September 29, 2026 Marseille to NYC Breakfast at Best Western HotelLunch at Heathrow BA Lounge. Dinner - on Flight 113 to NYC.

September 29, 2026 Marseille to NYC Breakfast at Best Western HotelLunch at Heathrow BA Lounge. Dinner - on Flight 113 to NYC.

Lots of traveling and lots of eating today.

We started with the full breakfast at the Best Western Hotel that included everything you could imagine except wine for breakfast. I ate a pain au Chocolate, a small raisin round, and a strip of pastry called Viennoise that is a lot like Danish Vinabrod or strudel, a pastry with a filling with layers of fine pastry dough wrapped around it plus a bowl of yogurt with dried fruits including 3 prunes plus two latte macchiatos. I resisted the crepes with Nutella, but Suzette liked the omelet.

                                              Three types of Yogurt with fresh fruits.

                          dried fruits, crepes, cakes and lots of jams and preserves

                      Cheeses, salami, hams, lots of items like olives and oils and butter 

                         The breads and pastries. I heated my pastries in the microwave

We then shuttled to the Marseille Airport.

At 10:30 flew to Heathrow Airport in London. The best break of the day was that we flew British Airways both flights from Marseille to London and London to NYC and checked our three heavy bags through to NY.

When we arrived in London we walked to the BA Lounge. The food was awful, typically British, including a Thai green chicken curry that contained more water chestnuts than chicken. The salads were good though, there was a green salad, an Israeli couscous and French green lentil  salad and a chick pea salad.

We also enjoyed the fix your own hot dog station, terrible bun a great hot dog sausage, sauerkraut, and fried onion strips with mustard.

There were lots of drinks but not as good as the lounge in New York. For example, London served Prosecco instead of Champagne. And the only thing of chocolate was hot chocolate that I drank two cups of.

At 3:00 we walked to our gate for the NYC flight that left around 5:00. Heathrow is immense and there are buses that ferry passengers to the larger planes that are boarded by stairs, so it takes a long time to board.

Here is a photo of the glass and steel structure of Terminal 5 of five terminals,

The in flight food service was excellent in Business Class on BA’s 6 hour and 45 minutes flight.

It started with champagne and orange juice, then cocktails, and finally a three course dinner plus a breakfast about an hour before landing.

When we were seated we were served mimosas, then I ordered a Cointreau on ice for my cocktail. Suzette ordered tonic water.

For dinner we both ordered the same items, a lovely appetizer a smoked salmon roll wrapped around fish pate on a puddle of mayonnaise on the same small plate with a shrimp on a pile of shaved fennel and green apple salad. The appetizer was served with a second platter with three muffins, one white, one whole-wheat, and one chili joined together, a small ramekin of butter, and a fresh salad on a puddle of green goddess dressing, 

I drank few sips of an English champagne served with the appetizer that I found a bit sweet and not very bubbly. The appetizer was better than the entree, which was much more of a traditional British dish, beef cheeks with roasted and grilled vegetables. I found the grilled sections of fresh corn the most interesting part of the dish. The beef cheeks was shredded beef stewed in its own jus, but there was a generous portion of steamed carrot and baby broccoli plus a thin layer of baked mashed potatoes served on the beef.

The entree may have been disappointing but the Spanish Rioja served with it was excellent.

When I entree was cleared I ordered a cup of Earl Grey tea with milk and sugar and an extremely dense chocolate cake with slices of fresh pear baked in onna puddle of creme anglais that was the second best dish of the night that I ate with the final sips of Cointreau.

We then lay the seat in our individual cubicles flat that had a platform or leg rest that stretched to over 6 feet when flat and slept for several hours as the huge Airbus 360 bumped its way westward toward NY. Each seat is provided a thick blanket, a cotton dickie, and a pillow.

I unbuckled the over shoulder strap of my seat belt, covered myself with the blanket and dickie, and turned on my side and slept for several hours as I usually do on my left side. Amazing.

I awakened 1 hour and 45 minutes before landing and soon was served breakfast. I passed on the smash burger that Suzette was terrible, but enjoyed a cup of Earl Grey tea with milk with a chocolate chip muffin and a green salad with cubes of pressed watermelon and feta cheese. 

When we landed we felt refreshed at about 7:20 p.m. NYC or 11:20  London.

We taxied into the City to our small hotel at 147 Second Ave. and went to bed around 10:00.

I woke up at 4:00 to finish this blog, so I am still operating on European time, although I have had lots of sleep.

It is now 6:00 and I shall rest another 3 hours, so I may be adjusting to American time, also.

Three countries, three airports, 7700 steps. 

What a day and ready for a day in NYC.

Bon Appetit 

 

September 27, 2026 Breakfast - Latte and Pain au Chocolate Lunch - Leftover Linguine with clams. Dinner - PPI Lamb and vegetables with zucchini, tomatoes, and eggplant

September 27, 2026 Breakfast - Latte and Pain au Chocolate   Lunch - Leftover Linguine with clams. Dinner - PPI Lamb and vegetables with zucchini, tomatoes, and eggplant 

We woke up at 7:00 and got dressed and drove to Bandol for its weekly flea market along the quai. We shopped a while together and then I walked across the street to an outdoor cafe and ordered a cafe latte and a pain au chocolate. Suzette continued shopping and bought six lovely Deco silver plated knife stands in the shape of five different birds.

Then she joined me at the cafe and we ordered fresh squeezed orange juices.

As we walked back to the end of the flea market and our car, we saw a really funny watercolor of two French fishermen sailing into NY harbor that we bought.

We then returned to the villa and Suzette changed into her swim suit and walked to Portissol beach to swim. I changed and drove to the beach and we walked out to waist deep today and walked along at knee depth for 15 minutes.

We then returned to the villa and Suzette reheated the clam and truffle linguine fish stew and we made a lettuce and tomato salad with a shallot, mustard, mayonnaise and olive oil dressing. This was an amazing dish. We know how to cook what we like and the results are far better than most restaurant food, even in France because we have all the best ingredients that the restaurants have access to at the fresh food markets.

 We drank the Ray-Jane box wine with lunch and for our 5:00 cocktail.

After lunch we read and Suzette did a load of laundry and we packed for our return trip back to New Mexico.  We now have a total of 12 bottles of wine and olive oil plus tea towels, so we are fully packed with two suitcases and a duffle bag.

At 3:00 I ate the last cup of Bonne Marie chocolate mousse as I watched the seascape from the villa.

At 7:00 we began cooking dinner.  We cleaned out the fridge as best we could, using the leftover lamb and vegetable PPIs and adding 1/2 zucchini, some diced tomato, a French eggplant, two carrots, and a leek diced, that Suzette sautéed in olive oil.

I poured glasses from the chilled open bottle of St. Estephe Medoc red wine.

After dinner we watched Have I got News for You and ate an opera tart we bought yesterday and talked to Willy for a bit and Suzette went to bed at 10:30 and I stayed up to blog a bit longer.

It was another 4500 step day without counting the steps in the water.

Bob Appetit

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September 26, 2026 Breakfast - Croissant, Almond Croissant, and Yogurt with plums. Lunch - Ham Sandwich at Chateau Ott/Romasson. snack - Figs with goat cheese and honey and duck pate’ sandwiches, Dinner - La Gelys

September 26, 2026 Breakfast - Croissant, Almond Croissant, and Yogurt with plums. Lunch - Ham Sandwich at Chateau Ott/Romasson. snack - Figs with goat cheese and honey and duck pate’ sandwiches, Dinner - La Gelys 

Today we trekked north into the wine country of Bandol around Le Castelet again after a breakfast of warmed croissant and almond croissant and a bowl of yogurt and fresh yellow and green plums and a swim by Suzette at Portisolis Beach.

                                                   Sunrise

           

                                                 Breakfast

We first stopped at a health festival at Moulin de la Rogue winery where there were also health services offered on this Saturday such as yoga.

We went into the large tasting room with displays with technical data on the approximately fifty wines they produce. We tasted mainly a white and three roses, two of which won gold medals at the world wine competition in Brussels. We bought a bottle of one of the rose’ winners named Ardchets that we liked very much.

Since you should buy a bottle when you taste, we decided to expand our wine and olive oil collection for this trip to 14 bottles and asked for a six bottle carton to pack bottles in.

It was after 12:00 when then drove to Chateau Ott/Romasson on the other side of Le Castelet. Chateau Ott or should I say Roederer owns three vineyards in the area, 

Wikipedia states:

Domaines Ott is owned by the Champagne Louis Roederer company, which purchased a majority stake in 2004. 

Ownership* Details

• Majority Owner: Champagne Louis Roederer acquired the famed Provence wine estates in 2004.
• Family Involvement: Members of the founding Ott family, including Jean-François Ott, have stayed on to manage and direct winemaking operations across the estates.
• The Estates: The brand includes three distinct properties in France: Château de Selle, Clos Mireille, and Château Romassan.

We tasted whites, roses, and a red from each and finally an olive oil produced at Clos Mirabelle. Since we can buy Chateau Ott wines in the U.S. but not its excellent olive oil, we bought a bottle olive oil for 18€?

The tasting room closed at 1:00 but the attendant filled our glasses with the last of the bottle of red we tasted and we ate our ham sandwich and the lovely Nyon black olives we bought at Le Olivette Winery in the shade on the ancient patio of Chateau Romasson.

Then at 1:45 we drove to Chateau de la Noblesse that we visited in our first trip to Bandol 29 years ago. The daughter who is now the fifth generation of the family owning this estate, who is the proprietress and wine maker showed us to the ancient cave where we tasted their white, two roses, and three reds, a 2020, a 2021, and a 2022. All the reds were 95% Mourvèdre and 5% Grenache, the three reds tasted quite different. We liked the 2021 and bought a bottle and a 2023 rose. Then the daughter showed us to the bureau where the wines for sale were kept and let us taste their white balsamic vinegar made from Noblesse’s Mourvèdre grapes. It was fantastic, so we bought a bottle of it also. We asked the daughter to sign the label of each bottle as we had asked her father 29 years ago. Although small and not as modern, the wines of Noblesse are award winning wines also and its winery is rated 5.0. In fact the experience of visiting an old winery that remains unspifted up was really charming and helped us reminisce about our visit 29 years ago.

It was 2:45 when we drove back to the villa. We rested until 5:00, when Suzette made a snack of the four different fogs she bought at the market in St. Cyr two days ago cut open at the top and garnished with goat cheeses and honey. We opened the bottle of St. Estephe red we bought at the Intermarche several weeks ago and it was deliciously smooth. I also spread butter and duck pate on two slices of baguette and cut slices of pear..

The four different figs were slightly different in texture. We liked the creaminess of the larger dark purple fig, although the smaller two purple figs were interesting. Our least favorite was the large green fig, which is the kind we have in our yard. Suzette said she wanted to grow a dark red fig in our yard.

At 6:00 we dressed and walked down the staircase to the Center. Tonight was a music festival in Sanaray and we listened to the techno-rock music being played at the other end of the center near the parking lot as it permeated the entire downtown.

At 6:50 we arrived at the La Gelys for our 7:00 dinner reservation and were seated at the table Suzette had reserved several days ago. Sanaray was crowded this Saturday evening and the restaurant filled up quickly after 7:00. We split 6 Isgny oysters on the half shell with glasses of champagne.

 Then we ordered an appetizer of a truffle and mushroom tart with a ball of burrata and a small arugula salad that was interesting because you could see and taste the bits of black truffle mixed in with the warm sautéed mushrooms on a crisp tart round. The earthiness of the truffles and mushroom were in interesting flavor juxtaposition to the creamy cold burrata when combined as Suzette did.

We ordered glasses of a Bandol white for the truffle appetizer and risotto main course. Menus in France can be confusing to an American because the word for appetizer in French is “Entree”. And the French word for main course is “Plat”.

We decided to split the truffle appetizer and 1/2 grilled African lobster and two large shrimp with creamy Roquefort and Parmesan flavored risotto for main course/plat.

The decision to split the risotto turned out to be perfect. We were served a large bowl with a generous amount of risotto at the bottom and stacked on top were the grilled half lobster and two grilled large shrimp. I removed the tail meat from the lobster and diced it into 1 inch cubes and peeled and cubed the two shrimp and threw them into the risotto and Suzette mixed the meat into the risotto and we each served ourselves spoonful of the most delicious grilled seafood risotto we have ever eaten; a perfect ending to a wonderful trip.

Tonight was the full harvest moon, which made a particularly pretty evening sky over the marina .

Le Gelys is located at the end of the center and the marina near the staircase to our village, so we took a leisurely walk back up to our village as we listened to the music being played at the other end of the center as it reverberated off the rock cliff we were climbing.

We went to bed at 9:30, but I awakened to loud music playing in the condos below our village at 1:15 that continued until I finished this blog entry at 3:30 a.m., although at 2:45 the volume was reduced significantly.

We decided that we liked everything about this trip and if my health held up, we would try to rent this villa in May of next year for a return visit to Sanaray sur Mer and perhaps several days in the Luberon wine region staying in La Fontaine du Vaucluse.

Bon Appetit