Vive la Provence!

After a couple of days of acclimatization I guess I’m finally ready for Berlin City again.

Well, I have to be anyway...

My trip to Provence was simply wonderful and a total success in terms of food, wine and love.

As I already mentioned in my last post: This region of France is a feast for your senses.

The landscape is beautiful. It smells like flowers, fruits, fresh soil and food everywhere.

It is quiet except for the lovely sound of singing birds and the crickets at night. 

And wine and food are so, so good!

By far the best country to visit in order to indulge your desire for culinary richness.

Depending on where you stay you will find vineyards who offer you wine degustations every few metres. With hundreds, probably thousands of different vineyards it’s impossible to try all wines in the region. You either have a recommendation on where to go or you just go and find out.

We did both and it was a lot of fun.

I will write a separate blog post about the wines we tried later this week...

The other great thing is that there are markets every day.

They either start in the early morning and go until 12am/1pm or at night from 6pm to 8pm.

The best market is definitely the one in Arles.

It is HUGE!

I have never been to such a fantastic market in my life.

The range of fresh products is insane!

So many vegetables and fruits: Giant artichokes, tiny artichokes, zucchinis, fresh garlic, beans, peppers, carrots, potatoes, strawberries, cherries, oranges, olives..., and all were in season. Only some were imported from Spain, which pretty much is right around the corner.

Fresh meat, sausages, bread and pastries, spices, an incredible selection of cow and goat cheese (some looked and tasted really strange, but good!).

 
 












 Oh and the fish and sea fruits section... I almost forgot about that!

 The sea is only about an hour away. Therefore everything is 
 absolutely fresh.
 

 


I bought Wil some oysters cause I don’t like them, yet. 

But according to my experience in getting used to all kinds of foods, this might change at some point.

They were the biggest and best oysters he ever had in his life and, believe it or not, 
they were only 40 CENTS A PIECE!!!!

Ok, so that was in Arles... 
you can pretty much find all these different products on the other markets as well. But let me tell you: the market in Arles is one of a kind.

We left with heavy bags filled with yumminess.

 

 















 What we did pretty much every day was: 
cruising around, stopping here and there for wine degustations or walking over a market, maybe a church, a fort or a flea market in between, paying a visit to the local butcher and cheese store, driving home, eating, drinking, falling asleep.

In one word:

PARADISE! 

Oh, and on a side note:

Wil proposed to me in a vineyard in Chateau-Neuf du Pape (where else?), and I said yes!

As you can see, Provence treated me very good and I cannot wait to go back!