Everyone was rather puggled following their hectic journey on Monday , but as I said some blogs ago, they made it for breakfast with the usual stragglers, Graham Harris and Aaron being late for the bus - Aaron said that if he had known I was there he would not have been late. Our coach was very nice and the driver, Jerome, a very pleasant chap, who we later discovered know both Antoine and Francoise, and another driver, Rocco, who had driven a group from L'Isle sur la Sorgue up to Penicuik on a twinning exchange a number of years ago, and who had been great with us when we had problems with our bus.
We headed off to the village of Chateauneuf Du Pape about twenty miles north of Avignon, one of the most famous wine producing villages in France. The name of the village is synonymous with good french wine but not a lot of people realise that there are many "caves" in the village so you really need to read the label closely to see which particular family or company produced and bottled the wine.
Our cave of the day was to "OGIER" Caves des Papes, which is part of the much larger "Jeanjean" group . the place was very good and we had an interesting lecture and presentation and lecture on the wine production and the company structure, followed by a tour of the facility and then a tasting. Unfortunately, the selection of wines was not quite as good as we had expected and out of the twenty one wines on display only two , a red and white Chateauneuf du Pape , which were the top of the range were to my taste. the majority of the group felt likewise so it was a rather unfortunate choice to present to such a group of discerning and potential customers. From, there our driver took us to the top of the hill in the village where the remains of the original castle still stand, this village was the summer residence of many of the Popes during the ages, and they still have a festival annually to bless the vines and pray for good crops. The castle was bombed and nearly flattened by the Germans at the end of the war when they pulled out of the area.
we had lunch in a lovely restaurant, but it was a fixed menu , with duck as the main course which was not appreciated by all, and they seemed to have a problem dealing with the vegetarians in the group. we paid for the meal ourselves but the wines were supplied by our host of the day - many thanks.
We decided to walk down from the restaurant and meet the bus further down in the village, however, our group being just a bit disorganised managed to get themselves split up and some took the wrong paths through the houses, so poor Graham and Chris had to run up and down hills searching for them - and it did not help when their phones were not working either.
Ailsa was seen nipping into the vines by the roadside and came back with some real juicy ones.
As folks were still a bit tired the bus took us more of less straight back to Avignon, but did a wee detour for me so that I could get some photos of the famous Pont D'Avignon, and so back to the hotel, poolside for some sun and a snooze to prepare for the evening.
Everyone managed to meet up on time so we set off to find the restaurant for the evening - however, Jim Wilkie, being the man he is, managed to get some of us lost !!! but with a mobile phone and directions from Chris Reid we soon all met up - in what looked like a "gay bar" - but the meal was fine, the staff helpful, etc. The usual street singers were on hand, if you liked gypsies or Spanish music , it was fine. Mr. Wilkie managed to keep us entertained with an endless stream of rotten jokes.
We headed back to the hotel, but several had found a kareoke bar so they remained to entertain the locals with their talents !!! which probably closed the bar early and sent everyone except the tone deaf home.
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