Sunday in Toulon

Sun. Apr. 3: This trip to Nice all began when Kris returned to a site he had bookmarked with Festivals held around the world and found that the Bacchus Wine Festival was being held Apr. 1-3 in Toulon, France. One thing led to another, and today was our day to make the Pilgrimage to Toulon. The e-tickets for the train that I had bought online before we left worked perfectly and the two hour trip got us to Toulon without a problem. But when we tried to get information on the festival, the woman at Tourist Information had no idea what we were talking about. Kris found the site again on his trusty IPod and the woman could direct us to the Place (plaza) in which it was being held. After a quick bathroom stop at McDonald’s (clean, free restrooms! Why haven’t we seen that travel tip in Rick Steves?) we continued walking and found the correct plaza and the long white tent of the Bacchus Wine and Food Festival, 2011. About a third of the tent was devoted to foods of Provence and the other two thirds had four rows of wine booths from all parts of France. We bought our tasting glasses for 4€ each and spent the rest of the day sipping and tasting to our hearts’ content. The Vintners and helpers were quite amazed to learn that we had come all the way from Michigan in America for the festival, and everyone was helpful and friendly. We had a delicious lunch at a food vendor set up outside next to the festival tent. It turned out that it was an Alsace dish of melted cheese mixed with thin mashed potatoes, about the consistency of cheese fondue, that on eats with a fork by twisting and scooping. Great fun and fantastic!! We returned to McDonald’s for the bathrooms and then went back to the festival for the last time to make our purchases. We were plenty tired as we rode the train back to Nice but quite satisfied with having completed our mission. Voyageur Nissart was close to the train station so we introduced Heidi and Kris to it. We found it much busier than our first night there but it was equally delicious and made a good ending to a great day.