Vauvrai wine region

So this past weekend we took a trip to the region of Vauvray, a beautiful area with lots of wineries and beautiful houses. It was for a family gathering my husband's family puts together once every 10 years. Needless to say I didn't know too many of the people there, huge family of cousins, ants and uncles and so on...the setting was beautiful though.

Hotel Noble, Vernou

not even a 2 star hotel, but the setting is great

 Evryone played the traditional French La Petangue (don't know if there's and English correspondent)

And then we visited the village with the very interesting Maisons troglodytes, homes in mountains, like cave homes- you can see the windows carved in the stone

there is even an old clock which is actually way up high

And some pretty sights on the road to the wine cave.

throughout the village of Vernou where we stayed

 a collector's garden

The house of the artist we met sculpting in the cave where we had the wine tasting!
We came across it by chance just wandering through the village.

Zaeli - Sculpteur, Vernou

 

 But we had a good time wine tasting some of the most well perfumed and tastiest white wine I ever had! Here's a glimpse of the wine cave. It was so cool, filled with sculptures of various (3) artists, stone and metal sculptures. Going in.

Caves rupestres
Domaine Bourillon-Dorleans

http://www.bourillon.com/
you will be blown away by their website!


The caves were in fact old stone mines exploited for the nice beige-yellow stone we see everywhere in France, stone used to build the houses and all the buildings around, for entire towns and villages. Having been left with the space, and this being a viticular area,
people started using them as wine caves.

 Apparently we got the wine making skill from the romans, below

We had a guide and it was cool to hear how every image has a story in there. For example this one below: at one glass (of wine) the man sings like a bird, at two he roars like a lion (the lion is on the left) and at three he is as ugly as a monster (which was on the opposite wall).

 Here a man and a woman over a glass of wine

 So here is Zaeli, the sculptor I was telling you about. Amazing work.

 and on our way out....

 

As I promised the artists, I am mentioning their names:

Sculptors:

Zaeli

Jean Claude Baudon 

Michele Miniere

About blogging

There is something I should probably say right away- I will not blog daily.
I subscribed to a lot of beautiful blogs and I receive their posts in my inbox, and I like to sit down on the sofa after dinner next to my man, with my ipod, looking through all the beautiful pictures and going through all the great posts while he watches his tv series (if there isn't some romantic easy movie or a commedy or a light show on).

I used to browse through real paper magazines before, but since I discovered all this blogging stuff I find it much more interesting, personal(meaning easier to relate to) and the pics so much more beautiful. And I received the ipod for Christmas so I can :)

Blogs are awesome (some) and blogging is cool. I mean, I started blogging because I found a whole new community out there, of like minded women, with similar interests and lives. I found it motivates me, gives me inspiration and courage to go about my doings. At times I feel not so alone, as I do, at times, being away from friends. Then once I started it, I realized I have to post regularly! Well yeeeaaa. I realize some of the bloggers put huge amounts of hours into coming up with the beautiful posts!  And I realized I should set apart a certain amount of time in my schedule to dedicate to posting. It is so much easier to receive the posts in the email, look around and read when and if you have time, save the pics that interest you etc...

So I decided I will blog ...on Sundays, even if today is Tuesday. :).
I thouoght I will keep it real, but leave out all the not so cool stuff, because I want it to be a cool pozitive blog. We need to focus on the pozitive aspects in life and live every day as we get it and appreciate everything as much as we can. I like to smell the roses, sometimes too much (like - now I should be working). That doesn't mean life is always en rose. Not every day we live feelings of happy, not everytime we know to do away with what we have, not often we manage to be thankful. Often life is always better on the other side. Well, not necessarily true.
This - blogging - is an attempt towards the pozitive. For some, for me. When I fight with my man I will not blog about it because one- who cares, and two-that will not make me feel better. I will come here to escape and get happy and forget about it and be able to move on.

The new blogging 'trend' right now is called "Things I am afraid to tell you". It is actually a disclaimer to the blog concept. It is true that some of the blogs take you in a land of design and travel and comfort and perfection and wealth and all we could all dream of. The lives we imagine while going through these blogs are like those we can only wish we would even see up close one day. Which of course, is not the truth behind the blogger. The true reason blogging exists is to find comfort away from the real life, there in the virtual life. It is nice to speak about nice things, and look at nice things, and relax and dream and enjoy the company of like minded people. Who needs more stress and more bad news and more negativity. We already get all that on TV. So we create a world of nice and why not?

The things I am faraid to tell you series http://thezhush.blogspot.fr/2012/05/things-im-afraid-to-tell-you.html (I copied the link from the blog The Zhush, who is participating among many others you will see featured on their page) goes through the underlayers of the Lalaland life into the real life of bloggers, who are real people of course, and who have real lives of course, and as you all know real lives imply issues...real or imaginary, but issues. It is probably one of those things where you create another life for yourself, from scratch if you wish, and you live it in a blog, within an online community. You get to either talk about all your daily chores, issues, meals, diapers and what not, or escape to another dimension where everything is so much nicer, so much cooler and brighter and you feel so much better. In the end, is it ok? Who knows and who cares. One thing is sure: you are never alone and there will always be someone who is like minded and who will be there just as you are. Which IS ok.


So from my last trip, some moments I caught on camera, where I felt the life's little, everyday's nothings, are just so pretty.

So I have not been really serious about posting lately.
I've been meaning to say I have an excuse, that I'm away visiting my native whereabouts for a couple of weeks. But then my intention was- before coming- to take time to read, to take pics, to blog, to get motivated. Somehow every time I'm away I find it rather challenging to start up on something because I don't have all my 'habits' at hand, my things and my place for things, and I feel miss placed in a temporary state until I return home (weird to even start defining a home, I feel I have one everywhere I lived!)

So, soon to come my post about Timisoara...not always living French. But the French can come visit!