(Please imagine an accent over the final e of rose in all occurences)
This morning it is really chilly and the wind is howling. We are experiencing a mistral, a cold northwest wind that will last until Friday. It is really intense. We decide we will head down to Bandol to do a little rose wine tasting and take a look at the sea.
Not so fast, though. I take a shower and the bathroom becomes inundated with large black ants. They are everywhere – in the bathtub, on the towels, crawling around the mirror. Yuck.
No way are we staying in this room. I start to look up alternate hotels in the area. The problem is that everything is pretty well booked up. John goes to talk to the proprietors. They will move us if there is a free room.
We end up getting a room a couple of doors away. It’s for handicapped people and is actually quite a bit more spacious than our previous layout. I am still apprehensive that our ant problem will arise again in this room.
It’s after 11 AM by the time we move into the new apartment but we decide to carry on with our original plans and after a longish drive we get to Bandol around 1:30. First business lunch. We want a nice seafood lunch.
I order what I think is a brochette of wild sea bass with rice and veg. John orders mussels and frites. I end up with a whole fish that is impossible to filet. So in other words, mouthsful of bones. John’s dish is more successful with properly cooked mussels but soggy fries.
After finishing lunch we head outside to take some pictures by the dramatic coast.
After leaving the restaurant we head to Domaine Tempier where we taste two vintages of their rose wine and a mourvedre. We buy some of the roses and then make our way back to St. Remy de Provence.
Dinner tonight is paninis that John makes washed down with the rose wine.
It has been a long and windy day. We are hoping the mistral will be a little less fierce tomorrow.
