Send Off From Dio

On Sunday June 14 we were treated to double send off parties to mark the end of our stay in Dio.

We were invited to the home of Anton Vandenbeele, a Belgian who has a home in Dio, for lunch at 1:00.

Anton’s home in Dio is built upon the site and partial foundation of what was the largest house in the village (aside from the chateau! Here's picture of part of the Chateau d'Dio. Pictures of Anton's house are below.) hundreds of years ago. Like many of the houses here it is also built right into the side of the mountain. Though you enter the house at street level, there are two living levels below, and an ancient stable and living area (now used for storage) below them. His view of the Orb Valley is magnificent and the combination of old and new construction is very interesting.

Did I say lunch? What an understatement! First of all, Anton is a vintner. His cav and vineyards are about a mile down the road in the nearby village of Caunas near Lunas on the valley floor. He treated to us many samplings of his various wines and other products much to everyone’s delight.

Did I say lunch? Anton is what I would call a gourmet chef, too. After some drinks and lovely hors d’oeuvres, he began the meal with an escargot and mushroom soup made with snails he had harvested locally himself and allowed to live in clean water long enough to clean out their systems. WOW! These were the same breed of snails we had been stepping on in Deb’s garden all week. Next, along with a lovely salad that included some gorgeous wedges of fresh tomatoes and two different home made dressings, he served individual mini summer squashes stuffed with delicious mini-meatloaves. The main course was a perfectly done roast of pork that would make any BBQ fan salivate, along with roasted potatoes and the French version of green bean casserole. Dessert was a chocolate cake with what he called English cream AND a pineapple upside down cake followed by espresso and Belgian chocolates! Then there was Cartagen and something he had distilled himself that he poured from a lab beaker! Did I say lunch?

When this party broke up, a few of us went down to Anton’s cav, LaFaloise. He showed us around a bit. We sampled some more wine and took a few pictures. Most of the pictures were taken by our friend and host Bob. We’ll put some of them up when we get copies.

Later, we visited our dear friends Linnette and Lucien, who had insisted that we drop by Sunday evening for apertif. Linnette served some wonderful snacks and, of course, wine and pastis. We played a few tunes joined by Bob, and Noah played his solo piece.

Lucien and Linnette are two of our most favorite people in the world. Kind and generous, they love music and Lucien can sing. They have childhood memories of WWII, and they have shared some of them with us. Pretty scary, and pretty cool when the Americans finally came along. Lucien is a retired electrician. I think he worked mostly in power transmission. And Linnette worked as a seamstress in Paris for a fashion designer.

After a late night swim in the pool, we went to bed for a few hours before driving to Montpellier to catch our flight for Paris and then home.