L’Abbaye Notre-Dame-de-Sénanque in Provence is home to an active Cistercian community that is known for its 12th century monastery and surrounding lush rolling fields of lavender. The Senaque Abbey was occupied by monks of the Cisterian order in 1148 and they thrived for many centuries thereafter. In 1544, the abbey was targeted by revolting Vaudois heretics when the Religious Wars erupted, and during this time, the monks were hanged and much of the abbey was destroyed. The abbey struggled to recover over the next three centuries until the Revolution.

In 1986 the abbay was again restored and repopulated and is an active monastery. Today, you can take a guided tour of the abbey or even attend their masses open to the public. Also available at the abbey to purchase are lavender products (essential oil of pure lavender, a balm made with eucalyptus, thyme, rosemary, sage and lavender), honey and an herbal liqueur made by the monks called Sénacole.

If you’re feeling particularly adventurous in a calm, silent, inner spiritual kind of way, you can actually spend a day living like a monk with the monks for 28 euros. I imagine that’s a day full of praying and quiet monk stuff. (Make requests by emailing: frere.hotelier@senanque.fr)

The abbey is only 4 kilometers from the village of Gordes, so be sure to make a stopover if you’re nearby.

L’Abbaye de Sénanque (Senanque Abbey)
84220 Gordes, France
04 90 72 05 72
Hours: 10am-Noon, 2-6pm -Mon – Sat; 2-6pm Sundays (March to October); Mon-Fri. 2-5pm; Sat/Sun 2-6pm (November to February)
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Lulu Lundi* features Lulu, our Boston Terrier, somewhere in France every Monday.

More doggy goodness in France for Weekend Dog Blogging. It’s hard to see it in the photo but this dog is soaking wet after having taken a swim in the nearby fountain. I found it thoughtful of him to wait at the door outside this bar.

This isn’t what it sounds like. I mean, yes there is wine here, and wine tasting and drinking, and in fact this “un-conference” takes place at a winery in Burgundy – but it really isn’t about wine. Though. If you do like wine, you might want to come to this event. Ok, yes it IS about wine but the main purpose of WineCamp is a bit more geeky. Geeky in a cool save the world passionate tech drinking wine kind of way.

From last May’s Wine Camp in Calaveras County, California, this time it moves across the water to beautiful Burgundy France. Here’s how the WineCamp people describe what it is:

What is WineCamp?

WineCamp is an ad-hoc un-conference, set in wine country. It is born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment. Its goal is to bring together the innovators of the tech worlds with the innovators of the npo world to discuss solutions that help build community, motivate members, and ease collaboration based on existing, easily-accessible and open-source tools. There are no ‘attendees’ at WineCamp, only participants. Everyone at WineCamp sets the agenda, presents, leads or gets involved in discussions and creates together.

WineCamp France
Where: Chambolle-Musigny, Bourgogne (Burgundy), France
When: September 22 — 24, 2006

More Information and Contacts
Site: Wine Camp France
Wiki: WineCamp France Wiki (English)
Wiki: Wine Camp France Wiki (French)

Organizer: Gregoire Japiot, greg@winecampfrance.com
Dijon, Burgundy, FRANCE – Tel: +33 (0)6 62 80 11 28

Note: WineCamp will be in English and French with translators.

Tags: travel, france, french, wine, bourgogne, burgundy, winecamp, Chambolle-Musigny, unconference

Accommodations in France doesn’t necessarily have to involve hotels, in fact, all over France, especially in and around small villages and remote countrysides, hotels are simply not available. More common types of accommodations in this case would be: Gîtes – which are great alternatives to hotels. Some gîtes are self-catering, completely furnished and self-contained. (usually an apartment, chalet (in the mountains) cottage or renovated castles, villas or converted farmhouses and barns). Others are less independent where you rent a room inside someone’s house and can have meals with them usually included in the price of the room. Owners of the gites are required to live nearby. Note: Some gîtes require that you provide your own sheets and towels, though that varies from gîte to gîte, as does quality and prices. Check first before booking.

The number of gîtes isn’t known (it would be impossible to know) but there are 42,000 gites registered with an organization called, “Gites de France.” There are probably tens of thousands of others that are not registered and are excellent places to stay, just harder to find. Gîtes de France is a privately owned company that charges gîtes to be registered but it is not required, i.e., gite owners do not have to (by law) register to this organization. I actually thought Gîtes de France was an official government thing because it sounds like it’s a federation or state operated entity. Gîtes registered with this company display the omnipresent green sign (you see these practically everywhere where there’s a gîte). If you own a gîte and pay to register with them, they visit your gite, rate it, register it and give you the green label gîte sign. It’s a sort of Michelin Guide but for Gîtes.

Chambres d’hôtes in France is a type of gîte and very much resembles B&B style accommodations found in English speaking countries. You basically rent a room in someone’s home and they usually provide breakfast. If they are also a Table d’hôtes, they will offer other meals.

An interesting note here is that until recently in Paris, there were no “official” chambres d’hôtes because they were illegal (the hotels lobbied strongly against them with the rationale that introducing chambres d’hotes would take business away from Paris hotels and threaten them with too much competition.) Since 2005, the government has removed that law and now you can find chambres d’hôtes all over Paris. This is a unique alternative to staying in a hotel because it will give you an opportunity to live with real Parisians. (If that sounds good to you.) You will be able to get a glimpse of how they live and get local insider tips; you’ll have an opportunity to practice your French, and probably have a different and more personal kind of experience in the City of Light than if you stayed in a hotel. (Plus you’ll pay less as it’s usually comparable to budget hotel costs, if not much cheaper). Note: Many non-French chambres d’hôtes owners are springing up all over France and some of them do not speak French. This may or may not matter to you. Just an FYI.

Some Sites:

Gîtes and Chambres d’hôtes in France
Chambre-hotes
Likhom
France-Gites
Gîtes and Chambres d’hôtes in Paris
France-Pittoresque
Chambres hotes Paris
Paris France Gites

These are just a few general sites but if you do your own specific search for a gîte in a chateau, ferme or villa and you indicate the region in your search query, you’re bound to find some amazing individual gites with their own sites.

Lastly, if you know of any gites or chambres d’hotes that are worthy of mentioning, please let me know or leave a comment. Thanks.

If you are not a French citizen but are a legal resident of France and posses a valid carte de séjour (French resident ID card), you are eligible to vote in France. I found that out a little too late, so I didn’t register to vote and will not be able to participate in the 2007 Presidential Elections. Doh! My bad for not doing my homework early. It is something that would’ve been great for the experience, I think. Of course, I have no idea who’d I’d vote for. I just want to see how it’s done.

Me: “Did you vote in the last presidential elections?”

SO: “Yeah.”

Me: “How does it work? I mean, what is the process? I’m just curious about how different voting it is in France compared to voting in the U.S.”

SO: “You are assigned a place to vote, which is usually a mayor’s office or some salle de fete community center in a town. Once you arrive you’ll see several stacks of cards; each stack represents a candidate. Voters take one card each then proceed to a curtained booth where you have to put your chosen candidate’s card in an envelope. Then, you exit the booth with your sealed envelope, approach the ballot box, which is guarded by someone who’s hand is covering the opening to the ballot box. He/she allows you to insert your envelope into the box then immediately covers the opening again. Then he/she announces out loud, ‘Mr. So-and-so has voted!’ That’s it! Then you leave.”

Me: “So you take one card of each knowing you will only put one into an envelope? Oh, I get it. So people can’t see who you’re voting for. Um. Why can’t they just put the stacks into the booths? Do they just leave the unwanted cards they just picked up in the booth?”

SO: “Yeah, it’s a mess in the booths with cards scattered everywhere usually later in the day. I guess instead of taking a card outside you can look for one inside the booth. Oh, you used to be able to have the option to “voter blanc,” (vote white) which is voting for no one and sealing an empty envelope.”

Me: “Everything sounds so medieval if not very wasteful. Isn’t this process computerized yet? And if you voted white, meaning voting for no one, why bother to go vote at all?”

SO: “I think it’s computerized in the larger cities where you simply press a button with your candidate.”

Me: “Awwww. I was liking the idea of handing in an empty envelope.”

SO: “Regarding the white vote, it did make a difference if you voted white versus not voting at all. There were 2 million white votes in the 2002 elections! The white vote made sense because it considered the final percentage of total votes and the winning candidate still must have the majority of votes of the totality. The white vote is also regarded as a statement made by the voter, a chance for the voter to express his opinion. I think the white vote is in the process of being reinstated into the law.”

Me: “Do you have other things to vote for like laws or for people in parliament or do you just vote for president?”

SO: “Nope. Just the Prez and that’s all!”

Voting in France always takes place on a Sunday. The first round for the 2007 Presidential Elections will be Sunday, April 22, 2007. They will then take the top two candidates from the first round and have a second round runoff on May 6, 2007. The only time a second round is not necessary is when a candidate gains more than 50% of the votes. That has never happened within this system of voting in France (since the new election laws of 1962).

Tags: france, french, presidential+elections+2007, voting,