Municipal Winemakers on Urban Wine Trail

I want to share with you some of the exceptional places that I come across from time to time. These places are gems and not to be missed if you are in the area, or they could even be a destination. Most have a “garden thread” to them. “Places To Know” can be retail, restaurants, nurseries, and other. Whatever the place, expect the unusual.

On a recent getaway to the always picturesque Rivera-like town of Santa Barbara, California, my husband, John, and I explored the Urban Wine Trail in Santa Barbara. What a concept.

Located in an older, nearly forgotten industrial part of Santa Barbara, a mecca of small, creative and innovative urban wineries are springing up in what is called the “Funk Zone.”  In former industrial warehouses, gutted tiny bungalows, and buildings that have had past lives, you will find a group of urban winemakers and wineries offering wine lovers a new tasting experience with artfully crafted wines from nearby Santa Barbara County vineyards.

We stopped in at a few, and were quite surprised at the range and quality of the wines. There are at least 15 wineries now on this Urban Wine Trail in Santa Barbara. Each an experience, as you set foot in the door. Municipal Winemakers, pictured above, is totally decorated in “industrial discard style” re-purposing file cabinets as behind the wine bar glassware storage.

Pouring at Kunin Wines

Municipal Winemakers, 28 Anacapa Street, Municipal Winemakers. (tel) (805) 598-1896. Located in an old industrial building, and only open on weekends.

Kunin Wines, 28 Anacapa Street, Kunin Wines, (tel) (805) 963-9696.
Located in a former World War II army barrack, now tastefully decorated in gray and yellow accent colors. Open daily 11am-6pm.

Oreana Winery, 205 Anacapa Street, Oreana Winery (tel) (805) 962-5857. Located in what once was an old tire shop, now transformed into a collage of winery, tasting room, and art gallery. Open daily 11am-5pm.

These are just a few of the urban wineries in Santa Barbara. Visit Urban Wine Trial, Santa Barbara and plot your next wine tasting trip.

Please share if you have been to the Urban Wine Trail in Santa Barbara. Please comment if you enjoy the wines of Santa Barbara County.

Barbara Pintozzi, IL, http://mcgregorsdaughter.blogspot.com, Private Garden

What do garden bloggers like better than writing about gardening and plants? They like gathering in verdant places like Seattle, The Emerald City, experiencing new gardens. and joining the “sisterhood of garden bloggers” across the country. Okay, there were a few fellas in the mix, too.

This year’s garden blogging conference, dubbed Seattle Fling, was a compilation of nearly 80 gifted garden writers who pen their passions about all things gardening. A “Who’s Who” of multi-talented voices naming off plant names like a foreign language.

It is a diverse group, not just for the climatic regions they represent, but how they hail their expertise. Some are Generation X, with soon-to-be-released garden books under their belts. Some are forefront blog sensations who can proudly say they have almost a decade of posts and writing in their arsenal. Some are veteran garden writers and speakers, well known in this country’s garden circles.

This phenomenon of garden bloggers and writers gathering together magically happens once a year, usually in July. Last year it was in Buffalo, New York, serendiptously coinciding with Buffalo’s Garden Walk. Next year’s 2012 event is tentatively planned to be held in Asheville, North Carolina.

Garden bloggers attending this year’s Seattle Fling 2011, experienced a well-planned and orchestrated itinerary of private and public gardens, retail garden shops and nurseries, a David Perry photography workshop, West Seattle’s Sunday morning Farmers Market, and a spoiling by garden-related sponsors.

Little and Lewis Concrete Creation, Private Garden

Garden bloggers were treated to this unique concrete “ruin creation” by Little and Lewis in a wooded private garden. The concrete leaf fountain now moss-aged with water and time, was originally molded from an actual Gunnera leaf.

Seattle's Waterfront Olympic Sculpture Park

A trip to the picturesque waterfront Olympic Sculpture Park featuring 21 works by world-renowned artists was both captivating and breathtaking, capturing the essence of Downtown Seattle on one side, and the beauty of the Olympic Mountains and Puget Sound on the other.

VintageGardenGal wishes to thank everyone involved in this year’s Seattle Fling 2011, and embraces her fellow garden bloggers.

Pork Loin Roast With Young Turnips, Savoy Cabbage and Potatoes

Maybe I should have titled this post, cooking with one of my favorite authors. When Sunset magazine, May 2010 issue, featured a wonderful “taste journey” about Georgeanne Brennan’s new “Provence in California Culinary Weekends,” I was ecstatic.

I have an affinity for Provence, and so does Georgeanne Brennan. I satiate my Provence fix with “two week stays” in Provence, while Georgeanne Brennan has lived off and on in Provence for over thirty years. Now mainly residing in Northern California on a beautiful 10 acre farm, she shares her Provencal cooking expertise in day, and weekend classes.

I thought I had read most of Georgeanne Brennan books until she mentioned in our cooking class she has authored and co-authored over 30 books. Hearing that, reinforces my esteemed opinion of her as a forceful food visionary, placing her alongside Alice Waters, Rosalind Creasy, Michael Pollan, and distinguished others.

Meeting Georgeanne Brennan is such a delight. Immediately you are ease with the peaceful energy she exudes, and the easy going comfortable way she manages her cooking classes. Her cooking classes usually are small and intimate with about 6 students, because they are hands-on cooking classes, pairing up with a new friend to make each recipe.

Georgeanne Brennan’s culinary classes generally start at the classy Davis Farmer’s Market, where students are given “market dollars” and their own list of ingredients to buy and bring back to her kitchen. Before actually cooking preparation starts, it is out into her massive potager to gather more fresh ingredients for our soon-to-be-made recipes. You can almost close your eyes, and believe you are in Provence. Fresh, seasonal ingredients. Colorful Provencal recipes. Beautiful country ambiance.

Two hours of cooking and baking merits a break for appetizers and Provence rose wine outside under her gigantic walnut tree. Back inside to finish our class, assembling and serving up a gastronomic experience, relaxing at a sit down lunch together sharing tips on making the recipes, stories from Georgeanne, and fun!

Cooking With Georgeanne Brennan

Georgeanne Brennan is busy. A new cheese cookbook out this spring with Williams-Sonoma. Her “Provence in California Culinary Weekends” are popular and sell out fast. She frequently posts seasonal recipes on her website, Georgeanne Brennan. She is frequently asked to write articles for many national magazines, and is on the guest chef circuit at the world renown spa, Rancho La Puerta.

When I think of Georgeanne Brennan, I think of inspiration. Inspiration for fresh, vibrant food. Inspiration for seasonal growing and eating. Inspiration of the Provence culture. Inspiration for the passion of food. Inspiration for sharing a great meal with family and friends. Thank you Georgeanne.

Holiday Time at The Grand Del Mar

I want to share with you some of the exceptional places that I come across from time to time. These places are gems and not to be missed if you are in the area, or they could even be a destination. Most have a “garden thread” to them. “Places To Know” can be retail, restaurants, nurseries, and other. Whatever the place, expect the unusual.

Nearly six years ago I met girlfriends in Paris, for a pre-Christmas splurge and getaway. Paris is always enchanting, but even more so around the holidays. Ever since then, I associate Paris with Christmas time. What a grand pairing!

A few Decembers ago, I borrowed from my “Christmas Time in Paris” experience, and helped create for one of my garden groups, a Parisian Holiday Tea, hosted at the opulent (and closest venue to Paris that I could find in the San Diego area) The Grand Del Mar, just east of Del Mar, California. Holiday teas can be a special gesture to share with good friends, nieces, sisters, moms, grandmothers, granddaughters, and loved ones.

Like a thread I could weave, I picked the “Christmas Time in Paris” theme and wove details for a Parisian Holiday Tea. Here are some of the styling details that helped create a special holiday tea.

1) The invitation was created from one of my favorite photographs in sepia, from that earlier Paris trip. For more on that trip, see Christmas Time In Paris.

2) Setting was an intimate fireside seating just past The Grand Del Mar foyer with all of their holiday decorations, grandeur, and holiday tea menu.

Parisian Favors Ready In A French Basket

3) Special “Parisian” favors were created using a gold sheer bag tied with gold/bronze fleur-de-lys ribbon. Inside the party favors, there were special vintage pink alabaster glass cameo charms from French General, fleur-de-lys chocolates from The Royal Sweet an extraordinary chocolatier out of Georgia, and least but not least, an “April in Paris” sweet pea packet from Renee’s Gardens.

4) A few words spoken about how Parisians, and those in the French countryside celebrate their holidays with Pere Noel, and their grand “reveillon” traditional feast.

5) One of our members spoke about “Bachelor’s Preserves”, and gave everyone a gift-wrapped jar of it and recipe to take home. Bachelor’s Preserves is the French technique of preserving summer fruits with liquor.

Picking a theme for a party or event makes planning and creating your event easier, and adds a certain element of surprise. Please share if you have enjoyed “tea” with friends or family around the holidays. Please comment if you have been to Paris at Christmas time.

VintageGardenGal Tidbit Thyme…

VintageGardenGal wishes everyone Happy Holidays!

Outdoor Shed at Urban Roots

While attending Garden Blogger’s Buffa10 in Buffalo, there were many exciting places on our itinerary. One of them was Urban Roots Community Garden Center, an innovative community garden co-op. With over 600 community owner-members and growing, this garden center is a mecca for Buffalo’s gardeners. Urban Roots sells plants for the garden, tools, artwork, hosts a slew of garden workshops, and much more.

Urban Roots was a brain storm of a group of people who wanted to have a garden center for its community in the heart of buffalo. In 2005, in an up and coming neighborhood, literally minutes from any “Garden Walk” garden, they began modestly with a plant swap and heirloom seed sale.

Borrowing the “mission statement” right off of their website, Urban Roots, their mission is a beautiful idea which obviously is growing and flourishing for Buffalo. Perhaps, there are many garden co-ops across the country, but this is the first I have seen, and there are certainly not any in my neighborhood. Once again Buffalo, what an innovative garden idea. Hum….

Our Mission
Urban Roots Community Garden Center is a consumer cooperative business whose mission is to provide quality products for gardening in the City of Buffalo and be an active and enriching member of the community.
• We will offer affordable, unusual, heirloom, organic and local plants, and gardening supplies.
• We will foster a working relationship with the greater neighborhood in order to encourage beautification and urban renewal.
• We will engage the community through education, employment, outreach, expertise and volunteering efforts.

Although it was a rainy Friday afternoon, we all hopped off our bus, ready to eagerly explore this community garden co-op. It was busy, despite the rain. There were two lectures in progress, one on “backyard chickens” and the new city ordinance allowing chickens in Buffalo, and the second inside the Urban Roots shop and next to a sinfully-scented bakery, it appeared to be a well-attended “plant” lecture. Needless to say, my fellow garden bloggers and myself, generously spent and supported Urban Roots in our brief visit.

Slightly Wet Chickens Love Their Limelight

If you are ever in Buffalo, for Garden Walk, Urban Roots Community Garden Center is a must stop destination, and a “place for you to know”. We all could benefit from an Urban Roots model in our communities.

Please share if you have a garden co-op in your community. Please comment on some of the innovative garden ideas you have ongoing in your community.

VintageGardenGal Tidbit Thyme….

If I have given you enough of a tease on on Buffalo’s beauty and innovative garden sense and want more, check out Buffa10 for more beautiful writing and photos from my fellow garden bloggers.

Picture Perfect Sitting Area

Earlier this week I wrote Whoa, Buffalo! A post on Buffalo’s Garden Walk from a “broad stroke” perspective. I described what Buffalo’s “Garden Walk” is all about, who started it, when it is, how many gardens, and how the neighborhoods and homes are such a part of Buffalo’s rich history and architecture. What I didn’t mention, is that the beauty of these individual private gardens, is in the details. Incredible details.

The above photo is one of my favorite settings, I saw on my garden tour. This romantic sitting area is in the back garden of one of the Victoria homes which was built in 1845. This home is a perennial on “Garden Walk”, and you can understand why. Wouldn’t you like to be sharing wine and cheese or casual Sunday brunch with your friends in this garden room.

Vintage Tricycle Charms in the Garden

While strolling through “Garden Walk” you can see everything from antique to whimsical to zen in the gardens. It all works for everyone. The Victorian homes, often brightly painted to show off architectural details give homeowners freedom to repeat those colors in their gardens.

Garden spaces are generally small, yet densely planted and pleasing, which  adds a “secret garden” mystique element to them. With garden space at a premium, home owners are very resourceful where and how they garden. Spacing between two homes can still be a garden, small and beautiful. Home owners garden in the front, side, and back of properties.

Small is Beautiful

Beautiful hanging baskets are plentiful, and punctuate once again style and color. Water features and koi ponds are abundant. Rain barrels are popular for collecting rain. Vegetables and fruit are intermingled in flower gardens.

Beautiful Baskets Welcome

I spoke to one person whose family has been living in their Victorian on a corner, and caring for their garden for forty years. Their garden was an utter sanctuary to one’s eye. The busy robin in the garden (you could tell) was right at home, and was quite content to share its garden with visitors.

The beauty of Buffalo’s “Garden Walk” is in the details, and actually so much more. It is a sharing of ideas. It is a sharing of plants. It is an interaction between gardener and visitor. It is a mutual appreciation of beauty, garden, and architecture. It is a beautiful thing.

Buffalo's Historic Cottage District

If you haven’t ever been to Buffalo, New York, or haven’t been back since that visit to Niagara Falls, you must plan to visit Buffalo in July for their impressive and innovative annual Garden Walk which attracts tens of thousands of garden lovers each year. Garden Walk is usually hosted the last weekend of July and at the height of Buffalo’s glowing garden season. Buffalo’s 19th century architecture and Victorian neighborhoods is a stunning backdrop for these gardens and its hospitable citizens.

Buffalo Garden Walk is a free, self-guided urban garden tour which has expanded from 19 gardens initially in 1995, to over 350 gardens in 2010. From the beginning, this special garden tour was founded without prizes and competition. What has blossomed from all of this is a celebration of urban gardens, gentrification of neighborhoods, and pride of community. Frequently, home-owners are on hand to talk about their homes, gardens, and plants.

Marvin Lunenfeld and Gail McCarthy were the original founders and garden pioneers of Buffalo Garden Walk. Fifteen years later, Buffalo Garden Walk continues to grow and inspire everyone, and is a model all of us could start in our own communities. It has become the largest garden tour in America.

Backyard Cameo, Buffalo's Cottage District

In 1868, Buffalo had the good fortune and foresight to enlist Frederick Olmstead (the architect of New York City’s Central Park)  and his partner, Calvert Vaux, to create a series of parkways and parks for Buffalo and the beginning of Buffalo’s recreational park system. Olmstead  also championed for  land preservation from industrial development and encroachment surrounding Niagara Falls. It is evident that Buffalo has been passionate about its parks and gardens for a long time.

Besides Buffalo’s Garden Walk, there is a lot more of Buffalo to explore in the way of its parks, botanical gardens, architecture, fine dining, local nurseries, colorful shops, and warm hospitality.

Please share if you have been to Buffalo’s Garden Walk. Please comment if your local community hosts a free garden tour.

VintageGardenGal Tibit Thyme….

I was visiting Buffalo for Buffa10, a national gathering of garden bloggers, hosted and organized this year by Elizabeth Licata of Garden Rant, Allentown Gardener, and Jim Charlier of Art of Gardening. Many thanks for an incredible visit and experience of Buffalo!

I’m in awe of my fellow garden bloggers, and new friends representing all different growing zones, geographic regions, and voices of gardening. The Buffalo News happened to catch up with our group and wrote, Plant It, Grow It, Blog It, with an honorable mention of VintageGardenGal, and new friend Dee’s Red Dirt Ramblings.

Heading to Provence in Search of Lavender?

Special guest writer, Julie Mautner, gives us an insider’s view on lavender in Provence. If you  have never seen fields of Provence lavender bursting in bloom, a trip to Provence could be in your future.

Food and travel writer Julie Mautner has lived in St. Remy de Provence on and off for more than ten years. Prior to running off to the South of France, she was the executive editor of Food Arts Magazine in New York for ten years. Today she freelances for food and travel magazines, and sites in the US and UK. Julie’s popular blog, The Provence Post is a written pulse on Provence. Her first book, The Food Network South Beach Wine & Food Festival Cookbook, will be published by Clarkson Potter in November 2010…VintageGardenGal

Driving or biking through Provence in mid-summer, you’ll see lavender fields of every size and hue. The main growing area is the triangle between Sault, Banon and Sederon, and another prominent area spreads out on the other side of Mont Ventoux, north of Nyons. But pretty much all of Provence is radiant with the famous Blue Gold, as lavender is known, throughout the month of July.

The first lavender distilleries began production in the 1880s, and by 1929 there were 47 stills around the town of Sault alone. Today, the tiny town of Sault is still considered the lavender capital of Provence and its three distilleries are open to the public. The Sault Tourist Office offers seven guided tours of the principal lavandicoles or growing sites. In the town of Coustellet, you’ll find a small museum devoted to lavender production, complete with a collection of copper stills dating from the 16th century.

If you time your trip right, you may catch a village lavender festival, like the ones in Sault and Valreas, or the biggie, the four-day Corso de la Lavande, in the mountain spa town of Digne-les-Baines. Held the first weekend in August, the festival offers lavender for sale in every form imaginable, edible and otherwise, and a parade of large flower-decked floats. A municipal truck leads the parade, spraying the roads with lavender water and leaving the entire town awash in the distinctive summery scent.

Don’t feel like going it alone? A lavender-themed tour is a great way to get the experience. This year, for example, an Australian company called Aroma Tours has organized five different Provencal trips including a Lavender Tour to be held July 23^rd to 30^th. Provence Reservation and City Discovery both offer one-day lavender tours from Avignon while others book similar half and full day tours out of Aix-en-Provence. Whichever tour operator you choose, rest assured you’ll be knee deep in lavender before well before lunch.

Around Provence you’ll find scores of edible lavender goodies being made and sold, in shops, open-air markets and even larger grocery stores. In St. Remy, the cookie and sweet shop called Au Petit Duc sells little tins of crystallized lavender seeds, to be nibbled after garlicky meals, and biscuits à la lavande. Next door to Petit Duc, patissier Joel Durand sells homemade chocolates flavored with lavender, rosemary and other botanicals.

Lavender tea is a soothing drink thought by many to have medicinal qualities. But if you want something with more kick, you can get that from lavender too. And for that you don’t even need a passport.

Lisa Averbuch says her favorite flavor of all time is—wait for it—lavender. So it makes sense that her company, Loft Organic Liqueurs in Emeryville, California, turns out a killer lavender liqueur called Lavender Cello. (The whole company was inspired, she says, by the famous lemony Italian digestif. They also produce liqueurs made from lemongrass, ginger, raspberry, blueberry and tangerine.) Available year round, the lavender liqueur has all the floral aromas and smooth flavors you’ld expect, without any additives, preservatives, artificial flavors “or other items you would find in a Twinkie,” Averbuch says.

If you’re heading for France and plan to hit the lavender trail, there are many resources that can help.

The French Tourism Development Agency, also known as Atout France, offers an online guide for lavender lovers. To download it, click here France Guide Brochures, and scroll down to the publication called “Rhone Alpes: Lavender Routes 2009.”

The Association Grande Traversée des Alpes, (http://www.grande-traversee-alpes.com/my-journey/by-road/the-lavender-trail.html) also offers useful info about lavender and “La Route de la Lavande.” On the site you’ll find suggestions for the best drives and hikes, plus distillieries, lavender-themed activities, hiking, workshops and more.

And you’ll find more great lavender info on these two sites:

http://www.avignon-et-provence.com/provence-tourism/lavender/farm-lavender.htm

http://www.beyond.fr/themes/lavender_th.html

Sources and Resources
Hint: To call from the U.S., precede all phone numbers with 011-33, and drop the first 0.

*Tourist Office, Sault. http://www.saultenprovence.com/gb/, 04-90-64-01-21

*Tourist Office, Valreas. http://www.ot-valreas.fr/uk/index.php5,
04-90-35-04-71

*Tourist Office, Digne-les-Bains. http://www.ot-dignelesbains.fr/www-accueil-138-UK-DIGNE_LES_BAINS.html, 04-92-31-50-02

*Musee de la Lavande. Route de Gordes, Cabrieres d’Avignon, 84220 Coustellet. 04-90-76-91-23. Fax 04-90-76-85-52.  http://www.thelavendermuseum.com/

*Au Petit Duc, St. Remy, 04-90-92-08-31, www.petit-duc.com

*Joel Durand Chocolatier, 04-90-92-38-25, www.chocolat-durand.com

*Lavender Cello is made by Loft Liqueurs,Emeryville, California, www.loftliquors.com,theLOFT@LOFTliqueurs.com

*Lavender Tours are available from many companies including:

City Discovery (www.city-discovery.com/provence/)

Provence Reservation (http://www.provence-reservation.com/en_2/index.php)

Aroma Tours (www.aroma-tours.com)

If You Love Lavender…concludes our “Encore Provence Series” with special guest writers Julie Mautner and James Clay. Many thanks for their delightful writing and armchair travel to charming Provence. Please share your comments.

Chateau de Roussan Watercolor by James Clay

Recently James Clay wrote about his “secret garden” experience in Provence, and the first time he discovered Chateau de Roussan, outside of St. Remy. James Clay is an incredible artist, sculptor, writer, and accomplished gardener. James shares with us his recent watercolor painting of the remarkable Chateau de Roussan.

James Clay is also a regular contributor to Julie Mautner’s, The Provence Post, writing the “Cocktail Guide to Gardening” column. If you didn’t get enough of James Clay’s witty writing, here is a stash of his previous monthly columns. Hint, you can catch a glimpse of James and his beautiful Provence garden in the September column.

Cocktail Drinkers Guide to Gardening, March 2010
Cocktail Drinkers Guide to Gardening, February 2010
Cocktail Drinkers Guide to Gardening, January 2010
Cocktail Drinkers Guide to Gardening, December 2009
Cocktail Drinkers Guide to Gardening, November 2009
Cocktail Drinkers Guide to Gardening, September 2009

Last, but not least, because this is such a gem. James Clay has a “Garden House” rental on his beautiful property. From April to October each year, this garden house is available to rent. Click on www.haslett.info/gardenhouse for more info and a fabulous photo tour.

Provence in Watercolor by James Clay

Chateau Roussan, A Secret Garden

Please give a warm welcome to our second special guest writer, James Clay, in this “Encore Provence” series. Originally from Hampshire, England, James Clay is a world traveller and what I call a renaissance man.  James fortuitously settled in Provence over twenty years ago.  He calls home, a one hectare of garden Eden he has lovingly created over time,  just outside the town of St. Remy de Provence.

James is an incredible artist, sculptor, writer, and accomplished gardener. His Provence garden is filled with fruit, palm, pine and olive trees, plus many varieties of rare bamboo, flowering plants and shrubs. James also writes the witty column “Cocktail Drinkers Guide to Gardening” each month on Julie Mautner’s, The Provence Post.

Today, James Clay shares with us his discovery of, in his words “the most romantic garden in Provence.” Chateau de Roussan, has been lovingly restored by its long time owners, and has been recently transformed into an extraordinary hotel…VintageGardenGal

I found my ‘secret garden’ just down the road, in fact a short bicycle ride away. Years ago, I was cycling home from the village and thought it would be an interesting idea to try to find other ways back so, with this in mind, I turned down the next lane and continued due west. Rounding a corner, not much further along, I had to stop so I could take in the beauty of all that was before me. As in some Arcadian landscape painting of the 17th century, there was a shepherd guarding his flock of sheep which were grazing in a large meadow; an avenue of ancient, stately plane trees were reflected in a bassin in which a pair of swans were gliding among the shadows; and there set back, almost unseen, stood a glorious Chateau. This was one of those moments in life of sheer contentment.

Glass House at Chateau de Roussan

No doubt about it, I had to investigate. Abandoning my bike, I headed off on foot toward the bassin to get a closer view of the Chateau and its surrounding park. I could make out some massive bamboos in the distance and a structure that the sunlight seemed to dance around and through. Following one of the streams that fed the bassin, I made my way eventually between the bamboos and entered into my very own ‘secret garden’ and there in front of me stood an old abandoned glass house with many of its panes smashed or missing, the sunlight darting and dazzling as it played on the fractured glass. Pushing open the rusty, hinged door, I stepped inside and instantly felt the heat roll over me. Some cacti had decided to make a break for it and were heading off out through the broken roof. I was reminded of a song written by Gilbert and Sullivan where the lines run,

‘There’s a fascination frantic
In a ruin that’s romantic.’

In the song the ruin is one of Gilbert’s elderly, ugly ladies but here it was the building that appeared to ask, “Do you think I am sufficiently decayed?”

Outside again, I could hear water gushing away and made toward it, passing through more giant bamboo. I came upon another bassin, this time stone-edged with crumbling statues placed around it. Carp were cutting through the water at speed in every direction as if wanting to say to me “Look at us! Aren’t we the fastest, smartest fish ever?” Beyond the bassin, at the end of an overgrown path, lay the Chateau, so complete in its surroundings that it appeared to have grown there rather than to have been built. Mellow stone, roman tiles, peeling ox blood red painted shutters, the main door of wood in golden rich yellows through ochre. One could only imagine all the people over the centuries that had passed through it. To the left of the door, up high on the wall, is a sundial, below which is carved the motto/phrase ‘HORAS NON NUMERO NISI SERENAS’. In English it may be translated as ‘I count only the serene hours.’ Now there is food for thought!

Enchanting Pool at Chateau de Roussan

It’s almost twenty years since I discovered my own ‘secret garden’ and the pure delight of finding it remains with me to this day as it will until I shuffle off this mortal coil! (Hopefully to Acardia but somehow I doubt it).

As with everything, nothing stays the same. In this case, I have only good news to report–the Chateau de Roussan was recently reclaimed by its original owners (of many years standing) who have lavished time, care and good taste in ‘conserving’ their beautiful home and gardens. Its doors are now open to us if we care to go and stay. Yes, it may be a hotel but, believe me, it is a very special one.

For more info on the newly opened Chateau de Roussan, please visit www.chateauderoussan.com. Telephone from US: (011) 33 4 90 90 79 00. Telephone from France: 04 90 90 79 00.