Today was our first day in Nice. It is such a beautiful city and very different from the places we just visited. First, it’s much warmer. People are wearing short sleeved shirts and sandals. It is on the water, although the beach is made of pebbles rather than sand. The town is very lively– plenty of shops, restaurants, and markets.

After walking through the town, we walked along the promenade and stopped to have a drink at one of the cafés on the beach.

For dinner, we ate at Mirazur. It was about a 40 minute car ride from the hotel. Justin said that it was voted best restaurant in the world 2 years in a row recently.

They rotate their focus between 4 different “formative forces” linked to different parts of the plant: roots, leaves, flowers, and fruits. I realize how goofy this sounds. Depending on what day you visit the restaurant, the menu will focus on one of those 4 things. We got root.

So, at first I was thinking, oh great, root, that must be the worst one. But, if you think of all the root vegetables, plus potatoes, garlic etc…. it’s a win, I think.

Everything was so delicious. It is definitely in the running for favorite meal of the trip. My only complaint (and this isn’t a knock on the restaurant) is that I don’t like beets. It’s probably the only thing I don’t like. I have tried them so. many. ways! Since beets are a root, there were a few beet elements to the meal that I wasn’t that into. Other than that, I think it was probably my favorite.

Tomorrow, the only thing on the agenda is a dinner at 9pm. Other than that, we will walk around the city some more, and Justin needs to figure out how to get all the wine home that he has bought along the way.

Also, we have to take our Covid tests to get back home. I’m extremely nervous about how all of that is going to go. Apparently, we bought tests that we administer ourselves over a telemedicine appointment.

If anything goes wrong and there is any delay in my return home, I will have a meltdown of epic proportions. Stay tuned for how it all turns out 🤞🤞.

I know I mentioned this in the beginning of the trip, but we had to get an app that we uploaded our vaccination informant onto. It gives a QR code. Everytime we go to a restaurant or museum, we have to get our “pass sanitare” scanned. I believe it is the law in France. Vaccination or negative test to go to many indoor public spaces. There are tents set up on the streets that I saw in Paris and Nice that are administering Covid tests.

Today we left the Rhone area, and all the vineyards, and headed to our final destination on this tour de France. Our last stop is the French Riviera, particularly Nice. It was about a 4 hour drive that we broke up by visiting some cool sights along the way.

Because it’s on the border of Italy, there are alot of Roman influences in this area of France. It is referred to as Gallo-Roman. Although, I’m no authority on ancient history!

The first thing we stopped to see was a Roman aqueduct, Pont du Gard. It really is incredible what the Romans were able to achieve. Justin, in particular, appreciated this stop. The sheer engineering of the whole project is mind blowing.

After that we drove to a city called Nimes that has heavy Roman influences. We toured the amphitheater and enjoyed walking around the city a bit.

After Nimes, we drove 3 hours to Nice. Along the way, sign ups for after school clubs opened, and I made sure to sign James up because momming never stops.

I can already tell that Nice is going to have a totally different energy than the other places we have been so far. It’s warmer and seems more alive (potentially more touristy). The little wine towns were, overall, small and quiet. I actually saw someone wearing sandals, which is a first since we have been here. Our hotel is on the water, but it was already dark when we got here so we haven’t seen it yet.

We don’t have a ton planned while we are in Nice (except for a few meals). We will mostly be walking around and visiting the highlights!

So, we have spent the last couple of days mostly going to wine tastings with some yummy meals mixed in!

We visited: Marc Sorrel, M. Chapoutier, Alain Voge, and Franck Balthazar on Monday.

It’s hard to go into detail about each one, but the wines were very good. I especially like visiting the small wineries and meeting the winemakers.

While we were at Marc Sorrel, they suggested going to visit a chocolate factory called Valrhona. I mean, who would say no to that?

After the wine tastings on Monday, we drove to the restaurant Régis & Jacques MARCON. It is a Michelin restaurant that is based on mushrooms. We stayed in a hotel near the restaurant to avoid having to drive the winding road at night!

On Tuesday, we did multiple other tastings at: Yves Cuilleron, Domaine Rostaing, and  Domaine Gonon.

They were all excellent and, often, the winemaker is the one doing the tasting.

This is a very busy time in the area due to harvest and vinification. It was very nice of them to take time to visit with us.

Tomorrow, we leave for Nice. We are going to stop along the way at different towns. The drive is about 4 hours so it’s going to be a long day.

We will spend 4 nights in Nice then back home!

Today, we left our cute little vacation rental in Burgundy to head to the Rhone area of France. It is another wine making region that I’m pretty unfamiliar with, so it will be interesting to try some of the wines and compare them to Burgundy wines. Although, the wines in Burgundy are going to be tough to beat (in my opinion).

On the way to the next stop, we did a Beaujolais tasting. I’m not a huge fan of the Beaujolais nouveau wines but willing to try more traditional varieties. They were all pretty good and extremely reasonably priced! Although, I think everything will look like a bargain coming from Burgundy 💰💲.

We also had lunch at Auberge du Cep on the way to the hotel. It was all very good, but my favorite thing was definitely the souffle!

In the Rhone region, we are staying in a town called Tain l’ Hermitage. It is an ancient Gallo- Roman city protected by walls, towers, dungeons, and ditches (per the pamphlet in our hotel room).

There is a chapel at the top of a hill. Justin proposed that we walk up and see it. Since, my step count has plummeted since we left Paris, it sounded like a good idea. I didn’t exactly pack the correct shoes for an uphill hike of sorts. It was steep and unpaved (mostly). There was alot of slipping, but we both made it up and down safely and got some beautiful views of the city.

After that, we walked around the city a bit, but almost everything is closed on a Sunday.

Tomorrow, we will taste some Rhone wines. Then, head to another hotel for one night before returning to this one for another night. Long story.

I wonder if coach O will get fired while we were here? Les Miles got fired the last time we were in France. Coincidence?

Anyway, Who Dat!

Well, today we overslept and very nearly missed our wine tour at Jadot. We jumped out of bed about 10 minutes before it was time to leave and, luckily, arrived soon after it started. Jadot is a very large producer of Burgundy wines, and it was interesting to see how these large scale operations work.

After that, we had a beautiful lunch at Maison Lameloise.

After lunch we had a tour and tasting at Bouchard Pere and Fils. They are also a very large Burgundy producer. The estate is very beautiful and has alot of history.

I found the tasting very informative. The guide spoke very good English, which certainly helps. Burgundy wines can be a bit (extremely) confusing in their labeling. They are labeled by the region and actual plot of land that the vines are planted on.

There are “Grand Crus” that are planted on certain area of land in Burgundy that was determined by French beaurocrats in the 1930s. If a winemaker doesn’t have vines on this land, they can’t make a Grand Cru. There are also “premier crus” that are determined in the same way.

BUT, the easy thing about Burgundy wines is that the reds are 100% pinot noir and the white are 100% chardonnay.

The other thing I learned is that I LOVE Burgundy wines….. both red and white.

After the tasting we went into Beune (pronounced Bone) and walked around the city.

We ended up going to Hospices de Beune. It was a hospital used to take care of the poor, but eventually got alot of money from French nobility.

My big takeaway from this is, thank God for modern medicine!!! Things were very primitive back then. Yikes.

Anyway, tomorrow we leave Burgundy and head to the Rhone region.

Quick housekeeping thing: If anyone is having issues with the blog pulling up pictures, Justin said that you may need to open it in an “incognito” window. 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

This morning we said goodbye to our Champagne farmhouse and headed 3 hours south to Burgundy.

The first place we stopped is called Clos du Vougeot. It used to be a winery built by monks many centuries ago. We had a tour and lunch/ tasting. The building is no longer used for wine making but was very interesting to see.

After the tour we had lunch and a tasting. It was nice, but we had some difficulty understanding the descriptions….. and a little bit long winded.

After that we headed to Chandon de Briailles for a tasting. We are also staying on the property for two nights in a little back house. The wines were excellent and the property is beautiful.

Tomorrow, we have a couple more tasting and may try to explore the city a bit.

Special shout out to all those that are making this trip possible. We literally couldn’t do it without you. You know who you are.

Today, we started with a champagne tasting at H. Billiot (at 9:30 🤪). We tried a few different champagnes and bought some to take with us. Then headed back to our hotel to get ready for a fancy shmancy lunch.

I didn’t get much of a chance to elaborate on the place we are staying, but it’s super cute. It seems like a renovated farm house. It has all the modern amenities and lots of charm.

The husband and wife stay on property and cook breakfast in the morning. The made us scrambled eggs and had a beautiful bread basket with croissants, baguettes, and pain au chocolate.

Lunch was at Assiette Champenois. It was so so nice and delicious! We started out with a glass of champagne on the patio. I couldn’t stop looking at the lawn mower robot. I was mesmerized. It is basically a roomba but for the lawn. So cool!

After that, we moved into the dining room and had an incredible meal. I don’t really know what everything was, so I’ll let the pictures tell the story!

I forgot to mention that we got the wine pairing (which we don’t usually do). Needless to say, they basically had to roll me out of there.

But, the fun didn’t stop, because we were off to another champagne tasting. This one at Villemart. We had a tour and a very nice guide. We tasted 5 champagnes that were all wonderful. Honestly, the details get a bit (alot) fuzzy at this point 😬 .

One thing that we are hearing consistently from all of the champagne houses that we have visited is that 2021 was an extremely difficult year for wine making. There was hail, rain, frost, mildew. All the tough stuff in 1 year. We have heard that some winemakers lost 100% of their crop. I can’t imagine how devastating that can be for some of the smaller winemakers 💔.

Well, we are off to Burgundy tomorrow morning!

One quick thing to add that always makes me laugh. At these super high end places that we have been eating, they don’t put any prices on my menu…. only on Justin’s. Of course, it doesn’t matter (as it all comes from the same pot), but still amusing. I guess it’s a French custom.

Better go to bed, Justin said we are leaving at a firm 8:30….. I’ve been pushing these limits a bit, so I need to get my act together!

This morning, we left Paris at a firm 8:30 (per the travel Captain). We are headed to Champagne for 2 nights and have our first tasting at 11:00.

Getting out of the city center was challenging. There are cars, trucks, motorcycles, pedestrians, and bicycles coming from every direction. The actual lanes seem to be more optional and everyone is just doing their own thing. Luckily we neither hit anybody nor need to file for divorce. Justin didn’t appreciate my “helpful” comments from the passenger seat. 😬😬

Fortunately, we made it to our first tasting safe and sound. It is a smaller House called Larmandier-Bernier. We had a nice tour and tasting. We have been on many wine tours, but this was our first champagne tour. It was very interesting hearing about the process and how it differed from regular wine making. The champagne was good as well, so we took a few bottles to go.

Our next tour was at Billecart-Salmon. My sweet friend, Karen, gifted me with a bottle of the rose’ champagne about a year ago so I was familiar with the House (although we didn’t drink the bottle until my last birthday which was not too long ago). It is Karen’s favorite and now I understand why.

Billecart-Salmon is family owned over 7 generations. We had a wonderful and informative tour, got to view the property, and taste some very high end champagne. They were pouring the good stuff.

After the tour, we went back to our room. We are staying in a place that’s not quite a hotel but not quite a vacation rental. It is a nice room (that’s not within a main house), but the owner stays on property and she and her husband prepare breakfast etc. It has plenty of space and should work out great.

For dinner, we ate at a place called Les Jardin Brasserie. It was a bit underwhelming after all the fanatic meals we had had in the last few days. I guess we were due one of those.

Anyway, day 2 in champagne tomorrow. The schedule is: champagne tasting, fancy lunch, champagne tasting. We better rest up (lol).