The original plan after wine country was to head straight to Marseille and spend 2 -3 days there ahead of our 1st match. I was supremely smug having booked well in advance a lovely looking apartment overlooking the Old Port. Then 6 months ago they cancelled my booking, apparently having sold the building – I know, rude! In the intervening time, the cost of 3 nights in Marseille, had spiralled, so a quick re-think was required and that’s how we ended up in Avignon for 2 nights, and very nice it was too.
If you have any plans to travel to Avignon, I can thoroughly recommend La Maison de l’Olivier an oasis of calm in the centre of the old town, walking distance from everywhere, with a fabulous shady garden and pool. So when the sightseeing gets too much for you (on average 45 mins in Catering’s case), there is somewhere to retreat. Florian the owner was just lovely, with good restaurant suggestions and a fridge full of wine, what more does a tourist need.
Catering indulging my need to see as much of a place as possible, in case I never go there again
Le Pont
Interesting dinner concept on our last night in town. The hotel La Mirande has what it calls La Table Haute, where you join 10 other diners around the large kitchen table in the former servants’ quarters and ancient kitchen in the medieval part of the hotel. It is a set menu (drinks included) comprised of 3 courses of locally produced ingredients. The food was great, but more interesting was sitting down for dinner with a bunch of complete strangers, some English speakers and some not. A lovely couple from Washington DC , who found the sheets in France really scratchy (linen nowhere near as soft as the flannel bedding they were used to apparently), a French mother & daughter combination, who were out to celebrate the daughter’s last night in Avignon, as she had finished her work placement there & her colleagues had bought her dinner for 2 at La Mirande as a leaving present (I am liking their style), and finally a couple from the UK whose flight was delayed, so they just made it in time for dinner. He was mortified at not having time to change out of his travel gear of tracksuit bottoms & flip flops and immediately gravitated towards Catering, who in his summer uniform of shorts and polo shirt, was the least formally dressed man in the room (apart from the chef) . He was English & she was Argentinian and they were also staying in Avignon for a night ahead of the game in Marseille. Good food & interesting company in an historic and unusual setting – which, as usual, I completely forgot to photograph.
