King of my Castle

We had a short (300 ks) drive to get to the city of Rochegude. Here will be our hotel for the next 4 days. As we pulled up to our temporary home, Kenny and I just stood there in amazement. We had arrived at a Castle converted into a hotel. It only had about 25 or so rooms a small courtyard. If my memory serves me correctly most of it was built in the 13th century but some of it had been added as late as the 15th century. Cool factor was high. Only a moat surrounding the place would have made it over the top cool.
That afternoon after a Mark, Dan, Thom Weisel, Thom’s wife, Thom’s oldest son and Kenny did a short ride. After that we had lunch and watched some tour live on TV. The fun factor was improved when Mark made periodic calls to Johan in the team car to get details of what the team had planed as we watched the race unfold simultaneously. Too cool!!!! OLN is relatively new for the US fans but most stages get about the last 3 plus hours of racing live on French TV. That is normal here and has been so for a long time. Some stages are shown start to finish. Can you imagine 5 plus hours of TV time taken up by cycling coverage in the US. Not for a while I’d say.
Dinner was at another castle/winery/restaurant about 30 minutes away. We ate outside and had dinner while having a view of the mountains and the lush winery/vinyards. Thom loves wine and It did not take much to twist my arm into having a glass or two or three or four with our great dinner. For dinner I chose Pigeon a la Lance. True story. That is how it was listed on the menu. Pigeon a la Lance actually referred to some mountains just west of the castle where the pigeons came from. Quel incroyable vue! What an incredible view!
After taking in our Castle of a hotel and then followed by dinner at another castle, I feel like the King of my own castle. At least for a little while.