Rhone Day 8: Grignan

We have had two wine tastings and an olive oil tasting. Today it was truffles. And I don't mean the chocolate kind. So what is a truffle? It's an edible fungus that costs $1,000-3,000 per pound. Our farmer spoke only French so our local guide translated his explanation while the dog-lovers in our group made over his canine assistants.

This lovely wood is full of them, growing in a symbiotic relationship with the trees. It's finding them that is the challenge.

Our farmer uses dogs instead of the pigs you may have heard of. Pigs love truffles and will consume them before you have a chance to dig them up if you can't haul them off quickly enough. Dogs can be trained to sniff out the ripe truffles, paw the ground to show where they are just an inch or so below the surface, and be happily rewarded with a treat as this one is here. 

New ones ripen every day, so dog and master go daily for a walk in the woods and return with a few thousand dollars in the master's pockets.

I thought the truffle would be soft like a mushroom (a different species of fungus) but the outside is hard as a rock. It reminded me of a geode with something precious inside.

We tasted a variety of spreads on bits of toasted baguette with glasses of local wine. Lovely! My favorite was truffle with black olive. 

We had some time to explore the near-by village of Grignan.

It was market day. The strawberries were oh so sweet!

At the top of the street is the old laundry. (Not quite what I had in mind when the women of Bethlehem are washing clothes at the fountain in my recent book The Innkeeper's Wife.)

One side is for washing, the other for rinsing.

It was no longer cloudy, as you can see, but it was still quite cold and VERY windy. The mistral winds sweep down the Rhone valley at as much as 60 mph. They almost blew us off our feet climbing to this castle.

The views were fabulous.

Ingrid had to stop to get her balance in the wind as we rounded the castle walls to this church.

The roof of the church is the terrace of the castle.

Windows can only be on the south side of the church since the north is built into the mountain.

We hiked back down delightful little streets and stairways,

Returning to our ship and the cruise to our next stop: Lyon

We enjoyed the evening's recital as we sailed.

*Jacques Offenbach – Can-Can from Orpheus in the Underworld

 

Fréderic Chopin – Minute Waltz (originally titled the Little Dog Waltz, in honor of those who sniffed out truffles for us in the morning)

 

Fréderic Chopin – Winterwind Etude (in honor of the powerful Mistral!)

 

*Jules Massenet – Meditation from the opera Thaïs

 

George Gershwin – Rhapsody in Blue (written by one of many American composers who searched out Nadia Boulanger in Paris for composition lessons)

 

*Maurice Jarre – Lara’s Theme from Dr. Zhivago (Jarre was born in Lyon)