Aigueze, le Tarn

A minor disaster was averted by Chloe this morning: Kenji had forgotten his backpack in a museum in Lyon yesterday. This would not normally be such a big problem, except for the fact that the museum was closed to the public today and we were leaving for Saint Enimie! Happily, Chloe convinced the museum to let us come pick up the backpack though. I stayed at the hotel to pack which she and Kenji went to the museum, but from what she told us afterwards, it wasn't the most straightforward of experiences!

It was just before ten when we finally got out of Lyon, thanks to the GPS, and headed south on the autoroute. We stopped en route for some excellent (I'm not kidding!) food at the Montelimar "aire" and then exited shortly thereafter to departmental roads which took us to the ancient city of Aigueze.

I had found Aigueze on the list of the most beautiful villages of France, and Aigueze did not disappoint


From aigueze, we headed to Montclus, with its 13th century Chateau (not restored or open unfortunately)


and then headed out on the web of small and winding roads towards the Tarn. Along the way we also stopped at the stunning Chateau Des Portes overlooking steep valleys on each side




My dad had told me about a small town which they had stopped at when they drove up from Italy to Paris during his Sabattical in the late 70's. I was just a young'un at the time, so I have no memory at all of it except for some blurry images of mountain passes and an embankment of snow. Kenji, however remembered it vividly and also remembered the name of the town: Florac. As it turned out, Florac was quite close to where we were going in the Tarn, so we did a small detour and checked out the town


The drive from Florac to our final destination (Saint Enimie) is spectacular -- passing one beautiful town

after another

and a surprising number of privately owned chateaux. After another half hour of cliffside driving we arrived at the Chambre d'Hotes that I had found on the gites-de-france web site (Barbier La Jasse). It had a nice view of the old city

and a frog which periodically jumps in from the second story garden, much to my parents dismay.

After a pizza dinner, we walked around the town, cast contemptuous looks at Le Hotel les Deux Sourcesand were surprised to see schools of HUGE trout near the bridge pilings. I guess the Tarn isn't completely fished out!

Grenoble

Today we headed off to Grenoble to see some old friends of ours, but not before enduring more crappy Lyon driving and my forgetting something at the hotel. While I was waiting, I saw a procession of Spanish musicians heading off to the conservatory

We had lunch at an interesting place in St. Egreve with tables outside under Cherry trees. It was really great to see everyone again, but a little bittersweet since Chloe and I both miss France and our friends quite a bit.


Given a stable long term opportunity, I'm not sure we wouldn't move back.

After lunch, we headed back to Lyon for our 8:00 dinner reservations at le Caro de Lyon; one of our favorite restaurants anywhere. Dinner was superb as usual





We all had the 30 euro menu which included scallops and a pine nut/spinach pastry as well as various delicious desserts.

Les Puces

After an early start, we realized that 1)we were almost out of diesel and 2)It was Sunday, which meant that most of the gas stations were closed and 3)It was election day, so even fewer people would be out and about. Happily, we found an open service station after driving to two "24 hour" stations which did not accept VISA. Along the way, we saw a camel!


In researching the trip, we saw that one of the biggest antique fairs in France happens at a place in Lyon (Villeurbanne, actually)every Sunday, so naturally we had to go check it out. Unfortunately, the trip down to Lyon took a little longer than expected, and as usual driving in Lyon is a total nightmare, so we ended up arriving pretty much just as things were getting packed up.

The first thing that you are greeted with upon entering the area is a huge asphalt lot, sectioned off into little encampments of people selling mostly junk.

However, on one side of the lot there is an enclosed building

which is also sectioned off into small stores separated by walls made of wooden slats. Inside, there were several places with really nice things. We saw a beautiful farm table for WAY too much money (2800 euro)

and some other nice things




Kenji bought a Chinese jar, of all things. Here he is on his way back from his purchase:

We still hadn't had lunch by this point, so we made the mistake of eating lunch at the cafe in the main building. The saucisse frites plates I ordered had bright red sausages!

We headed back to the hotel and rested for a while, since we were still a little jet lagged from the flight. Gail had found a flyer which advertised an "Antiques City" north of where we were, so after a little more resting we took the tram to the Cite des Antiquaires. The Cite is an entire building full of shops holding very high end antiques, with the added advantage of being able to ship internationally. Its in an ugly, hoodlum infested part of Lyon but well worth the visit.

There were two farm tables that we were particularly interested in:



at 1500 and 1800 euro, but the shipping charges would double this price, so we gave up on the idea.

We were originally going to walk back to the hotel but decided to tram it after seeing the packs of criminals. On the train, Chloe and I overheard an amusing conversation between a girl and her boyfriend in which she demanded to know why he niqued cette meuf while he was in angleterre. I'll leave it to you to figure out what that means.


After returning to the hotel, we headed out to the quai to look for food

but Chloe and I quickly ran out of energy, and settled for bread, epoisses and watching the presidential election coverage on TV. Segolene Royal and Sarkozy were the candidates selected by La France for the final election in two weeks. Amazingly, voter turnout was 84.6 %. Compare that with the past US voter turnouts for federal elections:

2004 55.3 %
2002 37.0 %
2000 51.3 %
1998 36.4 %

La Bourgogne

After a large breakfast at the hotel, we headed out towards wine country but stopped in Avallon first after seeing several signs for antique shops. One shop had a lot of nice things and my parents ended up buying some pillowcases and a fancy carafe for water. Kenji impressed the propetier by rummaging through a box full of glass stoppers and finding the perfect stopper for the carafe... and proceeded to brag about it for the next twenty minutes. There was a picture of a beautiful cherry table for not too much money, but sadly it wasn't in her shop. I talked to the owner about the vote tomorrow, and she said that although economically ("because of all this", she said with a wave of her hand towards her shop) it would make sense for her to vote for Sarkozy, she was too worried that he was like a French Bush, and was probably going to vote for Segolene Royal or Bayrou instead.

On the autoroute, we saw signs for a town called Saumur-en-Auxois so we exited the freeway and reprogrammed the GPS. As we descended a hill, we were greeted with the impressive site of a huge turret and an ancient citadel. The turret itself has a deep and troubling looking crack running down the side of it. After finding a parking spot, we walked under the main arched entrance

and bought some of the excellent local cheese called Epoisses, some baguettes, and another local specialty: a chocolate cake



The church looked like most of the other churches to me, but this one had a big net set up to catch the flaking plaster and bird crap before it landed on the heads of the churchgoers

Personally, I would take care of that with spike strips or a pellet gun, but I dunno, maybe shedding blood in a church is frowned upon?

We continued on towards some of the turrets

had lunch on the wall


and then headed back to the car.

We started heading for wine country and stopped to take pictures of the mustard fields. Chloe and I both managed to walk through stinging nettles, which we felt for the next hour or so!



Next came the famous town of Gevrey-Chambertin, which I don't really want to talk about because the wine bottle that we bought there -- the most expensive that we had ever bought, and the ONLY Grand Cru that we have ever bought -- was stolen at our Hotel in Lyon. The town was great, but it still pains me to talk about it.

We drove through other famous villages -- Vosne, Nuits... And stopped at the Andre Zilltener winery, where we checked out their cellars and then did a wine tasting.


The rather extensive tasting left my mom and I drunk, and we ened up buying three bottles of wine. Interestingly, the woman running the tasting said that most 2003 bourgognes will be ready much earlier than other years because of the extreme heat. I've subsequently heard a different story from my friend Franck though. His version, which he gets from a bourgogne wine maker, is that in 2003, the big name vineyards were the only ones who had the clout to schedule harvests before the harvesters went on vacation. These grapes were harvested at high temperature, so the fermentation began quickly and strongly, making many 2003 wines "ready" much earlier than other years. The other vineyards had to wait for their harvests, and in between the first harvest and the second there were major rain storms, which meant that the grapes were harvested at a lower temperature.

From Chambolle, we headed to Beaune to look at the hospice





Despite some of the drawbacks of living in the 21st century: global warming, long commutes, unaffordable housing, I'm SO glad I'm living in a time where these kinds of surgical implements aren't used:

No, those arent for woodworking: those are BONE SAWS and HAND DRILLS!
In case you were wondering, this is where you drill a hole in a head

presumably to drain the humors. yeek!
They did have some very cool spigots though

mmmmm.. vomiting goose water!

The crew:


The apothecary was very cool:


again, even though that is a charming font, I'll take the poison control center and the stomach pump rather than the colle de poison, please.

there was also some kind of fancy tapestry


From Beaune, we headed to Autun, but quickly realized that we were going to be pretty late for our dinner reservation at at Bib Gourmand restaurant called "Les Chenets". After a high speed and admittedly nauseating dash back to Vezelay to get changed, we had a wonderful dinner,



and spent the time in between dishes trying to figure out which of our fellow patrons owned the $120000 Benz out front.

WHEW!