"Your focus determines your reality" - Fall 2025 Travel Adventures - Update 10/2

[Dis_Yoda]

Monday
September 15th 2025
Chateau La Coste

As the morning had a later start, I headed to breakfast while my husband went for a run in the hotel gym. He had debated on running around Aix but decided there were too many streets to cross and people on their way to work.

My breakfast was once again filled with crepes, bread, salted butter and lots of espresso. I added some fruit to the plate today!

At 9:45AM, we headed down to the lobby to meet with our guide and other tour guests to meet our bus driver for the week and drive out to Chateau La Coste which is a vineyard and art estate about 20 minutes away from Aix-en-Provence.

Chateau La Coste is owned by an Irish property developer, Paddy McKillen and developed this estate to be focused on wine, art, and architecture. The main building was designed by Tadao Ando who is known for his integration of architecture and landscape.


The Villa of the Estate


“Crouching Spider” by Louise Bourgeois


“Boxes Full of Air” by Sean Scully

After a short bio-break for the group, we began a short walk around the property. To fully see the property would take half a day so we only went through a small loop while our Tauck guide discussed some of the works.


“Mathematical Model 012: Surface of revolution with constant negative curvature” by Hiroshi Sugimoto



One of the installations was designed by Frank Gehry who designed the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles as well as many iconic buildings around the world. They do host concerts and performances here during the year.


“Pavillon de Musique” by Frank Gehry

All these sculptures were right next to the vineyards which had recently been harvested.



The next sculpture was similar to the Chicago Bean. Here is where we took our first group photo of the trip.


“Drop” by Tom Shannon

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[Dis_Yoda]

Down the hill from the drop was a massive piece.


“Mater Earth” by Prune Nourry


“Circle of Riverstones” by Richard Long

On our walk towards the pavilion the next piece was located inside our tour guide started foraging for mushrooms. He talked about how to know if they are edible or not.




“Four Cubes to Contemplate Our Environment” by Tadao Ando



Rubbish



Water


CO2


Future

After this piece, we headed back. The sculpture here wasn't included in the guide so not sure the name or the artist.

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[Dis_Yoda]

At the end of the walk, we were led back to the Art Center where we would have lunch.




Remains of an old fort



We were served wine and bread before our first course came out. I forgot a photo of the first course which was vegetable soup with goat cheese. I enjoyed this as it was not heavy so perfect to enjoy on this mild day.

Our entrée was salmon with fresh vegetables. Neither my husband nor me are the biggest fans of salmon. It was fine but not something I would have ordered on my own.



Dessert was a raspberry mousse. The presentation did make me laugh a bit though.




The wines of the estate.

On our walk back to the bus, we stopped at one more sculpture. While it looks like Mardi Gras beads – it actually is a piece from Jean-Michel Othoniel who was selected and currently is exhibiting his art throughout Avignon as part of the celebration of Avignon’s 25th anniversary as a European Capital of Culture.



The wine processing building.



We loaded up to our bus and headed back to the hotel.​

 

[buzzrelly]

Tauck is also pricey, especially depending on the tour and if you do small group or normal group. But that extra expenses helps make sure everything is taken care of. You are picked up from the airport and taken to your hotel. Your luggage is picked up from inside your room and taken to the next hotel where they bring it to the room for you.

I will definitely look into this when I finally decide to get to Europe! Sounds lovely!

Right now we're in a debate for 2027. Tauck is introducing a new product called Roam by Tauck that is supposed to be geared towards 40 and 50 year old DINKs. I'm waiting for those itineraries to get announced so we can see if anything is up our alley. We're really split between Northern Spain, Portugal, Japan or Norway at the moment too.

Seems like you can't go wrong with any of those choices!

 

[Dis_Yoda]

Monday
September 15th 2025
Visit to Jill Steenhuis

Upon returning to the hotel, we had a mission to complete prior to the later adventures with the Tauck Tour. During the walks on Sunday and especially with the walk around Chateau La Coste, I made the realization that my walking/hiking shoes were dead. There was no support left. Luckily, we had noted a Foot Locker along Cours Mirabeau along with some other stores that should sell supportive running type shoes, so I took a photo of my shoe size with the conversions and changed into my flip flops, and we headed back out to shop.



Foot Locker ended up having something that would work that wasn’t brightly colored and a well-known brand I could trust.

We did look at a couple other stores for clothing and things, but we didn’t really buy anything other than some candies. My husband did get a scoop of lemon sorbet that he didn’t realize had actual rinds in it, so it was tarter than he was expecting. Didn’t stop him from enjoying it all though.

We headed back to the hotel to rest for an hour before we were to be taken by taxi to the home of Jill Steenhuis. This was one of the non-advertised extras Tauck throws in.

She is an Atlanta, GA born artist who went to Aix-en-Provence and fell in love with a Frenchman and has spent the last 45 years making art. If you want to learn more about her, she gives a summary here: https://www.artinprovence.com/about/





During our time there, she talked about Paul Cezanne as her studio is set up just like his and her life. While her art was interesting – something about her just didn’t sit well with me. She felt a little too egocentric as even her husband was saying you mean “our house” and I kept glancing at my husband and was like entitled much.

I made friends with her dog as that was more my speed.



We also visited her son’s studio as he also is an artist. He does metal-based art. We were able to ask him about his process, and I realized I’ve worked in manufacturing too long as there’s something comforting about the smell of coolant and I may have gone too technical into my question as I think like an engineer and not an artist.






And then I enjoyed some more dog time.






We finished the visit with some wine and light snacks as we got to chat among ourselves in her home. As it was nearing dinner, we headed by taxi back to our hotel.

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[Dis_Yoda]

Monday
September 15th 2025
Evening on our Own

We were on our own for dinner, so my husband and I looked online for what was open on a Monday evening as well as making reservations. We ended up finding a well-reviewed Italian place. After learning the history of Provence being so tied to Romans – Italian still felt in line with what should be eaten here.

We walked about 10 minutes to Maurizio and were seated outside in the courtyard.



We ordered a bottle of champagne as it wasn’t that much more expensive than two glasses.



My husband had Bolognese which he really enjoyed. It hit the spot for what he had been craving.



I had the special which was cream-based pasta with pork belly. This was hearty and filling as well!



At the end of dinner, we got to watch a random street performance that took place by the fountain which was a unique, “this is Aix” feeling.



We walked back to our hotel and reorganized our luggage as the next day we would be heading to the second hotel of the trip and our luggage would be picked up at 7:30AM the next morning.​

 

[Dis_Yoda]

Tuesday
September 16th 2025
Exploring Luberon Valley

We woke up around 7AM to get ready for the day. My husband was skipping running this morning as no one wants sweaty clothes to marinate in luggage all day. At 7:30AM, the hotel employees picked up our two pieces of luggage as they would be taken to the next hotel for us. As we had an hour before it was time to get on the bus, we both went to breakfast to kill some time after we checked out of the hotel at the front desk. Breakfast was similar as the last few days, but we just slowly enjoyed it all until everyone was ready in the lobby at 8:30AM to head towards the Luberon Valley.

After about an hour of driving, we stopped for a photo op near Lourmarin. Here we got a photo of us in front of a vineyard in a field that had already been harvested. We were here during the harvest time, so we got to see a lot of picking occurring and seeing which vineyards still had fruit left throughout the entire trip.



We headed back onto the bus to head towards Gordes where we had another photo op overlooking the hilltop town. Gordes is considered one of the most beautiful villages in the world and they do not allow buses to drive through the town anymore. They also do not allow any electrical or telephone cables overhead and have really strict building regulations to maintain their beautiful status – such as all buildings must have terracotta roof tiles, no fences are allowed – only stone walls.







The bus was parked, and we headed off with our tour guide for an orientation walk through the town on a busy market morning. Gordes also had a special art exhibit going on featuring cats.






Gordes was also the location of Ridley Scott’s A Good Year that premiered back in 2006. We visited the fountain that was used in many scenes.



After the walk, our tour guide gave us a little under an hour of time to explore the market on our own before we would head to our next activity. We wandered looking at the various goods and food items. I bought half a scoop of almonds to snack on over the next few days and a fake Stitch Labubu as it was only 10 Euro. See! There is Disney in this part of the trip!






A Little Art Humor​

 

[Dis_Yoda]

Tuesday
September 16th 2025
Lunch at Domaine Egenia

Back at the bus, we loaded up and drove through more of the Luberon Valley – making our way to this gorgeous event center, called Domaine d’Egenia. The venue can be booked for weddings or other events while also being able to rent for a short weekend stay. We were getting to enjoy this private space for lunch cooked by a local chef using fresh ingredients. This was one of the ‘surprises’ of the trip as the original plans listed online mentioned that we would be having a picnic with the items we could buy in Gordes.



The meal started with a glass of apple cider along with some passed appetizers of either a pastry filled with bacon or a pastry filled with olives. I stuck to the bacon one and had quite a few!



The chef introduced herself to us and spoke about how she loves to cook fresh. They grow vegetables on site at the estate and pick meat from local sources.



The lunch started with a buffet of various vegetable dishes. I ended up going with salad, melon, goat cheese, and pickled garlic for my plate. The servers kept the wine nicely flowing as well.



No photos as it wasn’t pretty but for our main entrée – we had guinea fowl stuffed with apricots and wrapped in bacon and topped with a red wine sauce. This was so flavorful.

Our dessert was a poached pear with red wine caramel sauce and cake. Such a fresh way to end such a lovely lunch.



The chef also has a restaurant in Avignon, but our tour guide did try to not encourage people to go there on our free night in Avignon as apparently too many people book and then no show after they are tired after the long day which does reflect badly on Tauck and the tour guides.







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