Moustiers-Ste.-Marie
After a day of driving through the Verdon Gorge, we arrived in Moustier-Ste.Marie. The first challenge was to find our hotel - Hotel La Ferme Rose. Despite the fact that google maps shows the roads connecting and they sort of do, I picked the wrong road, and it involved a pretty narrow road and a stream crossing (see X on map below). We probably could have made it across, but it didn’t seem like a good idea in a rental car. Eventually we got ourselves on course and arrived at our wonderful hotel.
La Ferme Rose, is just a short drive from Moustier-Ste.-Marie old town. It’s in the country, surrounded by fields and lovely views. The hotel itself is quite eclectic, sort of museum-like, in a good way. In early May, I think we were one of two couples staying there, so we were upgraded to a larger room. Each room is named for the bathroom tile color. Our enthusiastic host gave us a tour of the building. There’s an onsite bar and plenty of areas to lounge, including a nice looking pool that wasn’t open yet. There were trails around the area and I was sorry that we were only spending one night. It seemed like a good place to spend a couple days.
I didn’t realize when I booked dinner at La Bastide de Moustiers, that it was a short walk from our hotel, we just had to cross the stream, but there was a pedestrian bridge to make that possible, especially handy on the dark walk back. There’s also a hotel there, but it’s quite a bit more expensive than I generally prefer to spend. The restaurant and inn are owned by Alain Ducasse.
Dinner was a treat. We opted to have our aperitif on the terrace, overlooking the hills while the sun set. Our drinks came with the biggest gougeres (savory cream puff) I’ve ever seen and roasted celeriac. It was a great start. After awhile we were taken upstairs to the restaurant. It’s a prefix multi-course meal, where you have a couple choices for each course. It was really enjoyable and I didn’t take any more pictures.
The next morning, we were the only ones eating breakfast at our hotel, our host had said that breakfast couldn’t start any earlier than about 8:30, because that is when the bread and pastries would be ready. And it was definitely worth the wait. The bread basket was a highlight, with baguette, mini croissant, pain au chocolate, and pain au raisin, along with yogurt, coffee, tea, jam and honey.
It was a cold, windy morning, with a little drizzle, but we were fortunate and it didn’t end up raining too much. Finally it was time to explore Moustier-Ste.-Marie, which is a “Les Plus Beaux Villages de France” - one of the most beautiful villages of France - a group of small, rural, beautiful villages around France. There’s limited parking and I could see how it would get very crowded in the summer when many people are visiting.
And it is beautiful. The village is set right up against a cliff and there’s a church above the village that has path leading up to it.
The good thing about it being a gray day, is that the flowers and shutters were even more colorful. We spent maybe about an hour wandering around and then it was time to move on.
