Last year, about this time, my daughter and I were on our way from Lourmarin to Château d’Esclans in La Motte, about 150 kilometers away in the département of the Var. There, we were to meet with Tom Schreckinger, Communications Director for the Château, and Patrick Léon, chief oenologist for the château, for a tasting and conversation at the harvest lunch. It was the middle of the vendange in that part of Provence and, per the custom at that estate, they were serving a leisurely, multi-course meal for the grape pickers and assorted guests. It is about a one-and-a-half hour drive due east, mostly along…

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Cannes is the quintessential French Riviera resort, renowned for its glamour and bling year-round.  Come May and the internationally acclaimed Cannes Film Festival, the Promenade de la Croisette that wraps around the waterfront, passing the Palais des Festivals et des Congrès where the festival is held, will swell with even more rich and famous folks who have flocked to Cannes to rub shoulders with celebrities and, oh yes, see a few film premieres. It’s hard to imagine Cannes as an unassuming fishing village, but it was… until after World War II and the inception of the Film Festival.  It would have happened without the movies,…

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2016 whooshed in like the infamous Mistral wind tears through the Rhône Valley.  So fast, I’ve barely had time to take stock of the wonders of 2015.  The Modern Trobadors covered a lot of ground in 2015, accompanied by, for the first time, a tour group–affectionately named after this blog–of eight engaging and adventurous people. It was exciting to share our love for this area of France with them, as we strive to do for all our readers with each post.  The photos below capture a wee bit of the spirit of this part of Provence.  If you want to experience first-hand what you see…

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Perhaps you’d like to escape the sticky heat of Paris this August by traveling to Provence. You can do so in just a little over three hours in the quiet comfort aboard the high-speed train– le Train a Grande Vitesse, or TGV, as the French call it. (Conversely, you can add a quick Paris TGV trip to your Provence agenda….although we don’t recommend doing so in August!) Powered by electric motors, the French TGV was originally conceived in the 1960s right after Japan launched its foray into high-speed trains. Today’s TGV from Paris to Provence runs at about 320 kilometers an hour, and gets there…

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