This week, for les vacances, I am travelling in Southern France with my family: sister! (Prinda), mom, dad, and 2 cousins (Nong and Ying). Our itinerary includes the French Riviera (Nice, Monte Carlo/Monaco, Cannes, and a few other small towns), Provence (Aix-en-Provence, Nimes, Avignon), and Carcassonne. It is quite refreshing to get away from the busy (and currently quite chilly) city of Paris into the sweet Southern France living. However, I am about a week behind in posts, and I do not have pictures uploaded yet... soon to come!
However, last weekend, to get into the right mindset for this week's vacation, le french boyfriend and I took a mini-vacation to Chablis in the northern part of the Burgundy region of France.
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| Grand Cru vineyards at Chablis |
The wines here include Chablis, Petit Chablis, Chablis Premier Cru, and Chablis Grand Cru... which are, in fact, different classifications of Chablis.
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| Drinking Chablis and eating gougères |
Chablis, the town, is quite small and quaint. We decided to camp at the local site which is about a 5-minute walk from town center. It contains spacious campsites surrounded by creeks and lined with flowers; by far the nicest campsite I've ever been.
That evening the town had a wine festival and night market. Apparently, in Chablis, this means that the city gives you wine for free... as oppose to other festivals I have been to which is just means to get you to buy expensive food and drinks! I guess that is the advantage of being a rich wine town. They were pouring Chablis, and pairing it with their local pastry, gougères, a puff pastry with hints of cheese mixed into the dough.
Along with the festival was a small French band covering American rock music such as the Red Hot Chili Peppers (whom the French call "Les Red Hots"). All in all, a great night.
The next day, we wanted to rent bicycles and take a tour through the vineyards... but it rained. I guess if you get lucky with a free festival one day, you are unlucky with weather the next day.
Instead, we went to a wine cave to taste wine and visited the nearby city of Tonnerre. One of the biggest attractions to Tonnerre is La Fosse Dionne, a large bluish green water source, providing the town with water at a rate of 200 liters/sec. The "fountain" is surrounded by an old, lightly-deteriorating covered colonnade, which is then surrounded by colorful townhouses above, which is then surrounded by tree-covered hills above that. Just layers upon layers of beauty! The water is quite clear and very deep with all sorts of plants growing in it. It is apparently extremely dangerous to dive in, that after several deaths, is now illegal to do so. It was so cool that I had to see it three times.
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