Provence 2009 Diary

Watch this site for the daily diary of a wandering restaurateur in France.

Other than the arrival and departure information, this itinerary is only my best guess as to how the trip will unfold. We have rented a house in Ansouis for a month - officially one of the most beautiful villages in Provence - and will make up the rest of the trip from there.

We usually rent a house for a week on one of these trips, but being in one spot for a month is really a first. I look forward to unexpected destinations and unplanned adventures ... and days when we do nothing at all. Don't expect that every day will involve travel to some startlingly photogenic corner of Provence. That is not the sort of trip we have in mind this time. We really don't quite know what it will all be about. Relax and enjoy it with us.

Normally I provide a day-by-day narrative of where we went, what we saw ... and what I learned along the way. This time, though, I am realizing that I need a different format. We have a different group of players every week, we are likely to re-visit some spots during the course of the month and there will probably be more days when we don't do much of anything except enjoy hanging out in our small Provencale village. (Besides, who is going to read a month's worth of day-by-day rants anyway?)

So I am going to experiment with a different structure and see if it helps move the process forward. For those who have actually been trying to follow along, I was halfway into the first week of the trip before I was able to get online using my own laptop. Without the ability to upload the reports, not much happens. Of course that put me behind right out of the gate.

A day later I flipped out of a kayak on the Sorge River. Fortunately my camera was firmly tied to my life jacket so we managed to dodge the rigors of gravity, but water and electronics make a poor combination. The camera is now toast.

This means that my ability to add photos to the trip report depends on the artistic eye and inclination of others ... and my ability to extract images from their cameras. Different perspectives are helpful, but this does make it trickier to tell my story. I'll just do the best I can and hope that it works.

Unlike the day-by-day narratives, this new format leaves each entry open to enhancement as the trip goes on. The information gets posted in an abbreviated format and as other thoughts and events occur, I will add more commentary and photos to previously posted pages -- sort of an electronic sourdough ... and like sourdough, I hope the product will become richer and tastier over time.

All this is just to say that if you find any of the topics particularly interesting -- and I hope there might be one or two that amuse you -- keep an eye out for updates. I will note the date each entry was last changed to save you some guesswork.

I am way behind from the get-go this time, though, so bear with me. I'll fill in the blanks as soon as I can ... but understand that getting this sort of thing done is not exactly the reason I came here!

No surprise here, but I have totally given up on trying to keep this current as we go. Without my own camera, I am dependent on copying photos from others, not easy to do on a daily basis. So I will just get everything accumulated and sort it out when I get home. C'est la vie!

The Itinerary
August 27-28 - Seattle to Marseille via Amsterdam
August 28-29 - Aix-en-Provence
August 29-September 26 - Ansouis
September 26-27 - Alsace
September 28 - Overnight in Paris
September 29 - Paris to Seattle

Our Fellow Travelers
Week One (9/9)
Week Two (coming)
Week Three (coming)
Week Four (coming)

Ansouis
The House (9/11)
The Town (9/14)
The Flow of Life (coming)
The Locals (coming)

Seeing Provence
Aix-en-Provence (9/9)
Avignon (coming)
Cassis (9/16)
Cucuron (coming)
Etang de La Bonde (our local lake) (coming)
Ile-Sur-La-Sorgue (coming)
Lacoste (coming)
Lourmarin (coming)
Saignon (coming)

Being Provence
Pastis (9/8)
Kayaking on the Sorge River (9/15)
Le Vin (coming)
Street Markets (coming)
Restaurants (coming)

Observations, Reflections and Insights
Role Models (9/11)
Plan B (9/11)
The Speed of the Room (9/11)
x (coming)
x (coming)
x (coming)

Alsace
Around Alsace (coming)