Joie de vivre and pain au chocolat
- Charlotte Martin
- Mar 15
- 8 min read
Updated: Mar 30
The first morning in Saint Remy brought us abundant sunshine, birds chirping, butterflies fluttering around the yard and bunnies hopping through the field behind the house. Yes, it’s as idyllic as it sounds. We take our time getting around and making the kids breakfast. We’ve been doing baby-led weaning with Clementine and it makes me so nervous when she actually puts food in her mouth! She’s doing really great though, haven’t had a choking scare (yet).
I ran a load of clothes in the washer and had time to hang dry them in the sunshine before we went out for the morning.
Our first stop was a local farm that sold fresh produce and allowed kids to walk through and view the animals. We stocked up on potatoes, GIANT asparagus, fresh lettuce, onion, garlic and some local lavender syrup.
As we looked around confused on how we take Silas to see the animals, I realized quickly that not knowing much French was going to present some challenges for us this week. There were a few locals in the shop, chatting away in French with the shopkeeper. Luckily, I knew a few critical phrases and asked Claude for a few more. The first thing I ask the shopkeeper is “Parlez-vous anglais?” (Do you speak English?) And she knew a little - enough to communicate it was €5 for Silas to see the farm and that they take credit card for the farm/anything we buy in the shop.
French is not super close to Spanish, but there are several similar words due to Latin roots I notice while looking around this market - miel (honey, same in both languages), lait/leche (milk), pain/pan (bread), œufs/huevos (eggs), vin/vino (wine).
We pay for our bounty and she shows us the way to the farm. It could not have been more perfect for Silas. He saw goats, chickens, sheep, pigs and ducks. The chickens were probably his favorite. One of the chickens was an interesting breed, a pretty social little guy, and became best friends with Silas. Silas named him “chickaluna” and had a blast running back and forth along the fence as chickaluna chased him.
When we walked to the sheep, there was one laying close to the fence (clearly used to children). Silas walked up to it, stoked its wool and said “oh sheepy I love you”. It was the sweetest thing. Then he saw the mother sheep and baby lamb in their own pen. He was in heaven! He had to make sure I knew that a baby sheep was called a lamb. It sure is buddy.
After the farm, we decided to go to a little cafe on a square in town. There was a WWI monument in the square dedicated to the 185 local Saint Remy men and women who lost their lives in the Great War. That’s a lot of people for a small town to lose, and you know they were all around the same age too.
The restaurant was actually recommended by our VRBO host, so I knew it would be good.
As we walk up, I quickly look up how to say “a table for 3” in French because I’m now convinced there is very little English spoken in this town. As I fumble through the phrase, the waiter goes, English? And I’m like YES please! He asks if we are eating or just drinking (LOL it’s 11:30am) and I say we are eating. He seats us outside and while it was only 62°, the sunshine was warming everyone up.
Bren and I are both so relieved to see a good variety of Asian inspired dishes on the menu! The waiter comes by to get our drinks and then informs us they don’t serve lunch until noon. Apparently that is the norm in France - noted. Y the time we got our drinks and some bread for Silas, he came by to put our order in and our food arrived at the table promptly at 12:03. We both ordered the poke bowl and Silas got a bao burger and fries (finally something he will actually eat). I also had to order the mango foie gras sushi roll…when in France!! And it was so rich, and absolutely delish.
After lunch, we all ventured to the Inter Marche (supermarket) to stock up on food for dinner and baby formula! Yes, we ran out of Clementine’s normal formula and although it is a European brand, it’s not sold in France. I realized it too late but went ahead and ordered more to our VRBO. It takes 5 days to ship (from Ireland) and won’t arrive until Tuesday. She seems to be doing just fine on it! Another big milestone for her was we bought a sippy cup at the store for water! She’s really getting the hang of it, when she doesn’t throw it on the floor 🤣
When we got back to the house, it was nap time for everyone. About 45 minutes into the nap, Clementine woke up and I knew she needed a longer nap. So I went upstairs to her room and held her as I laid down on the bed. A few minutes later, the door I had closed opened very slowly. I thought Brennan was coming in but no one was there.
Hard to explain how this house feels, but I got the feeling it has a history of some sort. It is a small cottage (maybe the old farm house?) on a bigger property - our hosts live next door in a much bigger chateau-style estate. It seems VERY old but nicely renovated/added onto. As that door to the bedroom opened, I felt like someone was there staring at me, not maliciously, just staring out of curiosity. My imagination is probably just running wild given how ancient and rich with history this area is…or maybe there’s a benevolent presence in the house.
When everyone wakes up, we get ready to go to a local winery (literally 5 minutes away). I told Silas we were going to a “grape farm” and honestly, where is the lie? 😉 Unfortunately, we used Apple Maps which apparently makes a LOT of mistakes in Europe. We were 15 minutes late to our tasting but I had called the winery and they were totally okay with it.
It was a tiny, “natural wine” estate, Domain Milan, and they mostly made whites, reds and some rosé. We learned the Provence region as a whole produces 90% rosé, 7% red and 3% white wines. One of the owners did the tasting and he told us he did have some importers/distributors in the US. He also informed us of an app called “Raisin” that can help you find natural wines anywhere you go. I’m becoming a big natural wine fan as I realize almost all of the wine made in the US is pumped full of pesticides and other garbage that many of these Italian/French wineries we’ve visited prohibit. I go to Europe as an oaky Napa Chardonnay girly, and leave a European natural wine girly…who am I?!
Silas had fun running around with the farm dogs and playing on the swing set. I thought it was neat too when one of the workers came into the tasting room and poured himself a glass of one of the wines we had opened. Perks of the trade I suppose!
We headed back home and Brennan started to cook steaks as I prepared the asparagus and potatoes we had purchased from the farm. We had a lovely family dinner and put Clementine down around 6:45pm. Since Silas had a nap earlier, we decided to let him stay up and pick a family movie. He picked A Bug’s Life and the three of us snuggled in together on the couch. As we cuddled and laughed together at Flick’s misadventures, I thought to myself this is truly joie de vivre.
That night brought strong winds, a creaky (and spooky) house, and lots of rain. I did have the chance to talk to Silas about never going down the stairs and always standing at the top of the stairs and yelling for mommy or daddy. He practiced all throughout the day so we felt comfortable enough letting him sleep alone that night. The stairs are perilous even for me! I had to go upstairs twice in the middle of the night to fix Clementine’s sound machine and am not sure if the house spirit was turning it off or the charging cord was going out 🤣
We woke up to a dreary, cold and rainy morning (hey, not everyday can be beautiful). Silas gently called “mommy, can I come downstairs” at 6:35am and I was happy to help him down the stairs, anything so he doesn’t try them alone in the dark! We had an even slower morning getting around and making breakfast as we knew we were staying put until the worst was over. After Clementine woke from her first nap, we decided to venture out to a local bakery that the wine owner had recommended in town. This shop was really amazing - they had so many different types of breads, flatbreads, pastries, all made with sourdough and locally-grown wheat flour. We got some sourdough brioche for our hamburger buns later that night, some traditional sourdough for bread and of course, I had to try the banana bread! From there, we walked across the street to get a few produce items and grab a sandwich. This little shop also had pain au chocolat (chocolate croissant), which I had been telling Silas about for the last couple days and he had been practicing saying. How is it he also has a pretty good French accent in addition to a Spanish accent?! So I had to get one for him and it might be his new favorite food!
From there, we started driving to a cave in the side of the Alpilles mountains that has been refitted to showcase art and music - Carrieres des Lumieres. We needed somewhere indoors in case it started raining again? The current exhibition at the cave was Picasso and Frida Kahlo - how lucky are we! I’ve been a massive Picasso fan ever since my GT class did an art study unit back in 3rd grade. While the cave wasn’t far away, we definitely ventured way up a mountain to get there on steep and windy roads. Thankfully the rain had slowed to a drizzle. We parked, got our tickets and had no idea what we were walking into.
The cave was dark, VERY dark (night mode on cameras makes it look brighter than it was), and I had Clementine on me (awake and facing out thankfully), but it took me a minute to catch my bearings. The music was intense and echoed throughout the cave and the projections showed Picasso’s art - different paintings - on different walls throughout the cave.
Silas had fun running around and Clementine genuinely enjoyed the lights and sounds. She’s a FOMO girl at heart, always wants to be in the middle of entertainment. We spent about 30-45 minutes enjoying the cave and decided to head back. On the way, I had Brennan stop so I could capture a photo of this little town carved into the mountain:
This town is Les Baux-de-Provence and I will post more about it after we visit on Monday!
We got back to the house and Brennan and Silas walked around the property for a while exploring. The sun was out and it was warm, finally! There was a moment I saw them out the kitchen window heading toward the countryside and then didn’t see them for at least 20 minutes. My imagination started to go wild and I remember thinking they might have found an Outlander-type time portal and been whisked back two thousand years when this area was inhabited by Romans. Fortunately, they didn’t get zapped into the past and Silas brought me back some pretty purple flowers he had picked.
Brennan then started on the hamburgers and green beans. We all sat down at the table to eat and Clementine was shoveling hamburger in her mouth, clearly she’s going to be a meat eater! We gave both kids baths and put Clementine to bed around 7. Again, Silas was wired from his earlier nap so we decided another family movie night was in store. Ratatouille felt like the only choice — we were in France, after all. We didn’t make it through the whole movie, but Silas laughed, and that was enough. I held him close, quietly full of joie de vivre.
💙🥐
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