The Computer finds a hotel!

After the luxury and unique comforts of St Maxime we were managing our own expectations about our next stop, L’Auberge du Tavel, especially as the computer chose it rather than us! Struggling with a dodgy wifi in Cabris, we thought we were booking a hotel in Chateauneuf du Pape but somehow we’d booked this one instead. Since it was in the right area we decided to leave it and see what the computer choice was like – and the computer chose well!
A tiny place with just a few rooms in Tavel village, famous for its rose wine, of which we managed to try several during our stay, each room was decorated differently – ours was red and orange with a large window looking over the vineyards and absolutely delightful. We had a bath and a shower, a fridge (handy for the tiny bottles of sparkling for our aperitif) and dressing gowns (in orange to match the room). Breakfast was included so we enjoyed the fresh bread in the morning and the food was quite amazing and very reasonably priced. On the last night we let them decide the menu for us and had quite a feast – a fish salad, warm parsley tart with poached snails, monkfish ‘lollipops’, guinea fowl, mandarin granite and a sort of crumble and custard made from speculoos biscuits (they knew John well) as well as 3 types of cheese (chevre, vache and brebis) each written on a small stone next to the cheese so that we knew! On Wednesday night all the staff had a night off so we ate at a little restaurant in the village itself.
The first day the Mistral was blowing so although it was incredibly bright and clear it was far too windy for the pool but by Friday it had got warm and sunny again so we spent the afternoon by the pool by ourselves so it was like having a private pool. The staff were very friendly and it was truly a delightful place. The guests were a mix of French, German and Dutch. Although it felt like the middle of nowhere we were actually only a few minutes from an autoroute interchange so it presumably makes a good stopping off point it you were driving up from Spain or the far South West.
Perhaps we’ll allow the computer to choose hotels again!