Champagne. To me the word evoked little beyond locker room celebrations and wedding toasts, so when I concocted a goal to walk all the wine regions of France, Champagne was a long shot for the inaugural trek. The Philadelphia wine… Read More ›
Exploring France
Day trips, weekends, hikes (mainly to wine).
Beaujolais Nouveau Day
Nestled between the southern border of Burgundy and the city of Lyon is the French wine region of Beaujolais. This is an area of predominately red wine which, by AOC proclamation, must be made from handpicked gamay grapes. The wine… Read More ›
Adventures in the Loire Valley
The bus flew past, and for a moment I was too stunned to react. Then I yelled, but if anything, the driver accelerated. “I can’t believe it,” I told Pat, “We’re not going.” Six months of anticipation. For naught. Pat… Read More ›
A Hike Through Bordeaux
It was drizzling as Pat and I stepped off the train at the Saint-Émilion station, so we pulled up our hoods and covered our backpacks before charting the path on my cell phone. We turned away from the ancient wine town… Read More ›
By Train, Bus, and Foot: Sénanque Abbey
For years, I’d admired photographs of the purple lavender fields in front of the stark-grey Notre-Dame de Sénanque, a Cistercian abbey in Provence. With our time in Paris dwindling, and with the lavender season a brief mid-summer event, if I… Read More ›
The World In Between 