Catching Up In France

We are totally enjoying ourselves here in the mountains of Southern France. Friends that we met last November, Deni and Paulette, through a great party last night.

They must have made over a dozen pizzas in their outdoor wood fired pizza oven.


One of the guests, a Belgian named Antoin, is a local vintner. His rose’ was flowing freely. (They recently passed a law in France making it illegal to mix red and white wines and call the result rose. Rose’ must be made from scratch using proper grapes and methods.) We are invited to his home for lunch and tasting on Sunday afternoon. We know we’ll enjoy ourselves at that one. If his cave has a website we’ll post it later.




We did a few songs thoughMax didn’t yet have a bass to play.












Noah joined in, too, and even played a solo piece on Ruth’s guitar.







Yesterday and the day before we did some walking around the area. The windmills on the plateau at the top of the “mountain” were partially in the mist and Ruth found some interesting “pine cones”. We love the geological features of the area and the flora and fauna, too.

Today we drove down to Pezenas to pick up the bass we’re renting. Our GPS was set on “shortest” rather than “quickest”. Though the route may have been a shorter distance, the roads were mostly the narrow rural mountain roads that are so scenic around here. Instead of going around, we went up and over, through forests, tiny hamlets, vineyards and mountain pastures. It took a bit longer, and the driving was more challenging, but the sights were worth it.

Our rental bass is the same one we used last November, built in the city of Nime by a luthier friend and sometime collaborator of our friend Luigi Notarangelo.
They are currently working on a beautiful “gypsy” guitar of French ash and Canadian spruce.


By all means visit his website for some great pictures of Luigi’s work. We spent some time in his shop on the main street of Pezenas playing and talking guitars. Last year when we met him he showed us a 000 size guitar that was under construction at the time. Taking a point from the Martin D35, this one includes a three piece back. It is with the client now, but the pictures at Luigi’s sight are worth a look. Be sure to look for the “Eifel Tower” bridge on the new gypsy!

Tomorrow we have a date to meet up with some local “Americana” musicians. Ilene and Sharman are in the Montpellier band Dustbowl Darlings. Ilene has been kind enough to set us up with a show at the club Country Rock in Montpellier this Saturday night AND SHE HASN’T EVEN MET US.

Our concert in the village of Dio, where we’re staying, is Friday night June 12. The folks here in the village seem as excited to have us back as we are to be here again. One of the locals, Anne, has even been using our songs as part of the English language classes that she teaches in the area. The sing-alongs could be interesting.


Hope you enjoy the pictures. More soon.