Copious amounts of wine were sacrificed on the altar of shattered nerves in order for me to get back into the car and drive the next morning. Luckily, the Bar/Brasserie des Alpilles had a bottomless supply of the grape nectar and a willing waiter to dispense it along with his opinions of the medicinal benefits of each different vineyard.
Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed (or was it bleary-eyed and bushy haired??) off we went to Les Baux. The famed medieval fortress. Les Baux, was very beau, and very Haut. For some reason, I didn't connect the idea of a fortress was to protect an area from attack - usually from a high, really high, vantage point. Which translated into today's standards meant going up the cliff side of a mountain (mini or not) on little roads, usually resulting in some steep grades and switchback zigzags.
Going up wasn't too bad because, as Mom and Sona were admiring the scenery from such a high viewpoint, I was able to concentrate on the centre line. Going down however was a little more unpleasant, with little signs of "Rappel" (remember what?? cliff just over there? did you check your brakes lately? is the truck behind you going to run you over? are you going to fling the car over the edge using that stupid centrifugal force theory you learned back in grade 9?). With a motorcycle so close to my bumper that the rider could have burned his lips on my tailpipe, the first set of turns were executed little too quickly, resulting in frenzied mutterings of "Oh God, oh God, oh God, Charleen ! " from Mom in the back, and Sona gripping the handles on the upper side of the door, smiling that forced, reassuring fake smile you usually reserve for the dentist, and the contents of the car (that was us) jerked from one side to another as if we were on a Midway ride. But we survived and I slowed down enough to make it back down more or less safe and sound.
I blame my sore foot for not being able to tell how much pressure I was putting on the gas pedal.
Les Baux was really quite interesting with amazing views and had a candy store. Do I need to say more?
The afternoon was spent checking out the insane asylum where Van Gogh lived and painted 143 paintings in just over a year. Very calming and peaceful, if a bit freaky when you looked at some of the methods of treatments used.
Our final day in Saint Remy was market day. Almost the entire centre of the town was lined with vendors' tables, selling everything from blobs of gooey plastic to leather shoes to the more mundane artichokes the size of cantaloupes. Everywhere you turned, you were offered samples of cheese, sausage, antipasto, cookies and crackers.
Mom and Sona were in their element, trying them all and checking out the goods as well as the people's fashions. We bought some more scarves because everyone knows you can never have too many scarves (just like shoes). Bargains abounded. I even bought a spatula made from an olive tree. Now all we need to do is find a place for them in our already crammed suitcases.
Content with our purchases, we feasted on crepes and homemade ice cream. It was a good day.
Oh, as for the reference to the duck, it had to do with our second evening's dinner. I'd been talking about having duck for a couple of days, and decided that Saint Remy was the perfect place for it, it being in the countryside and all. Well, I ordered it. When my dinner came, I started to eat it. It was quite tasty and well prepared, unlike the other parts of the meal. After a couple of bites, I stopped and asked Mom and Sona what I'd ordered. They affirmed that I had, indeed, ordered duck. What I was munching on, however, was steak! We started to laugh, thinking that the cook in the back must have been commenting on the stupidity of des Americaines who didn't know the difference between duck and beef. I didn't care, I got a nice steak for the price of duck. Worked for me.
Quack, quack, moo.
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