Thursday Travels - Ahhhhh, Paradou

My birthday was in August. I turned %@*%. Oh! Excuse me. As I was saying...I persuaded Dave to take me to Provence. I have had a certain hotel bookmarked online for so long, probably since I moved here over two years ago. I don't even remember how I first heard of the place, but it has always appealed to me, and I have always wanted to go for a long weekend. I looked into going once before for our anniversary, but we ended up going elsewhere, so I kept it on my radar.

So this past May, when we hadn't yet planned our Asia/California trip, I asked if we could go to France in mid-August, he agreed, and I quickly booked the hotel, the flights and a car. And then we ended up planning our Asia trip, which meant we left for an 18 day trip five days after returning from France. But overall France was so great, and so worth it, we didn't mind the quick turn around. Riley may have, but I think she's over it by now. I hope.

The hotel is La Maison du Paradou, and it was fantastic! I would absolutely recommend it and I really, really hope to return. Even Dave loved it. Not that I thought he wouldn't. But he really liked the weekend, mainly because it was so relaxing he was able to get away from work stress for three days. And the owners of the hotel (I call it a hotel but it's more like a B&B/small inn) are so friendly and helpful and really enhance the stay, it was wonderful. They gave us all the recommendations we wanted, helped us figure out where to go, and booked dinner reservations for us as well.

The Maison only has five rooms (ours, shown below, was Emeraude) along with a separate three bedroom house that can be rented on its own. There are two pools, breakfast is included, along with wi-fi and a movie library. There are three resident dogs, so any dog haters (how could you be a dog hater? How?) should be aware of that.

Paradou, the town, is really, really small. I'm talking two roads small. Actually, more like three shops small. There's a butcher and a baker but alas no candlestick maker. Instead there's a coiffeur. There's also a restaurant, Le Bistro du Paradou just up the road from the Maison. I made a reservation there for my birthday as I read a ton of good reviews, but it turned out the owners of the Maison book every guest there for the first night.

The restaurant absolutely lived up to the hype. The price includes a choice of appetizer, a main, all you can eat cheese (!!!! Cheese, Jerry! Cheese!), dessert and all you can drink wine (!!! wine!! a lot of it!!). It was great, so good, and it felt like a quintessential French bistro. I loved it, and it was a perfect birthday dinner. Especially since my birthday lunch consisted of EasyJet pretzles and a tiny Pepsi Max. Yuck.

Having a car was necessary as no trains go to Paradou, and it would be inconvenient to not have transport while there. The area is gorgeous, and totally worth driving around. And Paradou is a really easy drive from Marseille airport. Although we borrowed a Tom Tom which came in very handy. I shouldn't sound so blase about making our way through the French country side, as we had a nice woman telling us where to go all weekend. (Until you refuse to follow her directions, then she gets a little too testy for my taste) (Or until you fool around with the settings and change it to Thai and then you have no idea what to do).

I'll write about the area next, as we saw quite a few towns, markets and sights over the weekend. And it was all beautiful. Oh, I want to go back...