WOW!

Love these views over the valley. Seems like very high spot has castle. Those were the days!

Jill-wow! We loved reading about your May 20 trip and the recollections from your being in that area about 20 years ago! You are a very good descriptive writer! We hope you stay safe and continue to have fun! Let us know if there’s anything we can do for you back here!

Jill and Dave, seeing how we’ll be taking care of your Châteauneuf-du-Pape until your return, feel free to have your wines sent to us and we’ll happily take care of them for you.

Glad I could help.

Looks more like a walking path.

Thank you for this post, Jill! Ironically I was at a winery two days ago with a sole owner, vintner, etc that hand picks grapes but sends them to Germany for crushing and bottling. He also has a cave which has become the “eating room” for everyone and is presently building a new facility on the other side of his property. It is so refreshing to learn people still do this the “old way”..fyi..wijngaard domaine les damianes, in Sint-oedenrode, Netherlands .

I enjoyed your description of your ‘discussions’ with Dave. I think you could replace his and your name with ours. 😂 We sometimes call ourselves Mrs and Mr Bickerson. This definitely helps defuse a more heated discussion.

Good luck with your knee.

WOW!

Dodie again. I looked it up. E is elevation. While you rest, raise the affected joint on a pillow.

Dodie writing. So sorry to hear about your knee/ankle issues. I had similar knee pain until my bilateral replacements. Due to bone on bone arthritis. My ankle still occasionally causes aches and pains. When at its worst I discovered the miracle of supportive knee and/or ankle braces. They really do help, by preventing sudden movements that put stress on the ligaments that hold the joint stable. The pull on type is best, although stretchy wrapping helps in a pinch. On a Camino route I bet you could find something, probably in a pharmacy? Good luck, and rest the joint whenever you can. RICE-rest, ice, compression, and e(damn, I forget what e stands for).

This is Dave, Jill’s tech support, replying. Technically, we’re not casting at all. I have a HDMI to USB cable that I attach to my phone or tablet (both are Android and I have no experience with Apple in this matter) and I attach the HDMI side to the TV, assuming I have access to the TV’s HDMI port. Using the TV’s remote, I select HDMI as the source and then it mirrors the display on the TV from my device. For Android at least, you cannot Mirror Cast while using a VPN tunnel to spoof your location. We watch the Giro on Flo Sports which broadcasts the Giro in English, but only for Canadians. I use Tunnel Bear as my VPN and tell it to say I’m in Canada. That’s good enough for Flo Sports and we can view the content on the tablet and then the cable to the tv allows us to cast - but we would not be able to cast otherwise.

This technique works only occasionally for streaming services such as Prime Video, Netflix and Peacock. We do not subscribe to HBO, and Max so are unsure of their rules. These services have pretty strict copyright protections on their content, and unless it’s licensed for broadcast in Europe, they will not stream it, even if I’m using a VPN tunnel to say I’m in the US. They’re pretty sophisticated about figuring out if you’re trying to use a VPN.

Netflix has a function that will show you which content is available for your location and that will be a subset of its catalog. Same holds for Prime and Peacock. I know this doesn’t actually help you know what you can see where. It’s a bit of a crap shoot, I’m afraid and we’re often frustrated.

From Jill: So, if you are willing to accept only watching on your tablet you may be able to get some Amazon and Netflix films as Dave reported above, but many are blocked due to copyright. As to casting, without the fancy cable Dave described that attaches to the tv we would not be able to cast. He is a tech guy so this is feasible option but I could never figure it out myself, so if you guys are not techies the cable option probably isn’t feasible. Sometimes it takes him 20 minutes to find the right port on the back of the tv and then there is still some fussing around!
We are on our way to Ireland and then the UK and the Tour de France will be on when we are in the UK. Not sure what we will do since Peacock has the rights to broadcast that and we expect it can figure out we are actually in the US and will block us, even with the VPN. We may cave and just subscribe to a British streaming service for the duration.
Sorry this ins’t a more encouraging response. It’s pretty crazy there is not a universal way to deal with this stuff. Good luck.

Can you elaborate more on the casting to the TV? When we were in Spain in 2023, Max we couldn't cast at all, and Amazon would let us, for a charge per movie, so we didn't try. Perhaps Netflix will work this year because their advertising says 'anytime, anywhere'.

We know how to cast - we are just wondering what you are able to cast. We leave in 10 days for Barcelona. Jacinto is debating leaving his iPad at home, if it isn't any good to watch movies.

Grampies alert: “only”an 8 jammer..and tiny, at that

Laminated menu…and FOUR choices for the courses. Very upscale!