to just hike back down? 2 1/2 hours. Downhill. Murder on the knees and shins. We are now lying in bed doing our blogging and pics. I am in no way ready to stand up. But I'm impressed with my hiking skills today. 
Tonight we'll scout out the laundry situation. Its 10 euros for a load and we figured we might as well take care of some clothes before we head out tomorrow for Opio, just in case its a lot pricier there. We also have to plot our route for tomorrow.
Next blog will be in 2 or 3 days, from Provence :)
Au revoir!