One of the main reasons we went to Avignon is due to the fact that in 1309, the Papacy moved from Rome and set up residence there.

Forget the religion though, what we are interested in is Châteauneuf du Pape! This one of the most prestigious and well known wine areas in the Rhône wine region.

We awoke on the Sunday morning to a fairly miserable looking day so we made the most of it by heading off to the Palace of the Popes to taste some wine. A fine and inexpensive experience, but not a memorable one. We remembered our time in Alsace, wandering around looking for wineries, so we decided to do this right. We asked around and were recommended a company called Avignon Wine Tour. I called and we signed up for the Monday tour, unfortunately not for Châteauneuf du Pape, but for Lirac, Tavel and Costières de Nîmes.

Monday came, we stood outside our hotel as arranged, and right on time François bounded over to meet us and shepherded the two of us into his minivan (it was not strictly a private tour, he can take up to 6 people, but on our day it was just us). François is Avignon Wine Tour; he started almost a year ago, after many years in the restaurant industry, he filled out all the right paperwork, and set up a slick little company replete with official guide headgear. He is very proud of his achievement, and rightly so. He is full of energy, friendly and very knowledgeable. There are other companies which offer wine tours, but one must be careful of what they offer – is it a bus ride around several tasting rooms, or is there valuable insight on the complex subject of wine. We were lucky in Tuscany two years ago meeting Rebecca, and lucky to meet François who offers a similar experience.

First of all we start talking about the Rugby (François, speaks fluent English, but all men in France speak enough English to converse about the Rugby), France is doing well! Then, as he drives, he points out things and tells us all kinds of interesting historical information: even better than the official audio guides as both Sarah and I suddenly realize that the bridge of which only two arches remain, originally extended way beyond the point we believed – we both had the same image of a bridge with two large arches and twenty little tiny ones to fit all of them into the space.

We had a great time visiting several different types of wineries, (co-operative, shared and family owned) learning how to taste, and that good wine can cost less than $2, it can even be sold like gasoline into bring-your-own containers.

There was even an example of a winery which has reconstructed Roman wine making facilities, to make small batches of a very strange historical product. We did not expect to find a Siberian mammoth, but we did, proving that France has many surprises.

As we came out of our tour of the Pope’s Palace we saw a sign for a show. The name of the place was Le Rouge Gorge and the show was called Passion. It was located in the basement of a medieval building right next to the Palace and for the price you got dinner and the show. Andy decided he wanted to go. I said “It’s called Passion. Remember that horrible show in Vegas?” (We went to something that was supposed to be a replica of a Parisian cabaret and it was tragic!). I also said “This isn’t Paris, it’s Avignon”. Andy was not deterred by my warnings and called and made us reservations on the spot. When we left the hotel for the show a light drizzle had started. By the time we were half-way to the theater it had started to pour. I had my umbrella but it was not big enough for both of us so Andy ran from awning to awning and in actual fact the umbrella was virtually useless because the rain was so strong. Eventually we turned off of the main street into the labyrinth of medieval streets surrounding the Palace. In about two minutes we were lost. We had thought we would recognize the streets so we hadn’t brought a map (even if we had it was raining to hard to have used it). It turns out that streets that old really are dark, twisty and remarkably devoid of landmarks. Eventually we found the door after having walked around for an extra ten minutes in the pouring rain. Andy was completely soaked and I kept tripping on my pants because they were so wet from mid-thigh down they had grown about two inches in length. When Andy paid for the tickets they were half of the price we had been expecting. Andy said “is that price for dinner and the show?” and the guy said “Yes it is our opening night and we are charging less because it is for our friends and family”. So on the plus side we are getting everything half price. On the minus side, it was their first show and everybody knows everybody else except for us. Great! We sat at our table and tried to drip underneath it and not on it. We had to agree that the venue was impressive. There were about 25 tables with red table cloths. The stage was at the front of the room and at the back there were stairs going up, covered in red velvet. Along both side walls between the two were balconies painted black and hung with small lights. The bar was on the far side of the room and the ceiling above it had been hung with old musical instruments. The dinner was three courses and wine. Everyone got served the same thing and it was quite good. After the dinner was finished the show began. I was prepared for the worst and instead I got a homage to Bob Fosse. This was followed by Edith Piaf songs, french folk songs, men dancing Swan Lake, audience participation, a girl doing acrobatics on a ring and yes even one number with scantily clad girls. It was everything you would expect a French Cabaret to be and it was actually good, even though it was all in French so we missed out on some of the nuance! We were also definitely the only tourists there. For us that was the most exceptional part!

We’ve not posted for a while, but I have just added photos from Avignon and Barcelona.

We will catch up and write about our exploits soon, including wine tasting in Provence and a surprise day trip to Palma de Mallorca.

Things have been very hectic, some other highlights are traditional cabaret in Avignon, Flamenco in Madrid and Jesus Christ in Spanish (you need to wait to find out more), all washed down with good cheap wine and a lot of cured meats.

Check out the gallery for Munich, Vienna, Venice and Vernazza photos.

We finally arrived in Madrid our last European stop, and have internet again

…sorry having internet issues, hope to upload some in Barcelona.

Dear Rick Steves,

I know you love Vernazza, it appears to be one of your favorite places in Europe. Your photo is in establishments all over town. I have however a few points you may wish to note in future guides.

An eatery may to the untrained eye be open. The door open with menu board displayed outside, lights on with tables laid. It is not (it opens in 10 minutes apparently, because 6:40 is an unnoted, but obvious time for it to open).

An eatery may be advertising breakfast, it does not mean it will open for that meal, or if it does, it does not mean that they will have any components they advertise.

Most importantly, I was looking forward to a quite walk through the unspoiled hills, however all I found were hoards of loud geriatrics with ski poles.

I would also like to add here a word on Italian trains. Sometimes they don’t exist! They are listed on timetables, and you can buy tickets for them but they can mysteriously vanish when it comes to arriving at a station. This is doubly irritating when it leaves you to linger in an Italian railway station, which, with some kind of national pride, are the worst in Europe. When a train does exist, it is likely not to exist according to the times laid out for it. Unfortunately the journey to and from Vernazza is a complicated one, not one to be undertaken on Italian trains.

Rick, please help

Venice; what a wonderful city!!!

Possibly the most expensive city to visit in the world (and I worked in Tokyo), and apparently the most visited! Cruise ships arrive each morning unleashing hoards of visitors on the city, to the point that you cannot move – no wonder the city is sinking, it doubles in weight each day for around 10 hours. Fortunately the hoards go back to their ships in the early evening.

St Marks Square, and the Rialto bridge are packed to bursting during the day. But there is lots of fun to be had in out of the way places and in the early morning or evening.

A couple of fun things we did:

Bellinis in the famous “Harry’s Bar” (€15 each): It is a small and quaint bar where you can really imagine Hemingway in the corner (for it is because of he that the bar is famous). It gets thousands of tourists each day, many are turned away by the high (even for Venice) prices, and many more because of a strict dress code – for one, no shorts. Here was a situation which made us really laugh: A group of older men came in led by a younger American lady who was apparently their guide. They settled themselves down and the waiter went over to them and said, discretely, “I’m sorry Gentlemen, the shorts!”. One of the men turned to the guide and said “I think they have a problem with our shorts”. The guide said, in response “No, it’s OK, he’s apologizing for the short tables”. I wonder how much she was being payed?

A twilight Gondola ride (a whopping €200): a tour of the city as the sun sets – no better way to see it. Though it makes you wonder why they designed gondolas the way they did. Imagine walking about all day with a javelin attached horizontally to your shoulder.

The Hotel was excellent, we picked it because we got a lot of perks thrown in (free €54 per person breakfast, and a free lunch – in our case worth €140). The service was very personal and to die for (as was the bill)

But oh my, the cost….

It is easy to understand why everything is so expensive; logistics! I am informed (by a gondolier) that 172 islands make up Venice, and none have roads. Instead they are fed by canals and small passages. The canals can cope with different sizes of boats, so you can ship stock in a bigish boat to a dock on a bigish canal, then offload it to a smaller boat which may then dock with the destination (most buildings have a front door which opens directly into water, with a back door on an alley), or if there is no door on the canal, be offloaded to handcarts to run through the street and over bridges (with steps) to the destination. Moving goods is an obvious challenge. Then what to do with the garbage – more expense!!!

When we were walking through Marienplatz, which is the main square in Munich, we stopped to watch some street entertainers. They were singing and dancing, a sort of hip-hop type thing. I was compelled to stop and watch because they were sooo bad (and that is my professional opinion!). While we were standing there, one of their friends (they were all dressed in bright yellow t-shirts and bright yellow knit caps) came over to us. He first tried to talk to us in German which we were able to ignore. Then he switched to English. First, he said “Can I talk to you for a minute?” and Andy made a noncommittal grunt, which he clearly took for an assent. So then he said “Are you interested in Jesus Christ, our Savior?”. Andy turned to him and replied “Not Really”. The funny thing was, we were on our way to Munich’s cathedral to go to a concert of religious organ music.

Vienna is a beautiful city. It has wide, tree filled boulevards lined with imposing buildings. The old town area is filled with cobblestone streets that have been pedestrianized, so you can window shop to your hearts content. It is also a city that is full of music. There are multiple opportunities to see concerts and we were also serenaded by street musicians (who were also playing Strauss and Mozart, not overturned buckets like they do in New York!). I often feel overwhelmed in cities that are really large (London, Paris). Vienna is perfect because it is sized compactly enough to walk in, but still offers all of the amenities you could want. Unfortunately, we only had a couple of days there and I was feeling a little bit of “burn out”. It turns out that many European royal families had big palaces that are now museums where great art work and royal treasures are currently displayed. They also all had summer palaces that have beautiful gardens that are now open to the public. In Paris the Bourbons had the Louvre and Versailles. In Munich, the rulers of Bavaria, the Wittelsbachs, had the Residence and Nymphenburg (what a name). In Vienna the Hapsburgs had the Hofburg and Schonbrun. By the time we got to Schonbrun I found it really difficult to work up enthusiasm for another ante-chamber decorated for Queen somebody-or-other in gold rococo style. And this is me talking, I love that kind of stuff! I’m surprised Andy hasn’t keeled over yet. The good news is that the Viennese refer to themselves as Wieners (In German Vienna is Wien), so that helped keep a smile on my face.

I have been to Vienna many times before (for work and pleasure), and I love the place. I find it to be full of the most beautiful buildings around in such a wonderful state of maintenance, that you would believe that it was Disney. Austria has only one obvious industry – tourism, and it is a fairly slick show! There are many museums and buildings dedicated to one of the leading “empires” of Europe; they had a lot of money, so there is a lot of art and treasures on display, as well as the grandiose architecture. We saw a show at the Spanish School of Riding – a beautiful palace building, with an obvious amount of work gong in to the display; but to us, the untrained, it looked like ponies prancing for an hour and a half – it was not expensive but tickets are scarce.

Music is also everywhere, especially Mozart (strange since he was from Salzburg; you find in Europe that Mozart has the “George Washington slept here” issue), but also a lot of the native Strauss family.

We went to a concert of Strauss and Mozart music at the Kursalon, in the park near our hotel. A nightly tourist affair, but surprisingly well performed and entertaining. Music from an orchestra, opera singers and dancers – none of which was world class, but very professional and polished. The highlight for me was the orchestra playing the theme from “the third man” as an encore.

One of my favourite drinking holes, 1516 – a brewpub provided us with beer and food. Coffee at Cafe Hawelka was a highlight.

We were overcome by a morning visit to a fleamarket. And I joined in with protest to get cars off the road, which took the form of a picnic in the middle of the road.

Lots of fun!