Chateau Vannieres Bandol Blanc 2022 was our favourite wine discovery of 2023. Discovered over dinner at Le Pied de Nez in the hilltop village of Le Castellet in Bandol, on Barbara’s birthday – so that full context certainly helped. “Where can we find this?” we asked. The waiter pointed out the window and over the… Continue reading
We spotted this beautifully set old villa near the town of La Celle, nestled between tall trees and vineyards. I later learned this wasn’t a winery per se but a vine nursery, the Pépinières Viticoles Tochou. Their primary stock consists of grenache (noir and blanc), cabernet sauvignon, carignan and syrah.
We spent a phenomenal Barbara birthday weekend based in Le Castellet, a striking little hilltop village about 15km north of Bandol and 30km northwest of Toulon (and to cover all the bases, about a two-hour drive southwest from Nice and about 45 minutes east from Marseille). Mid-autumn is a nice time to go: still lots… Continue reading
A pleasant coastal town about 50km southeast of Marseille whose importance as a refuge for intellectuals and artists fleeing the rise of Nazism in Germany in the 1930s is often overlooked.
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No review or food pics. Just a quick souvenir to remember a Sunday buffet lunch at the New Saigon Restaurant in Aix-en-Provence.
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A series of snaps from opera visits – when I remember to snap some. Above and immediately below, just before the start of ‘La Dame Blanche‘ on January 25, 2022. The present building dates back to 1885, rebuilt on the site where the previous opera was destroyed in a gas fire. It’s a beautiful space… Continue reading
La Tête Carrée, or the blockhead building, which houses the administrative offices of the Louis Nucéra library in Nice. At 30 meters high and 14 metres wide, the building has seven stories, three in the neck and four in the head. It was inaugurated in 2002 and is considered one of the most unusual and intriguing contemporary structures on the Côte d’Azur.
In the background: MAMAC, the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art.
Nice, 08 December 2021.
A dozen shots from Monaco taken in April 2021. Covid restrictions remained in place, along with a mostly eerie quiet. Above, at the Monaco-Monte Carlo train station. Below, mostly taken from on or from La Rocher, or The Rock, the 62m-high promontory that overlooks Port Hercule to the north and the Mediterranean Sea to the… Continue reading
The Slovenian government finally lifted its restriction on inter-regional travel effective yesterday morning, so we took off for the mountains yesterday afternoon.
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Krk, the town, that is, the main settlement on its eponymous northern Adriatic Island. A relatively cool and rainy late autumn off-season day is the perfect time for a visit.
The city of about 7,000 sits on the island’s south central coast, about a 30-minute drive from the Krk Bridge that connects the island to the mainland, and about an hour drive via the coastal road from Rijeka.
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