On The Road Again

So I've decided to delve back into the old slides for posting material. This time, it's Provence. Set the Way-Back machine to June 1993 . It was the occasion of our tenth anniversary together and Ken and I planned three weeks in France. We rented a house in Provence for two weeks, with a few days on either end to spend in Paris and on the road.

A mill on the Serein at Chablis.

We arrived in Paris on Saturday, June 4. I remember checking into our hotel in the 6th arrondissement in such heat you wouldn't believe it. Steffi Graf was winning her third French Open (she'd go on to win three more), and we were roasting. After one uncomfortable night (sans climatisation) we decided to get out of the choking heat of Paris early and just drive toward the south. The countryside would be more comfortable than the heat of the city and we could find a hotel or two along the way.

Our first picnic lunch of the trip : wine, cheese (there's a brie and what I think is a morbier), baguette, and a barquette of strawberries.

Our first stop was the town of Chablis. Well, not actually the first stop since we did stop to shop for our first picnic lunch. We found a bench along the little Serein river near the center of town with splendid views of hillside vineyards and set up our meal. Cheeses, bread, red wine, and strawberries like I had never tasted in my life.

The view of vineyards from our picnic spot.

Chablis is a small town of about 2,500 Chablisiens and we didn't spend much time there except to have our picnic and snap a few photos. Chardonnay is the grape that the famous local wine is made from. I remember that when I was a teenager and first trying wine, anything red was called burgundy and anything white was called chablis. Except, of course, for that Blue Nun stuff I used to drink. That was a Mateus of a different color... Ah, the seventies.

After lunch we wound our way through the countryside in the general direction of Dijon, where we would stay for the night.