Cheeseburger in Paradise

From Arles, we headed North in the morning and ended up doing quite a bit of driving during the day, seeing a lot, and finally ending up in St Remy, where we would stay for a couple of nights. We also celebrated Jenn's 33rd birthday.

WIA: We heard from a couple we met at our B and B in Avignon about a strawberry festival in Velleron. This sounded fun and delicious, so we went, even though it was out of the way from where we were now located, in the South. We were there early, which was good, because it started to get very crowded by the time we left. I ate a cup full of strawberries sprinkled with sugar and Jenn had smoothie. Both were fresh and very sweet. We bought a small basket of strawberries, which we ate later that day while driving around. The other goodies we got to take with us were an enormous strawberry meringue, a strawberry napoleon, and a tropeziene, which looked a lot like a little cheeseburger. Thinking back, I don't think we even ate lunch that day.
We had a nice al fresco dinner at Bistro Decouverte in St Remy. We each had a glass of wine and then ordered from their daily menu. Jenn had vegetables in olive oil and I had aubergine flan. There was a small salad with pesto and tomato sauce around it. We had different types of fish and both were fine. Dessert was a molten chocolate cake with raspberry sorbet. It wasn't amazing, but everything was good.
We enjoyed a simple breakfast at Mas de Menoille of bread, cheese, and strawberries. We snacked on several things, olive oil, cheese, and macarons, at the wonderful St Remy Wednesday market. We had chocolate from Joel Durand and shortbread and sable cookies at the very famous Le Petit Duc. I don't remember if all of this was in chronological order, but regardless, we definitely ate a lot this day. We had Jenn's birthday lunch at Le Mirabeau. It's an unassuming place with a bunch of tables outside filled to capacity at lunchtime. The atmosphere is not too loud, but still lively, as it was bubbling with activity every time we walked by. It looked like a fun place to hang out. I had their signature burger, the Cheeseburger du Mirabeau, which came topped with foie gras and soaked in port sauce. It was huge, but I couldn't help myself from eating the whole thing. Jenn had a cheese burger, but didn't ask for any special arrangements. She decided since she was now 33 years old, she should be more adventurous, so...  she ate something exactly as it came on the menu. That is living.

Later in the day, we went back to Joel Durand for something cold and refreshing, which came in the form of ice cream on a stick covered with chocolate. 


There were a few restaurants that we reserved weeks in advance of this trip. Chez Bru was one of those places. It comes with a reputation of which they are acutely aware. I couldn't believe they opened the place because it was only us and one other couple eating that evening, but we were happy they did. Jenn did a small tasting menu and I ordered a couple of things a la carte. Everything was excellent, with the lobster lasagna being the standout.
We went more casual for lunch the next day at the renowned Bistrot du Paradout. This bistro looks and feels country. It's located on the side of the road on the outside of the city of Paradout. It has been around for a while since Peter Mayles talked about eating there in his book, which was published in 1991. Jenn continued her adventurous ways. She didn't have a choice really since there was only one menu served at lunch which this day included eggplant and tomato confit, rabbit with mashed potatoes, and several dessert choices. Besides the burgers in St Remy, this was probably my favorite restaurant of the trip. It was a quintessential Provencal meal.
WID: After the aforementioned strawberry festival, we drove to Les Baux, which is situated atop a mountain and offers scenic views. It reminded us a lot of Mont St Michel in Normandy. A couple minutes away, there is an art and light show inside a quarry called Carrieres du lumieres. It sounds kind of cheesy, but in reality, it is far from it. The quarry is quite large and completely dark with the exception being the projected art that covers all exposed rock. It is synchronized to music. We stuck around in there for a long time until the pictures started to repeat.

In St Remy, we walked through the Wednesday market, which had everything one can imagine. The produce was beautiful. The town itself is compact, well maintained, and for lack of a better word, cute. We both thought of St Remy as a place we could live if we ever wanted to put everything on hold and move away to France (which we think about more than you would think). We covered the whole town by foot and went outside the perimeter to see a small area with Roman ruins. There is a mapped out Van Gogh path that allows the visitor to see several different locations where Van Gogh got inspiration for certain paintings. It was much like the one we did in Arles, but not as good, though we did get to go through the hospital where he cut his ear off. Inside the hospital, Jenn had her second great photo idea of the trip (the first was getting inside the open sarcophagi in Arles), which was to "act crazy". I'm probably should have taken her up on it just to see what she would come up with, but I refused to take a picture and we both moved on with our lives.


WIS: The Mas de Menoille was as basic as basic can be, but clean and comfortable. Michelle, the owner, is anything but basic. She was so nice and made every effort to make our stay special, including going out and getting a beautiful bouquet of peonies for Jenn's birthday. She takes so much pride in her home and making visitors feel welcome. I didn't even mind helping her set up her new computer the morning before we left. She asked for my help once she knew I worked at Dell.

WAM: At a small shop on one of the side streets in town, we purchased our first piece of art, a painting of the Provence country side which Jenn describes as "modern impressionist". The artist, Jean Michel Espinasse was very friendly. In typical indecisive fashion, I think it took us three different visits there to finally pull the trigger.

WTF: While driving to St Remy, we ran into a detour that we had never seen before and probably never will again.

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