Le Petit Zinc...yum

Speaking of restaurants, Tom's brother/sister-in-law recommended Le Petit Zinc, and it was fantastic. We had a fruit de mer plateau bigger than your pillow, and tasted like the sea (as it should). I'll have to find the review that Tom sent me...

Wine hunting

Interesting article about Loire valley & Rhone wine hunting and restaurants.

Provence Markets

Here's the schedule of markets in Provence.

Cooking schools

Please add to this post with cooking school suggestions/links.
Did you want a class in Paris or Provence? For a day or the week?
Here's a primer from Food & Wine: http://www.foodandwine.com/articles/french-cooking-school-vacations
This dude does day classes/tours and has a handy "what's fresh when" calender that is making my mouth water thinking about it. http://www.cuisineprovencale.com/calendar.html

Bookmark this: currency converter

Trust me: you'll want this currency converter bookmarked while you search rentals...

Rental agencies

Please add to this post as you find a good rental agency.  I rented from Tim at Just Provence. We all know how that went in 2008, although I don't fault him.  He has nice properties, which is why my folks and I rented from him again in 2011. Great find!  Tom and Cathy found their rental through Holiday Lettings.  There's also VRBO, aka Vacation Rentals By Owner.

Another article about Provence

The Vaucluse is the region known as Provence.
http://www.travelandleisure.com/articles/the-secrets-of-provence

Carpentras: Gateway to Provence

In 2008, I was supposed to stay in a tiny hilltop village called Le Barroux in a little apartment next door to chanting monks, but I ended up in a 3 story mas in Carpentras. It ended up being perfect: Carpentras is the gateway town to all the other areas in Provence, with a large market and plenty of services. Here's an article about how Carpentras is also the gateway to the Rhone wineries.

School vacations end 9/5

OK, step one: avoid all the congestion of French families on vacation. Remember that the French do DD/MM/YY when writing dates. So 5/9/11 is 9/5/11 to us Americans.
http://www.provence-hideaway.com/120-1.html