The best worst day

Click to expand my panoramic shot from the top of the climb!

I've decided not to share any pictures of how Josh's leg looked in the days and weeks following his boating accident. But by Thursday, four days after the injury, he was black and blue from heel to above the knee. He'd gotten a small, flexible knee brace from the pharmacy, but it didn't provide much support. And he didn't want to slow down the vacation at all. 

So naturally that Thursday, August 24th, we took a tour that required walking about eight miles and climbing the equivalent of 15 flights of stairs.

 ...starting with carrying two heavy car seats for a few blocks to the place we were to meet our guide, Vincent! Luckily his van was big enough to fit the seats, and no one else had signed up for the Pond du Gard/Châteauneuf-du-Pape tour that day - so we had it all to ourselves.

I miss the days when Lincoln would smile for a picture on command.

 I knew we were in trouble when we arrived and parked, then walked for a good 8-10 minutes before coming into view of the aqueduct. Years ago, the French government severely restricted traffic and building around this UNESCO World Heritage Site, and the European idea of "accessibility" means "accessibility for anyone who can walk long distances, climb stairs, and doesn't ever have an urgent need for a toilet," so this wasn't a huge surprise. But I was worried about Josh.

Beautiful scene, happy family!

Each of the kids got to take one picture. This is Sylvia's - "No Mommy! Just the MEN!"

 The skies were grey and cloudy, which is extremely rare for Provence in the summertime, and our guide kept apologizing that the weather was ruining our panoramic photos. But it kept the heat within reasonable levels, and arriving before 9:00 a.m. meant we had the place to ourselves. For once, we'd beaten the crowds - at one of France's most popular tourist destinations. Note for the future: hire a guide.

After stopping to take a few pictures, we began the long, steep climb to the top of the aqueduct, while Vincent explained its history. In the first century C.E., the Romans built a 31 mile aqueduct from a natural freshwater spring to their large city where Nimes is located now. Over those miles, the angle of the aqueduct was so slight and so precise that it only descended 41 feet - so this portion, the pont du gard, is 900 feet across and only descends one inch. No mortar or cement was used. The stone was cut from surrounding mountains, and the entire structure was built within a period of fifteen years. It's hard to even fathom the kinds of engineering that were possible two thousand years ago.

Here's Josh standing under an arch that was fitted without the use of mortar. Incredible.

Our first airborne view - despite the weather, it was breathtaking. Those rocks the kids are standing on are marble, so they're white and beautiful but very slick. It's sheer luck that we didn't wind up with any new injuries after the climb.

 Water flowed along the top, which was completely covered with more stone construction when it was in use, to protect the water from evaporation and contamination. After it fell into disuse, locals probably stole many of those easy-to-remove stones for building their houses and barns.

Unbelievably impressive in person! And it's a good thing too, because by the time we'd climbed this high, Josh's leg was throbbing.

 Next we descended again and walked across the stone road bridge that was built more recently. Closeups of the arch pillars show the deterioration that has had to be repaired with new stones. And the stones that stick out from the wall were positioned so that builders - mostly Roman slaves - could construct scaffolding to reach the upper levels.

Oh, and in order to do that, they also had to, you know, invent scaffolding.

 Josh skipped the walk across the road bridge and sat in the back of the van for the next part of the drive, so that he could elevate and ice his leg. Our next stop was Châteauneuf-du-Pape, a small village surrounded by acres and acres of perfect farmland for growing wine. My favorite wine on Earth, and now a place that is near and dear to our hearts.

Perfect rows of grapevines, working their magic.

The view of the city and the farms, from the Château itself.

Snacky kids blocking the view of Daddy's injury!

Et le Château - or what's left of it.

So let's talk a little bit about the history of the village and the castle, and then about the wine. Remember how the Avignon palaces were built so the Popes could escape Italy during war? Well that was in the 14th Century C.E., during the Hundred Years' War. All of the Popes who resided in Avignon were French (no surprise there!) and one of them, Pope John XXII, decided he needed a summer retreat - although retreating from Avignon to Châteauneuf is kind of like retreating from Dallas to Fort Worth. It's right next door, same climate, same food, same everything - except the wine. More on that in a minute.

According to the intrepid Vincent, who is from Avignon and has been teaching tourists about it for 35 years, Popes Clement V and his successor John XXII were fond of wine, women, and, thanks to their vows of poverty and chastity, privacy. Both spent a great deal of time in the "summer residence" for that reason, removed from the prying eyes of the more metropolitan Avignon. John XXII ordered the castle to be built to house him and subsequent Popes, but its construction ended just a year before his death and no other Popes are believed to have visited.

SO. The wine.

France is, again unsurprisingly, very protective of its cuisine and wine. There are hundreds of distinct regions or "pays" (pay-ee) in the country, each with its own wine, cooking style, meats, cheeses, pates...someone telling you they're from France does not actually give you very much information about them, because their regional background can vary so widely. In the early 20th century, the government formalized the system of Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée, or AOC,  by which it controls and labels certain products as having originated in the proper region and met strict quality controls. Châteauneuf-du-Pape was the first wine (of more than 300, now) to have an AOP, and Vincent told us a bit about its regulations.

First, the "rolling stones" of the area allow the soil to absorb up to a full year's supply of water - so no irrigation is permitted for any wine that will be labeled Châteauneuf-du-Pape. Only 13 grapes can be used in the production of the wines, but they can be combined in any way the winemakers decide. Five of those varieties are white and eight are red, but some reds incorporate the white grapes as well.  Grenache is the "king" of the varieties, because it thrives in full sun with little water.

Another rule is that the 300 vineyards in the AOP, only one of which is a corporation (the rest are family farms), must harvest all the grapes by hand. No machine picking means lots of labor is necessary during harvest time, which is a challenge in France. Just like in the U.S.A., much of the poorly-paid physical labor is performed by immigrants, but outside of harvest time there is no work for them in this part of France. And, according to Vincent, young French people "don't want to work hard," so they won't do it either. About 13 million bottles are produced every year, 95% of which is red wine. Whites are readily available in the region but hard to find outside it.

So let's start tasting! We began our adventure in a wine cave (pronounced cahv) that is thousands of years old and dates back to the Roman Empire. Clearly the adults were happier about this portion of the trip than the kids.

 We got to see an ancient pressing room - the grapes would be put into the upper tubs, pressed by foot, and the juice would run into the lower basins to be barreled.

 Look at those beautiful, dusty bottles. The proprietor told us (in English) that he had a couple of bottles in his collection from the 1940s and 1950s. Every 20 years or so he has to change the corks and replace what's evaporated - which means opening at least one bottle in order to top off the others. And, of course, the open one has to be finished off by the lucky man and his friends.

 We enjoyed every sip and bought our first six bottles for our own little cave back in Chamalières. Our new friend, the proprietor, talked to us about aging red wine - there are good years every decade or so, and it's best to buy the wine young. But whites need a year or two to age, no more than five. Reds need at least fifteen years to reach their full potential. So for impatient Americans like us - he said "I go to New York and I cannot find a single bottle that's been aged properly. As though a 2009 will be ready in 2015!" - he advises buying lots of 2015 reds while we're in France, and even younger ones if 2017 and 2018 are good years. Then, when we return to the U.S.A., "You buy a house, you build a wine cave in the basement. You put a padlock on the door. Then ship me the key and I will return it to you in 15 years!" We laughed, shook hands, promised to resist drinking it all right away, and then headed to another tasting!

This one was in a modern (ish) building with a tiny table and tasting glasses that cost more than the wine itself. We tried a red that was made in tribute to the wine makers' great-great-grandfather, and bore his name. It was only made with grapes grown on vines that were at least 85 years old - can you imagine? And it tasted incredible, despite its youth. We tried a white that was so complex and delicious that the tasting expert AND Vincent told us it was their favorite of all the Châteauneuf-du-Pape whites. Ever. By this time we were a little tipsy, and absolutely on cloud nine. I never thought we'd spend that much on wine, but we're beginning to see it as a real collection. I just hope we can get it all home intact.

 After all that, Vincent drove us home and waited with our wine while I carted it down into the parking garage and locked it safely out of sight in the trunk. We got some lunch and headed back to our apartment for "swimming" in what we lovingly referred to as the cold tub on the balcony, and some general foolishness. All the walking and stair-climbing took a toll on Josh's pain level, so Friday we wound up in the Avignon emergency room, where he finally got a prescription for stronger pain meds. It was a frustrating, miserable day marked by wrong turns in the car - including into the ambulance-only entrance to the hospital - and frustration about the language. The next day we managed to make even worse, trying out a bus tour and a supposedly five minute walk that wound up being 20 minutes, to a Chartreuse abbey that was disappointing, to put it mildly. Every time we thought we were doing something easy, it wound up being difficult, embarrassing, or just wrong. We were scheduled to spend three non-refundable days in Lyon to finish out our vacation, but after some tough talk from friends back home (as I was defeatedly describing trying to find dinner before 8:00 p.m. every night, which is near-impossible), we decided to pack it in and drive back to Clermont.

So our best day of vacation came AFTER (and exacerbated) the catastrophic injury which, incidentally, still has Josh laid up and recovering. Wine tasting and education was a great bonding experience for us both, and I fear our standards will have risen beyond what's really polite by the time we get back to the States! Luckily, we should be able to make up for it with cases and cases to share - after fifteen years or so.