The Wheels of Isle (Sur la Sorgue)

Each day that we're within walking distance of a bakery, we have fresh bread and croissants for breakfast.  Well, I guess that would include each and every day, since there's always a bakery within walking distance!

We knew that the fish vendor would be in Sablet today, so Rick and I were out fairly early to shop for dinner.  Rick chose some filets that looked like sole, but we honestly didn't know what they were.  He's also been anxious to get some fresh squid to make calamari, and we were able to buy it here too.  I told the fish lady that we're en vacances, and we have to take photos of everything.

Our friendly fish vendor

We were off to Isle-Sur-La-Sorgue (literally an island in the Sorgue River) today, since it was one of their weekly market days.  There are nine waterwheels around the town, remnants of a time when there were 70 waterwheels powering the flour mills, as well as paper and textile mills.  The town was a major economic force in the mid-1800s, and waterwheels have been in use here since the 12th century.

Tim and Rick inspect one of the waterwheels

This moss-covered one doesn't move around too fast, but it still works!

We needed some vegetables for dinner, and bought those and some cheese at the market stalls. 

Market day in Isle-sur-la-Sorgue

We bought sandwiches at a take-out place and sat on benches along the river to eat our lunch.

There are lots of pedestrian-friendly areas along the river.

We also stopped to look inside the church.  It was very ornate for such a seemingly-small town, but I guess it shows how prosperous the town was over the last several hundred years.

The church in Isle-sur-la-Sorgue

 
On the way home we stopped at two wineries to do some tasting.  The nice, young lady at our local Tourist Information office said she didn't know if any of the wineries would be open for tasting, since it was harvest time and they were all pretty busy.

The first place we stopped was Le Gravillas.  It was right outside of Sablet, and they had people on duty in the tasting room. They took plenty of time with us, making sure we tasted anything we might be interested in. 

We bought several bottles and headed down the road to Domaine Chamfort.  The door was unlocked to the small tasting room, but there was no one there.  We saw a buzzer on the wall and rang to see if they were open.  A 30ish young man came rushing in to help us.  He was very friendly and spoke great English.  He described the wines in great detail.  We noticed that his hands were purple up to his wrists.  He had stopped working with the grapes to come in and let us taste!  When we commented on it, he said inside he was frantic, worrying about getting everything done.  Weather conditions might mean that a certain field should be harvested right now, or tomorrow, or not until next week.   He had no idea how long the harvest would go on.  In spite of the great pressure he was under, he took lots of time with us.  We wished we could buy more wine than the 6 bottles we bought, but we were headed out of town in two days and would be turning our car in.  We had no mule to carry our wine.

We headed back home.  Rick was anxious to try preparing the calamari, and we were happy to oblige him.

Tim was starting to feel a bit disheveled after three weeks on the road.  He sports a buzz cut, and thought it was getting long.  We didn't notice.  He went down to the nearest salon and tried to make an appointment for later that day.  They were booked, but sent him down the street to another salon.  They had an appointment available at 5:30.  We would have all loved to go and observe this whole process, but Tim went off on his own.  He came back with shorter hair, and had had a fine time.  He took his trimmer to show how short he wanted his hair cut. He said they washed his hair before cutting it, which they don't do at home.  The stylist, an attractive young woman, didn't speak English, so no chit-chat during the haircut.  She did a good job of cutting his hair, massaged his temples, and charged him 15 euros, about the equivalent of what he would have paid at home. 

Tim's French haircut

Rick prepared the squid by skinning it, cutting it up and dredging it in egg and then flour with salt, pepper and some herbes de Provence.  Sauteed in butter and olive oil it was a tasty appetizer.  Even with the fast shutter speed, we could hardly get a picture before it was all gone!

Fresh squid makes great calamari, with Rick's help

Dinner was the fish from the fish vendor, baked with zucchini and tomatoes.  We took a photo of the recipe so we could duplicate it at home.

Fillet of fish with zucchini

A picture of the recipe for our dinner

After dinner we could see the sunset turning the sky red, so we dropped everything and raced down to a nearby overlook to enjoy the scene.  The neighborhood looked nice all lit up too, with the lights from the village of Séguret in the background.

Sunset in Sablet

A Sablet neighborhood with the hill town of Séguret in the background