I missed a week!

Since my last post two weeks ago I've been busy and traveling.  Just after finishing my post June 29th, we left for a weekend trip to Donegal to celebrate our 35th wedding anniversary, visit my mother's grave in Frosses there, and visit some friends and relatives.  We stayed at the beautiful Solis Lough (Lake) Eske Castle, a place that we'd visited several years ago.  It's on the grounds of a property established by the White family, sold several times over the last few centuries and was purchased by a Donegal developer from the Donegal forestry agency.  When the developer purchased it, the castle was in terrible shape, the forestry folks were interested in the land and trees and had allowed the castle to go to ruin.  After investing millions of Euro, the castle is now one of the best hotels and spas I've ever experienced.  If you are interested, here's a link http://www.solishotels.com/lougheskecastle/ . I'd recommend it to anyone visiting Ireland.

The one sour note to our visit was that I had to continue working on the compensation survey if there was any hope of finishing by today because one day after we returned from Donegal, I was headed to Provence in France for a four-day visit with a friend to "see the lavender," an adventure on my friend's bucket list.    I brought 107 tables with me to Donegal to proofread in the car on the round-trip journey.  Although it was boring work, most of the tables are exactly the same just containing different information for the various positions, it kept my mind off the road, a situation that Alan appreciated!  Except to say I met my deadline and will submit the report today, enough about this monumental task.

I left for Paris on Tuesday evening, July 3 met my friend in Paris for an overnight there and then we took the train together to Avignon.  My friend arranged everything and it all was just perfect.  We had a wonderful time.  The train ride was an express and the 2.5 hours quickly passed.  It was quite crowded because there was a theater festival about to start in Avignon that Friday.  At first we thought they'd all come for the lavender tours, ha.  The hotel my friend booked was right in the heart of Avignon's central square, just steps from the Pope's Palace.  Seven Popes between 1309 to 1376 spent their terms there when Clement V refused to move from his native France to Rome.  Some other problems ensued (which I don't know about because we were there for lavender, not the Papacy and didn't tour the palace). 

The following day we did a day-long tour touching on several really nice villages in the region and learning a lot about lavender growing and commerce.  One interesting fact is that what passes for 'lavender' in gardens outside this region is really 'lavendine' a less fine version of the original (at least this is what they preach in that part of the world).  We went to the lavender museum where they were at great pains to make this distinction.  It was all quite interesting, I had no idea that lavender was used in so many things, it's quite an economic benefit to the region. 

In addition to my friend and I, our tour included three young Japanese women and a couple from China.  The French guide conducted the tour in English, the only language we all had in common.  It seems there's a Japanese soap opera set in "Lavender, France" and the young women were quite engaged in photographing themselves sitting and otherwise posing in the bright purple blooming fields.  At one point the guide had to remind them that the fields were private property!  It was quite amusing.  We had a great, sunny day, although there was a nanosecond of rain which seemed to undo some of the shopkeepers in one of the villages we visited -- clearly they are not Irish. 

The following day we did a half-day tour of the Châteauneuf-du-Pape wine region.  We visited a winery where we learned quite a lot about how to taste and assess white and red wines.  We also visited a Roman amphitheater in Orange.  Quite a full half-day tour.

When we returned to Avignon, the theater festival was just getting started.  There was a parade and outdoor performances all over the place.  It was quite the spectacle.  It was all quite wonderful, we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

We returned to Paris on Saturday and stayed the night in an apartment that my friend's brother rented for a week.  He and his family arrived late that evening.  I thought my flight was scheduled for Sunday evening so we spent the late afternoon and evening walking around the 7th Arrondissement (THE tourist Mecca of Paris).   A fun conclusion to the trip.


The only unfortunate event was discovering on Sunday morning that I was supposed to have left on Saturday evening, so I had to purchase a one-way ticket back to Dublin at a whopping 438 Euro! So all my efforts finding that 100 Euro round-trip to Paris were ultimately thwarted.  It dimmed an otherwise wonderful time.  


In the coming week, Alan and I are headed to Liverpool where I will be doing a presentation at the European & International Association Congress.  We return on Tuesday, when I'm looking forward to a few days of doing not much.  Till next week...