Ten Friends In France: The Introduction

It all starts with Mario. This is him.

He turned 50 in May.

His wife Vicki decided they should do something special to celebrate. This is her in the white blouse.

Vicki likes to plan ahead, so she started planning the celebration -  over two years ago.

Since Mario knows everything (and we mean everything!) about French wines, but had never been to France, they decided to rectify that in his fiftieth year. They came up with the idea of visiting four wine regions, spending a week in each region. Then they decided to  finish off with a week in Paris, because ... well how can you spend a month in France and NOT go to Paris?

Of course, their plans included travelling with their kids, Tristan and Joy.
Here they are, behaving nicely for the camera.

And then they invited family and friends to come and join them for as much of the trip as they could. In the end, six friends said "I'm in!"

Alan and Michael are retired teachers and are able to go for the entire five weeks (lucky dogs!)

Maggie is going for the first two weeks, and Kate arrives the second week and stays with the group all the way to Paris. This is Kate on the left and Maggie beside her, with the rest of the family, minus Vicki ( who probably took the picture).

And finally, Dorcas and Michael will arrive for weeks three and four and will continue on to Paris, where Maggie will join the group - so all ten friends will finish off in Paris.

So this blog will be a living account of our adventures in wine-tasting, exploring, eating, laughing, hiking, biking, canoeing and did we mention wine-tasting?

We hope you enjoy our tales - and are jealous as hell!