Great dinner on Friday night, Day 9, the best I’ve had since we entered Spain. Since the parador in Tui our hotels seem to be moving downmarket every night. We were in a 3 star after the parador and on Friday we were in a 2 star and on Saturday and Sunday nights we are in 1 stars. Nothing particularly negative about any of them, more about the size of the room and the quality of the food than anything else. However, our Friday hotel did not have a restaurant and had made arrangements with a local restaurant a couple of hundred metres away to feed us, since dinner is included in the room.

Jut to refresh memories, on Friday our hotel was in a small town at the top of a long tidal bay, some 10 or 12K from the sea. Seafood was obviously the order of the day and we indicated to our waiter that we would not take the fixed hotel meal but order what we wanted and pay the difference...

Today felt as if it was going to be a long day and since the ladies, my four traveling companions, were staying at a different hotel I resolved to start off early. After the first two days walking I felt quite creaky and I was sure that I'd be moving somewhat more slowly than the others. This decision was aided by the fact that my hotel was an old, rambling homestead on the outskirts of the very small hamlet where we stayed the night. It was raining intermittently, grey and overcast and my hotel was damp and quite dark, with original stone steps and landings throughout the rambling space that were misaligned and quite treacherous in the semi-darkness. The only merit of the place was that heat was provided by a couple of radiators which is now becoming a critical determinant of a high value lodging...

Yesterday's red sky at night was a snare and a delusion; could hear the rain drumming on the roof overnight and it greeted us when we rose to start the day. There are a number of villages perchés, old medieval towns built on the heights of the highlands in the region that we have been wanting to visit, but had delayed since there was not much point of driving up in the rain only to be greeted by cloud-covered vistas when we reached the top, but since today was our last day we decided to go anyway. Chugged our way up the hills to Bonnieux, where there was a restaurant that had been recommended and arrived at its doors as the town clock struck twelve. The restaurant was not yet open but fortunately we stuck our head in the door and made a reservation for 12:30 when it opened. I say fortunately because, as it was May Day and a holiday, the town was full and when we returned at 12:30 for our table, the place was packed and people were being turned away....

Monday was an "offal" day, both dining and weather. Rain once again but we decided to drive to Lourmarin for lunch, wander and explore. We went back to the little brasserie where we had lunched on Friday and since we were returning to La Cloiserie in Ansouis for dinner we did not want a three course set menu for lunch but simply one dish from the carte. I ordered an anduilette and a beer, still more food than was necessary, but....

Saturday morning dawned grey, fog-shrouded and cold, continuous, unremitting and relentless rain.

A slight digression here; in the last couple of months we have become great fans of the Nespresso coffee system. Small counter-top footprint, very easy to use and really good coffee. Our little house here has a machine and our hosts had generously left us a couple of sleeves of coffee with 10 Nespresso capsules in each....

Beginning a new format for the blog today. Virginia has not had an opportunity to add her share of insights and observations to my jottings so, from today we will be adding some "She said" sections so that all points of view can be represented....

Yesterday was, for the most part, cloudy, overcast and periodically threatening but today dawned hot, bright and sunny.

We had originally planned to spend the day in Aix but the weather was so charming that we decided on a drive to Cassis for lunch. My only previous knowledge of Cassis was as the critical ingredient in a Kir Royale but the town, as we discovered, is an extremely pleasant place to spend a sunny afternoon, on the water with massive headlands and cliffs directly behind the town....

Today is our first full day in Les Roux, a very small hamlet of 59 inhabitants located between Peypin-d'Aigues and La Motte-d'Aigues two slightly larger villages about 30k from Aix-en-Provence.

Red-eye flight from Toronto to Paris, a 2 hour wait at the CDG TGV station at the airport, a 3.5 hour train ride and, after picking up our car, a very kicky little Peugeot, an hours drive through the countryside being misled by the GPS which didn't know the location of our village any more than we did. Fortunately we had arranged with the caretaker of the property to meet us at a little village that the GPS could find who led us to our home for the next 10 days...