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Finding the Inn

Later we completed our initial travels through Gordes with a very scenic trible route compounded by the inaccuracy of the signage for our Inn, which insteaf of "2.5 kilometre" should have read "2.5 kilometres si vous volez mais otherwise plus loin." Fortunately we were able to discover the inn with the help of a parking lot attendant (3 times) and a pair of relaxing stonemasons (twice) who said in clearly accended and beautifdully pronounced Provencal "Now THIS time go to the bottom of the hill and don't turn right or left until you get there and then turn right, with only one intermediate and incorrect stop to sit at rough stone tables under cooling grape arbors while waiting for the beautiful and friendly proprietess, as all french women invariably are, to tell us that this inn was not the one we were looking for", a story which comported remarkably well with that elicited from the man working alone out in the field trimming back an entire field of fruit trees to their bare stumps.

Two minutes later we found our inn, cleverly hidden on a main road approaching Gordes, marked only by a gigantic sign and 23 oddly shaped conically trimmed pine trees marking either side of a gravel drive as ornate and unique.

We went swimming in the pool, then drove back up the narrow road to Gordes (hello a fourth time to the parking lot attendant) where we found refreshing oranges, iced tea & small beer, bought some anti-insecte and coffee eclaire, didn't go on the 20-minute tour of Subterranean Gordes, and returned to the Hotel Rural or a Real French Meal, complete with a not fully comprehensible menu and culinary surprises, but perhaps more on that later.

The coffee eclaire was the best I have ever eaten.

dream of a bear... ..