Carcassonne and Nyons

I'm a little behind on updating the blog, so I'll do my best to catch everyone up on our adventures. Saturday, we left St. Emilion after strolling through the town and buying some of their famous macaroons (yum). Because the weather was rainy, we decided to take the less scenic, but easier drive on the motorway to Carcassonne. We were very fortunate that the rain came the day after our wine tour of the Bordeaux region. After checking in to our hotel in Carcassonne, we wandered across the street to the medieval walled village. The village itself is very touristy (much like leavenworth). We had a meal at a small cafe and some of us were brave enough to try the local specialty, Cassoulet, a bean stew with pork sausage and leg of duck. It was very tasty and reminded me of gumbo (except without the cajun spices).

Sunday morning, we left early for a leisurely drive to Nyons. On the way, we stopped at a small town on the Mediterranean coast, touched the sea and took a walk along the boardwalk. We also stopped later to see the Pont du Gard, an original Roman aqueduct that still stands across a river. It was pretty spectacular. We decided to skip the museum, so we would stay on schedule to get to our next destination, a small hotel in Nyons.

Our hotel in Nyons was a surprise to the Farmers, since we arrived on the day of their first anniversary. It is a quaint house with 8 bedrooms with a beautiful garden, restaurant onsite, and everything is run by Annie and Jean, the couple who own the hotel. This has been the best place we have stayed by far--so much so that we changed our original itinerary in order to enjoy more time at the hotel and eat the fabulous food they prepare for us. Last night for dinner, I tried the escargot and lamb, which were both fantastic!

Today (Monday), we visited the olive oil musuem in Nyons and were greeted by an old Frenchman who gave us the tour in French (with a handout in English to follow along). He is a character I will write more about later. We also took a walk through the old part of town and then visited the botanic garden, a beautiful public garden of aromatic plants. This was a good way to pass the time before waiting for the local essential oil distillery to open. Unfortunately, the distillation only happens on wed, thurs, and sat, so we missed out on a complete tour, but we did get to see the bushels of dried lavender and all of the distlillation equipment. We also found lots of neat souveniers in the gift shop. We plan to enjoy another meal at our "house" (the name of the hotel is Une Autre Maison, which translates to Another House) after relaxing by the garden pool. Tomorrow, we drive to Beaune and look forward to more wine tasting in the Burgundy region.