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Provençe in a Nutshell
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Our Tour "Themes"...

The Bike Tour
The Roman & Castle Tour
Art and Beach Tour
Camargue and Féria Tour
Le Lubéron Tour
The Wine Crush Tour
The Fall Colors Tour
The Marmiton Cooking Class
The Avignon Festival Tour
The Senior Tour of Provençe
American Student Tour of Provençe
Abbeys and Cathedrals of Provençe
The Dive Trip

Other...

Pictures of the Parish House
The Manse
The Cloisters
Doing Business in France
Products of Provençe
Places by Name
Links

Tour Meals

Breakfast is the best meal included in the Tour price, and this is mainly because it serves as a start-up gathering place for our Day trip. In addition to the usual "Continental" stuff (cereal, bread/butter/jam assortment, fruit, tea, or coffee) we at the Parish House have too much respect for the body's energy and protein requirements to "bog you down" with a "Continental" bread and jam breakfast first thing in the morning. We like Pancakesand syrup, ham and omelettes with green peppers and cheese, we like real juices, too, and that's what you get every morning before we climb into the Van and do one of our "Daytrips" 

Lunch: The kind of lunch we have on the "DayTrips" depends on the kind of tour that we have. Sometimes these tours are so gastronomic that lunches stretch beyond two hours in the middle of the day, and when this happens, we just add two hours on the end of that daytrip. In that way we encourage the "Laid-Back" style that is part of the Noon agenda in Provence. Add a little wine to that, and you can have a pretty happy day! Therefore, we often opt for a quick half-hour stop, and enjoy the Parish House's complimentary Sandwich, Wine, Cheese, Grapes "Alfresco Casse-Croute" ("break-bread"). 
Restaurants, bistros, even posh cafeterias are available on our Daytrips, some are quaint, some very local, some the likes of which you find reviewed in the Wine Spectator and Conde Nast. We discuss the restaurant options the day before, and "negotiate" on restaurant choices. Remember, this is one of the main advantages of SMALL GROUP TOURING, you get to visit some unique little out of the way gourmet restaurants where large coach tours are not permitted. Whatever we decide, we decide together, we eat together, and the tourleader is there to translate the menu and explain the pricing advantages, and sometimes what to avoid. If you are a light eater, a salad may do. Some of our guests skip lunch altogether and opt for an independent walking tour of the village. Parish House Clients are an eclectic, independent, meditative sort of people, thank God! On a Parish House tour, you have CHOICES, and the option to do it just like you would if you were self-driving Provence. With one big exception: the opportunity for conversation, and the advantage of top-notch "local knowledge" from your tourleader.
The Daytrip "Alfresco" lunches sample the goodies of Traiteurs ("catering shops") and are a gourmet's bonanza.. Since each guest has a kitchen, you too can economize quite a bit on a Parish House tour, reducing your restaurant dinner expense to practically nil. Dinners are not included in the tour price. However, part of the Tour is to go with the Tourleader to the most popular of all big markets, Les Halles, only a 10-minute walk away on Place Pie. This is where he assembles the Alfresco Lunches for the DayTrips. This is also where all the restaurant chefs shop at dawn each day. Here, also, are the local wine cellars, at prices that will astound you (pleasantly). You can count on your grocery budget being about the same as back home.

Evening "Repas": Everything shuts down during the day for Lunchtime. You can't expect to sit down in a restaurant earlier than 7:30 pm, either. Get used to this idea. Therefore its best for you to stop everything, emulate the natives and eat a substantial lunch. The Museums stay open, but you can't bring a sandwich into a museum. When we get off from touring the countryside, Dinnertime is when most guests start getting into those little goodies they've bought at the markets we've visited during the day. Just remember that too much wine the night before can make for a less energetic next-day tour. 

Restaurants: Sophisticated Avignon is famous for its grand dining. When you sign up, we have some very good suggestions, even what to avoid, and what are the locals' "best deals", hidden away in some not so obvious corners of Olde Towne Avignon. There is not one ethnic food variety unoffered in Avignon, from Vietnamese to Hungarian. L'Art de Vivre is food, of course, but its also the ambiance of lazing away an evening at the sidewalk cafes with accordeons lilting in the background. The table is yours for the evening, no one keeps bugging you, trying to "clear your table", you have to insist to get your check ("l'addition s'il vous plait, monsieur"), and there is no tipping required. This is a time to take advantage of the culinary artistry of Avignon. . and with plenty of opportunity to walk off those excess calories. Sure its kind of lazy, but didn't you take a vacation to relax, after all? We Americans simply have to learn to slow down. 
One of the greatest meals you can have is the one you cook yourself. Maybe not the one assembled from the "traiteurs", or the one you conjure up in your own Parish House kitchen, but the one the World-Class Chef at the Mirande Hotel teaches you to assemble and make. See the "Marmiton Cooking School" Tour Theme, below, for a first class introduction to the Provence Cooking School. We partner with them in offering you this dining option, because after you are finished, you can serve yourself, and a guest, from your own hands' labor of love. 

You only live once. Our style of touring is meant to arrest your thinking, change your mind for a period, and (we hope) maybe alter your life forever. Thats why our tours are Two Weeks for the price of One... you can't "get it" in 7 days! Ten years ago we used to insist that one month was the minimum!

Remember : You are living in a Culinary Garden of Eden. And you have your own kitchen, refrigerator, microwave. The elemental essentials are breads, 356 different cheeses, charcuterie, olive oil, hybrid vegetables, organic fruit, wine, 40 varieties of olives, patés from every region of France, unpasteurized butter, cornichon pickles, artisinal cocoa chocolates and cremes, inexpensive champagne, and wines, and not the least of all patisserie that melts in your mouth. Acquiring the necessary ingredients is part-and-parcel of "L'Art de Vivre" of Provence, the social intercourse of food selection. Its one of the reasons the Provencals love Americans... they are genuinely complimented that we come such a great distance to honor their artisans' handiwork. The markets of Avignon are the one place you can get up close and personal, quickly . . . There is food etiquette to learn, however, and we are there to instruct (if you ask). For instance, Do Not "serve yourself" from the displays at traditional markets. You can point to the items you wish to purchase, though. If you do not want to observe the niceties of this social intercourse, you can shop at Self-Service grocery stores.
Because of the large number of restaurants, boulangeries are everywhere, but the best ones are a matter of great research, using ancient recipes handed down from father-to-son, tucked away in small alleys, usually costing a tad more, but a "bread-lover's" delight. We can even get you into a boulangerie to help them out on one of your 4 "Daysoff". On this Tour we introduce you to a Real Neighborhood, via the back-alley quaint way of getting there, meeting the shopkeepers, getting a taste of being a local. Thats why 30% of our business is repeat customers... they just get used to the place, and come back year after year. It becomes familiar, family-like, and as a consequence, peaceful and relaxing. On bustling Rue Carnot is every store you will need, from Moroccan Cous-Cous to Vietnamese eggrolls. There is even a Brewery (run by an Scotsman), which also sells 140 different varieties of European Beer, many of them "on tap". 
Early in the morning Les Halles can become a habit-forming destination, therefore. This legendary food warehouse in the middle of town is open from 6am to 1pm every day except Monday, and supplies Avignon's restaurants with the best things Europe, not just Provençe, has to offer. There are organic dishes that you can pop in your microwave, and all sorts of fish with exotic names, all unloaded fresh from Marseilles as well as the North Sea every morning. Try to explore the "prepared" food sections (caterers): the preparations are exotic and open a world of "gastronomie" to you at reasonable cost. Many Americans simply visit Les Halles, but they can't take it "home" and eat it in their own kitchen. The Parish House's five kitchens open the door to this world, and helps you understand (via your palate) the attraction of the Provence lifestyle, in the leisure of your own surroundings. 

Your food shopping is only part of the excitement of seeing new products. Some guests come just to shop for clothes, or fabric. We take you directly to my friend Michel's fabric factory, for instance. We take you to the actual chocolate factory, too. On our trips through the vineyards we stop at places where you can buy the most excellent wine for as little as $3. The urge to bring back food to the US, to share, is infectious. We show you how to do it, and avoid any customs regulations. 
On our Walking Tour, we take you to the higher-end shops on the Rue St Agricole, these are the more Parisian-type food shops (no need to shop more expensive Paris!). It's not far from Rue Joseph Vernet, the snooty dress designer-ice cream-and-chocolate-shop-street. For yet another shopping variation, try Rue des Teinturiers, an artists' lair, a French Carnaby Street. 

All of these places are found on the map in our 24-pg "LeGuide", an essential navigational companion when "intra-muros" ("Old Towne), as you will find out. This "LeGuide" is MANDATORY reading! A city of 75,000, Old Avignon is a walking city, compact, intense, bustling at its center, and only a 10-minute walk away from the residential setting of The Parish House. It's a food and shopping mecca, with a large proportion of vehicle-free outside "malls". It should be approached with enthusiasm. It is an infectious atmosphere. 

Convenience Stores: There are a few, and they are there for those of you who don't even want to think about doing any domestic work while at the Parish House. For YOU, there is a GREAT ALTERNATIVE: frozen or vacuum-packed gourmet French food! You'll be pleasantly surprised how useful having your own kitchen can be when you discover the local frozen foods. Like The Parish House experience itself, try some of the following, these are simple, basic, quick and easy, and an opportunity to add a lot of the local fresh herbs and condiments without going to a lot of trouble (under 10 minutes): Click here for some ideas. 


Market Towns: We know the ones to miss, and the ones not to miss, 
the days of the week when they operate, and how and when to bargain.. this information is our trade secret, like the market in the country, once a week, that hosts only small organic specialty farms.

For more information, please contact me at:

toursofprovence@aol.com

or call

970.241.5034