We drove to St. Remy de Provence along the non-toll roads. this is an option on our GPS, and we were in no hurry so we chose it. It was almost as fast and so much prettier. Curvy roads that went through small towns, and as we neared Les Alpilles, thought the park. Beautiful. Les Alpilles are a narrow and jagged mountain range that slice France North from South just south of St. Remy De Provence. Olives dominate the south side and grapes (and olives, too) dominate the north in all directions around St Remy. This is the landscape that Van Gogh used to influence his last 100+ paintings, in his last year alive, while he lived at the infirmary in St. Remy.

We stayed at Hostellerie Vllon de Valrugge, which has- guess what? A Gastonomic restaurant with a Michelin star! We learned at check in that they just lost their chef, thus their star, and they hope to get back their star soon. Again- falsy advertising with the damn Michelin star thing. What it means is that you will pay 88 euros per person for a 5 course dinner, that in this case was pretty good, but not over the top. The one last week at Avignon was better, and didn’t even lie about no damn Michelin star. We were having dinner, discussing the MS lunch we almost had and had to remember that it was just the day before. Yes, we are living too high on the hog, yes, we both had to buy new pants, and yes, we or at least I am going to get a hold on this SOON! The cheese course was the finest I’ve ever seen, 5 or 6 or however many you want from this tray.