Day two

April 12

Good Morning!

Yesterday was a grand, leisurely day.  Bev got up very early – 5:00! – and then crashed again about nine.  The rest of us slept later and managed to stay up.  Still, we had tea and toast and showers before waking Bev up again to head out.

Our first adventure was to 

Fontaine de Vaucluse.  This is an incredibly deep – no one knows exactly how deep – spring from which the River Sorgue flows.  When we were here several years ago, the spring was so dry that Lee could hike down about thirty feet.  Not so yesterday!  The pool was deep and the river was quite wild.  Lots of rushing water bouncing off huge rocks in the river.  We took pictures, of course.  We had our lunch by the river in the sunshine, crepes and salad with white wine.

Lee and I figured out how to work the GPS, we all went to the bank (Italy’s Bancomat is France’s Cash Pointe is our ATM) and came home to take naps and/or read.

At 5:00, we had our Untours orientation at Max and Regine’s house.  There are fourteen of us here this week.  Some will stay two weeks like us but others are only here for the week.  Sue Baker from the home office in Media PA has been here for a few days and is heading to Alsace today.  It was very nice to meet one of the folks we have been talking to for ten years.

After the orientation, Regine laid out an incredible buffet for us:  Provencal pizza, three kinds of quiche (cold), several cheeses, olives and a marvelous vegetable casserole.  This last was layers of veggies – eggplant, onion, tomato, red peppers, zucchini – standing on their sides then drizzled with olive oil and some garlic and cooked slowly for an hour and a half.  Oh my, it was good!  And yes, Mother, I did eat the eggplant.

Home by about 8:30, we stayed up until ten or later.  And now we are all awake and thinking about planning our day.  Cathy has already ordered trips to a boulangerie and a pattissier.  We need to get Kleenex and more mugs, too. Stay tuned….