Blogging from Donoratico in Tuscany

Cristina and I arrived in Tuscany September 27, 2013.  We checked into the country apartment at the Localita Greppi Cupi (a vineyard) called Le Scuderie.  Finally we had wifi coverage again, although it is on and off.  Much has happened since I last blogged and I have much to catch up on and I will work on that as soon as possible.  I will post blogs by date of the events as much as possible but will be producing blogs about days past after this one and they will get posted below this one and other blogs about more recent events.  I hope you scroll down to find the new ones as they get posted and that the date of the blog will order them chronologically so that you can see better the order of events.

Our apartment in Tuscany is just outside the town of Donoratico in the coastal area south of Pisa and Livorno that is often known as Massa Marittima.  We have a little 2 bedroom, 2.5 bathroom townhouse with a nice kitchen/living room area with a table with 4 chairs a sofa and 2 additional sofa chairs, fireplace, TV, dishwasher and modern air conditioning in each room.  It is one of about 15 units like this.

 

There's a patio outside with a table, 4 chairs and 2 long chairs to sun yourself on.  In other words, pretty much anything we would want.  It is quiet during the day and even more quiet at night.

 

 

 Our friends, Willie (on his birth certificate but "Guillermo" to me) and Margarita recommended the place and arrived there for a vacation the same day we did.  We looked forward to spending time with them.

Marche Provencal in Nyons

In Nyons, just 30 kms. south of where we were staying is a great summer market on Sundays, the Marche Provencal.  It has all kinds of Provencal goods.  Coloured shopping baskets and bags.  Soaps and toiletries scented with lavender, verbena, almonds and all kinds of other natural perfumes.   Pottery.  Famous Nyons olives, olive products and olive oil.  Fabrics with Provencal patterns as well as tablecloths, napkins, aprons, towels and all kinds of clothing.  All this is in addition to the fruit, vegetables, meats of the normal weekly market (Wednesdays I believe).  Chickens, guinea fowl and ducks turn slowly roasting on the spit.  Cheeses are stacked in front of you with bits cut off to taste.  Saucissons (dried sausages) of pork, wild boar, bull, donkey meat are sold.  The pork saucissons are sold regular or flavoured with ceps (porcini mushrooms), blueberries, Provencal herbs and lots of other variations.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The colors are bright and attractive. The people are everywhere and in a good mood.

We bought some pottery, some lavender, some almond soaps and olive oil to bring back.  We also bought some saucissons, roast guinea fowl, chanterelle mushrooms, ripe giant red tomatoes, big cloves of purple colored garlic.  Fragrant scents and delicious tastes.

Carrieres et Lumieres in Les Baux de Provence (A day sampling the Arts in France, including culinary and oenological arts)

Saturday morning were were off early to see the sound and light show at the underground halls cut out in a former quarry in Les Baux de Provence.  Here our host Paul and his uncle Guy lend perspective to the size of the quarries, a rough kind of sculpture in the side of a cliff that remind me of the more spectacular historic carvings in Jordan.

This might sound unlikely, but it turned out to be as spectacular a show as you will ever see. 

It was so good that I managed to forgive being sucked into watching a short film by Jacques Cocteau (who is in the picture on the right and featured in the film) that was strategically located in a hall just by the washrooms or WCs where I start most of my visits to arts venues.  This bizarre film deserved to be located there and I thought that I would have enjoyed it more if it was actually projected on the wall of the urinal I had used.  It wasn't all bad as it featured a woman painted white with wings a nice pair of bare breasts, but she only go a cameo so couldn't save the whole film which included a number of apparently famous French actors walking about in ancient Greek clothing to no apparent purpose while Jacques Cocteau drifted through them and a narrator purported to make sense of the whole.

The main show was very different and frankly, quite fabulous.  I took some dark video of it but can't seem to add it successfully to this post.  So you'll need to make do with the (dark) photos I took with my IPhone.

 

Music from various centuries played in the dark while dozens of projectors cast fabulous paintings onto the walls and floor. The colors from paintings by Monet, Renoir, Chagall and others saturated the darkness.  We walked around to take in the performance from various perspectives.  There were some "balconies" and "ramps" as well as columns and wider and narrower "walls" of the quarry to walk, encircle and view.

The site of the quarry is also in a spot that is quite spectacular:

The site is close to St. Remy, a town made famous by the artists who painted there, Van Gogh perhaps most notably.  St. Remy, is now a tourist destination catering to the well off and bargains are hard to find, but not totally absent.

We had a very good meal in St. Remy at the le Gousse d'Ail (the Garlic Clove).  We had a delightful 2012 Chateau Romanin Alpilles from St. Remy de Provence, a local white wine that is biodynamically produced. I ate a pissaladiere (a tart with onions and anchovies) surrounded by lettuce leaves, anchovies and diced tomatoes. Cristina loved her vol-au-vent au fruits de mer (a patty shell full of sea food in a white sauce.  Cristina then had a filet of Loup de Mer (Mediterranean sea bass I believe in English, a white fish that looks like a trout) with tomato sauce that was equally good.  I had Dorade with a typical Provencal ratatouille.  The fish had a lovely crisp skin and melted in the mouth.  This meal armed us for the hour long drive home.

On the way, home, however we stopped at one of the huge supermarkets France is known for, Auchan.  It was an utter zoo.  All of the recent immigrants to France must have been in this one store on the outskirts of Avignon and the cues to check out were impressive.  We didn't buy enough to warrant standing in one of these cues but did so anyway.  I cased out the wine section and managed to find a nice Bordeaux, a  2007 Chateau L'Evangile from Pomerol that was exciting enough to make the cue something I could put up with. 

When we got home we prepared a supper with our hosts and sat down to the table with them and their relatives, Guy and Monique.  The lovely supper was washed down with a couple of excellent wines.  The 2009 Domaine Janasse red Chateauneuf de Pape Chaupin was a super concentrated wine that was hedonistic and complex even at this pubescent stage in its evolution and me with the approval of all.  We then followed that with a 2010 Smith Haut Lafitte red wine I had purchased from the "Somellier's Club" at a Casino supermarket under their house label.  This Bordeaux from Pessac Leognan was a steal at 20 Euros under this label and an equally big hit with all around the table. 

After sampling all these French arts it was off to bed to get an early start the next day.

Climbing Mont Ventoux

It is topped by the barren moonscape known as the toughest climb on the Tour de France.  It is a 22 kilometer unrelenting climb from the town of Bedoin to 1,912 metres of altitude with an average slope of 7.5% although it starts out fairly gently. The town of Bedoin is at less than 400 metres altitude so there are 1,576 metres of vertical to climb the top.  The last 15.6 kms. are an average slope of 8.6%.  It is Mont Ventoux, the Giant of Provence.

Cristina and made this climb with Mimi and his brother Claude on a perfect September day. 

Claude watched Cristina and me get ready.

 Cristina, Mimi and Claude had a coffee, while I had water and then we put on our helmets.

 

And got on our bikes.











And then we were off.

The first half of the climb is through the lush forest.  Here Cristina, Mimi and Claude rode together while I was already off the back trying to get warmed up and get my legs going.  A rider is trying to keep up with them but didn't manage to hang in very long with them.

 

Being the old pro that he is Mimi thought to shed his helmet first and here gives it to his wife Jacqueline.  Soon Cristina and Claude too took their helmets off for the uphill grind.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was too far back to see they had taken their helmets off and the idea never even occurred to me.  I had tucked my sunglasses into the holes in my helmet, zipped open my jersey to stay cooler and pounded up the hill, alternating between standing up on the pedals and sitting and churning my legs.

 

 

Cristina was calling out for more water to Mimi's wife, Jacqueline, and Pascaline who supported our ride. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Jacqueline exhibits perfect form running before her to hand off a full water bottle to Cristina.  Notice how professionally she holds only the bottom of the bottle so there is lots of bottle surface for the cyclist to grab.  She too is a pro at this.  She seems to enjoy it in fact.

 

 

Mimi was enjoying his ride.

Here I have climbed out of the forested part of the ride and am now in the sun with the increasingly more desolate landscape surrounding me.











Claude could not keep up with Cristina and Mimi and was in between them and me.  Here it looks like he is looking behind him to see if I'm catching him.  I was but I didn't manage to quite reel him back in before the finish.  I ended up a couple of minutes behind him.

 

 

 

 

 

Mimi and Cristina topped the climb.  The barren landscape is unmistakeable as Mont Ventoux.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 I came up about 11 minutes later.








Here's the link to the details of my climb (control click on the link):

http://www.strava.com/activities/tt-up-mont-ventoux-from-b%C3%A9doin-paca-france-with-mimi-80017257?ref=1MT1yaWRlX3NoYXJlOzI9ZW1haWw7ND04Mjk2NzE%253D

 

On the way down we stopped by the monument to Tom Simpson who died on the slopes of Mont Ventoux in 1967 in the Tour de France.  It is about 1 km. from the summit.  Mimi finished the Tour de France that year and remembers how hot is was.  The Tour doctors considered cancelling the Mont Ventoux stage but let it go after taking some blood pressure samples from the cyclists.  Mimi says Tom looked a wreck before the stage started, let alone later on.  He was full of uppers and alcohol and with the heat just crumpled and fell 1 km. from the top of Mont Ventoux. 

 

Mimi remembers looking at him as he passed and finished the stage.  Mimi was back a ways in the race as he had flatted and rode the last 3 kms. to the top of Mont Ventoux on a flat tire.  A helicopter was summoned to take Tom to the hospital but it took a while for the helicopter to arrive and the riders were all gathering around as the stage had finished and they watched Tom be loaded into the helicopter.  But it was of no avail.  Tom was dead.  The next day the peloton let one of Tom's teammates get away and win the stage to honor Tom's memory.

 

After paying homage to Tom Simpson, Cristina, Claude, Mimi, Jacqueline, Pascaline and I shared a bottle of champagne and had lunch at the Chalet Reynard to celebrate the climb.  The restaurant is 6 kms. from the top of the Mont Ventoux climb on the route back to Bedoin.  The food was very good, most of us had huge plates of spaghetti Bolognese, one ravioli forestiere (with morel mushrooms) and one bavette frites (flank steak with fries). 

It was also a great place to buy commemorative cycling clothing sporting Mont Ventoux in big letters and the 1912 altitude in sharp black, white or red with trim of the other two colors.  The clothing was marked down 40% since it was no longer high season so we took advantage of the opportunity and loaded up.  The owners were keen to talk to us since we were "exotic" Canadians and could speak French.  We were treated very well. 

 After lunch we jumped back on our bikes for a fast downhill on a good road where you could see most of the turns and let it rip.  I was amped up for this but there were cars on the road and cyclists coming up so I had to keep slowing down until I could pass the cars (who can't handle the turns at speed as well as bicycles but are faster on the straightaways if they accelerate).  Here's my downhill ride from the Chalet Reynard:

http://www.strava.com/activities/descent-of-mont-ventoux-to-b%C3%A9doin-paca-france-80017195?ref=1MT1yaWRlX3NoYXJlOzI9ZW1haWw7ND04Mjk2NzE%253D

We cycled into Bedoin and called it a day of cycling and went our separate ways.  Separate, but united in the fact we had each climbed Mont Ventoux and knew what the Giant of Provence was to climb.  Perhaps the toughest single climb in le Tour de France.