We picked up two weary parents today. They had stayed on a bit longer in the Paris apartment and had museumed it to the max. Unfortunately, they never made it to the restaurant that I found for them via Cityvox called Le Baba Bourgeois, so it will have to wait until next time.
They did bring me back the knife that I had been lusting after from Ceccaldi
THANK YOU PARENTS!
Here are a few notes for travelling in France
Transportation:
1)Rent a car -- it will get you to places that are not served by trains
2)Buy or rent a GPS -- dealing with the french driving is stressful enough without worrying about the navigation
3)Rent through autoeurope
4)If returning to a different location, make sure they give you detailed instructions
5)Rent a diesel and you'll save a lot of money
Places to go:
Plus beaux villages de france, and just wander around
Places to stay:
Try Karen Brown for the generally pricier places and
Chambres d'hotes on the gites de france site for inexpensive accomodation
Times to go:
Fall, Winter, Spring, period.
We took the Paris shuttle into CDG this morning, which is a deal and a half at 38 euro for two people, door to door. We somehow managed to get the meekest French driver in the history of French motoring but got there on time. I bought a few more bottles of 2005 bourgognes in duty free and then it was boarding time. The flight was awful as usual. No leg room, no individual screens, no snacks, and the flight was late. The captain got on the PA and said that we were "Legerement en retard" -- lightly late. The contrast of such flowery language and the sight of hundreds of us crammed into uncomfortable seats like cattle made be chuckle a little.
--fin--
Trust our luck that the one full day that we have in paris is a national holiday. Almost nothing of interest was open, except for the markets. However, the morning light was beautiful and I left Chloe and Kenji to go buy some bread and fruits at the local covered market, which was just getting set up around 8:00 AM. 
I wandered around near Notre Dame for a while
and a furniture repairman let me take a photo of his shop.
on the way back to the market, I ran into Kenji and Chloe:
and then Kenji insisted that we go for another walk and take more pictures near le Notre Dame.
The park to the east of Notre Dame was now open and I eavesdropped on some drunk french guys (drunk at 8:00 AM!) trying to pick up on a crowd of American girls. "We just got off the plane!! tee hee!" they tittered.
I took this picture from le pont de l'Archeveche
and then Kenji and I headed back to the apartment for breakfast.
Shortly afterwards, Chloe and I ventured out again to go check out a restaurant near the Odeon metro called la Bastide Odeon, but we were waylaid by the market which was by now in full swing. We ended up buying a bright yellow and blue tablecloth, some excellent Tomme de Savoie, a big chunk of excellent Comte de montagne, and a little chunk of appenzeller, 
and last but not least, two warm baguettes, fresh from the oven.
We all had an early lunch, and Chloe and I set off again to see what la Bastide Odeon looked like. Along the way, we stumbled upon a storefront on la rue Racine which sold exquisite cutlery.
If you're okay with paying Laguiole prices for steak knives, these are just so much more beautiful, and basically the same price.
I subsequently found out that the knives are all hand made, and the somewhat Italian sounding name (Ceccaldi) is actually Corsican. The shop was originally opened in an atelier in the Southern Corsican town of Zoza.
After Chloe got tired of my pawing at the window and pathetic whimpering, she dragged me away towards the rue Racine. Surprise, surprise, la Bastide was also closed for the day, so Chloe and I dejectedly walked back towards the 5th past le Vieux Campeur (the climbing/camping/sport everything megastore near la Sorbonne). We decided it was time for some Berthillon ice cream... but it was closed. However, a place nearby sold Berthillon ice cream -- excellent of course, but somehow not the same.
We walked down by the river and watched the Parisians making picnics on the cobblestones and saw the french cops (or firemen? They flew by so fast that I couldn't tell) showboatingkeeping the Seine safe
As I was looking out over the water, I had the thought that in high winds, there might be enough room to kite there! I wonder how long you would get thrown in jail for that.
We headed back to the apartment and I took a picture of it from the outside:
while I was resting on the couch, I noticed this curious inscription on one of the rafters:
and I have no idea what they could signify... any thoughts? Anyone?
After packing, we rewarded ourselves with a few more Gauffre.
chloe: sucre, me: nutella.
Thinking that perhaps Ceccaldi would be open after lunch , we headed over towards rue racine again. Along the way, we found two amazing map stores on rue Condé, which were OPEN! Just kidding, they were closed too. One of them had this very cool engraving of the Seine:
We also passed this patisserie with a line out the door
And then headed for Ceccaldi again. Unfortunately, it wasn't just a lunch break, so after a little more coveting and squinting through the window
We headed back to the apartment and got ready for dinner at Chez Michel, a recommendation of my friend Dominic. The food -- Bretonnais -- was excellent. It started with tiny crustacean hors d'oeuvres and toothpicks with which to pry them out. This was more of game than a source of nutrition, because they are pretty hard to extricate and offer miniscule quantities of meat. Chloe and I had glorifed chevre chaud salads, which were excellent, and gail had a salad of some kind. Kenji, being Japanese, ordered the pickled anchovies, which I have to admit were excellent. Mom and I ordered the breton style cod, which was pretty unique: a bit stew-like with morsels of cod, potatos, and lots and lots of butter. Kenji had the same thing except with duck, and CZ had the pintade. I won the prize for the best dessert order with the Kouign Amann -- a Breton cake with just a touch of butter. Actually, if you so much as nudged it, a syrup of sugar and butter would leak out, and it tasted fantastic. The others went with more traditional fare, like a fromage blanc with fruit (gail and chloe) and some kind of buttery chocolate dessert, which Kenji decided would be a good idea to smear all over my Kouign Amann, despite Chloe and I simultaneously yelling "NOOOOOOOOO!". The meal was also entertaining because for whatever reason, there were almost no native French speakers, which resulted in all kinds of table hijinx. First, the wrong table was given to someone, then a Japanese party (left of Kenji, below) showed up and asked for their reservation for eight people at seven o'clock... and discovered that they had actually reserved a table for seven people at eight o'clock. An older american couple who spoke little snippets of french insisted on moving tables twice... And the maitre d' and her wait staff were by this time looking pretty stressed out. Just when things couldn''t get any worse, a painting fell off the wall and clocked the two people on the left on their heads before hitting the ground and shattering. I should point out that we were *easy* in comparison to all of the other tables, even though they had given us one of the worst tables in the house. All in all it was an excellent and thoroughly entertaining meal. We took a taxi back to the apartment and it was time to go to sleep. 
Today was a straight shot to Paris: around two and a half hours on the autoroute. But first things first: it was time to yell about not having a flushing toilet. I'll leave the specifics to Chloe's guest blog entry, but suffice it to say that she kicked ass.
As for the drive: The GPS brought us in via the peripherique and to an underground parking garage flawlessly; it really is worth its weight in gold. We had a quick lunch at a brasserie on blvd. St. Germain and then went to meet the contact from the apartment rental. Gail had found a small, but amazingly situated apartment on the rue Maitre Albert, which is a small but surprisingly loud street in the 5th. We pulled the car around, dropped off the luggage and then chloe and I headed for the gare montparnasse to drop off the car. This last part was a bit of a farce, since there are NO signs anywhere for where you are supposed to return the car. It turned out to be a parking garage a few blocks away from the actual train station. A hearty "screw you" to National for not giving us ANY information about returns. I did get to yell at one of the car rental guys and argue with him in french, which is always fun.
Anyway, the important point was that we returned the car in one piece, and we didn't have to drive it in Paris anymore! All in all, it really was a fantastic little car though:
excellent gas mileage, comfortable and good ergonomics. Why is it that we can't buy this car in the states again? By the end of the trip it had also become a bug graveyard. Let's have a moment of silence for all the bugs who gave their lives for our transportation:
Have fun cleaning those off, National! Don't even bother with a pressure washer -- you're going to need a putty knife and a wire brush.
We took the metro back to the 5th, but stopped along the way to buy some gauffres to improve our spirits after the stressful circling of montparnasse. A woman tried to do the old "Let me just look at the menu board, and then I'll slide into line in front of you" trick, but Chloe was having none of it. She's one tough cookie!
Since we had a feeling that things would be closed tomorrow, Chloe and I headed to rue de Rivoli to try to find here some maternity clothes. Here she is after a successful visit to Xsara. 
Next was Dehillerin
Where we could only really sumon the nerve to buy one of those cool silicone madeleine molds. I guess we'll have to find a recipe for madeleines now! I hemmed and hawed over a fancy mandoline, but decided that for 120 euros, I might as well buy a Cusinart. Dehillerin is so cool though.
From Dehillerin, we went to le Forum des Halles where chloe found some pants, and I found a few shirts and a new pair of pants. I tried to get some more minDV tapes for Kenji (he had taken an unprecedented FIVE tapes by this point), but the lines were way too long. Finally, with acheing feet we walked to Balzar to meet the parents for dinner.
Where gail and chloe had the poulet fermier (we used to have that in our cafeteria at the ESRF!), Kenji had the veal, and I had the lamb chops. For dessert, I had the tarte au citron, CZ had the tarte tatin, and kenji had the diabetic-friendly creme caramel. Gail was desserted out by this point.
This is a guest blog by Chloe. I will start with an abbreviated version of the drive from Collonges-La-Rouge to the town of Blere. While a GPS is a fine and useful technological advance, it is fraught with peril, particularly on the French backroads. Simply putting in the next stop in our itinerary, Le Cheval Blanc, in the town of Blere, gave a set of directions at first glance completely reasonable. However, the GPS seeks to find only the shortest distance between points and does not distinguish between a departmental or a national road. National roads in France are generally good, sometimes even multi lanes, and always paved. Departmental roads, however, suffer no such restrictions. While the route to Blere could be described as scenic, after 3 hours of scenic french country side the driver's (Max) patience was wearing rather thin. The quaint custom in small french towns of blocking all egress in favor of a brocante day (flea market fair type festival) did not make matters any better. Often there would be one road into and out of a town, and usually the one we needed to take. After I rerouted us back to the same blockaded town twice, Max threatened to stop driving, forcing me to drive and Gail to navigate. While Gail and I were successful in navigating and driving the last leg of the trip from the Chateau de Chenenceau to Blere, Gail became car sick from looking at the GPS. Needless to say, we were all quite grateful to arrive in Blere and the hotel, Le Cheval Blanc. (I should mention that the hotel was listed in Karen Brown's guide and as this was how we discovered Chateau de la Caze, we were confident of at least a pleasant night.) Upon arrival we learned that the highly recommended restaurant at the hotel was closed and furthermore that the doors would be locked soon, so under no circumstances were we to forget the digicode allowing us to enter and exit the building. (While many smaller hotels and gites give guests digicodes to the door, it is usually because the owner or staff person is sleeping in another room or having dinner, not because the hotel will be completely deserted from 7 in the evening until sometime the next morning. )
The seemingly friendly if harried propriataire led use up a narrow flight of stairs to our rooms on the second floor. The rooms were small, but clean and both had a shower and toilet so we were all quite content with that. After washing up we headed out into the town in search of food. As it was a Sunday, the square was preternaturally quiet in the way small french towns become on sundays and jour feries (bank holidays). All stores are closed as well as most restaurants, leaving a select few bars and cafes to cater to the tourists. We found a crowded pizza place down the road from the hotel. The restaurant was literally a mom and pop place, the woman doing all the serving and the man doing all the cooking for an unexpected crowd. The food was surprisingly good considering the mad crush of customers, although Gail made the mistake of sampling the house wine. Sometimes ordering a "pot" of wine (350ml of wine served in a recycled bottle) just isn't a good idea. And then it was back to the hotel for a hot shower and early bedtime...
Max and I stretched out debating who would take the first shower when there was a knock at the door. Gail wanted to know if our water was working. It was fine before we left, but upon our return, not a drop. So no cold water,no hot water, no functioning toilet, nothing. I naively called the front desk expecting a response only to discover it was deserted. After going down stairs and exploring the lobby and the kitchen (all equally deserted), we were at a loss. The only pleasure I had, since a nice hot shower was out of the question, was listening to the panicked pitter patter of feet on the stairs as the other hotel guests arrived back from dinner only to discover they had no water. Gail and Kenji checked throughout the night for water but to no avail. Max and I, more accustomed to not showering for extended periods of time, went to sleep. The next morning we woke to the wonder of restored running water and luxuriated in a long hot shower. We ate at the hotel, too tired from the ordeal of the previous evening to bother searching for an open cafe. Gail and I had the same idea that breakfast would probably be free due to our inconveniences of the night before, so we didn't balk at the 10 euro per person bread and tea. After packing up we were ready to check out and start our trek to Paris. Gail and I decided to handle the check out as the boys weren't as accustomed or invigorated by haggling over the check out bills. Haggling and bartering is best left to the tough girls from NYC (Gail) and just generally cranky women (me). The smiling propritaire asked us if we had a pleasant stay and did we have breakfast there. This surprised me a bit as I thought he would mention the lack of water and perhaps apologize for the inconvenience or at least acknowledge the issue. Well I told him that we had some problems, "oh you mean the water" he asked somewhat ingenuously. "Yes," I replied, "there was no running water, no toilet all night last night. We couldn't get a drink or shower." His response looking at my wet hair was "well you showered today, so it's ok then." I was momentarily at a loss and to buy time I translated for Gail. I remained calm and explained that I didn't think we should pay full price for the rooms because there was no water and one expects running water and a functioning toilet. I figured clarity with what we expected (i.e. a free breakfast at least, 10% off the rooms, something of that nature) would suffice. He then explained that the pump broke so it wasn't his fault. I (somewhat less calmly) explained that there was no one at the reception, the hotel had been deserted by staff all night, and the phones were disabled. After translating for Gail she took over and explained about the guest and hotel having a contract, and in that contract the guest expects certain things (i.e. working toilet) in exchange the hotel receives payment, etc etc etc. As she said this all in english he happily ignored her. I was about to give up under the weight of french logic (there is no "the customer is always right", only "the customer is usually wrong but is a necessary evil if one is running a hotel") when another guest arrived. He was calmly canceling his reservations for the next night and explaining how a non flushing toilet was disgusting and how they had to go to a bar down the road to use the facilities. He was controlled, cool, and articulate (ok french was his native language so sarcasm worked better for him than for me). This for some reason sent the propritaire over the edge and he told Gail and me to get out. This was fine with us as it meant getting out without paying (or at least we hoped it did). We both fled to the car and recounted our adventures in french customer service to the boys, vowing to write to Karen Brown and to scrutinize our credit card bills for the next few months.
We had a fairly long day of driving today; when I was planning the itinerary, we needed to find a way to get from Albi/Cordes up to Paris without having any killer driving days. Also, I knew Paris was not going to be fun in a car, so I decided to make a stop in Chateaux country, and Blere in particular. While giving us a few longish driving days, it made the next days drive to Paris quite easy. We had chosen Blere and the hotel Cheval Blanc based on the recommendation in the Karen Brown guide, and also because Chloe has not been to the Loire before, and I wanted her to see at least one of the castles!
We started the day with breakfast at the hotel in Collonges-la-Rouge. The breakfast was excellent, and the highlight was homemmade jams and preserves made from fruit from the property. It was served on a family heirloom: a beautiful farmers table whose only fault was being a bit low and bumping into your knees occasionally. In a funny turn of events, at the communal breakfast table it was discovered that one of the other couples had a daughter about to start an internship for KPFA in Berkeley! We gave them our contact info to help her find a place to stay when she gets here.
Chloe had noticed that there was an antique fair in a neighboring town so we headed there after breakfast and checking out. As usual, there were quite a few nice things, but our lack of transportation options limited what we could actually buy. Chloe found a cute little baby high chair:
And bought it in spite of my protestations.
From the antique fair, we started the long drive North. This turned out to be a little painful. The GPS, while excellent for navigating within cities, does not seem to have any information on the relative sizes of the "Departmental" roads, and routes you on very very small roads. Additionally, it being Sunday, there were more flea markets than you could shake a stick at. This wouldn't have bothered us had it not been for the fact that the towns would close down the center of town and the road that runs through it for the fair. This caused much hair pulling and driving in reverse on tiny roads.
We eventually got arrived in the Loire valley and headed for Chenonceau before it closed. It turns out that we would have done better to go later in the day (it's open wuite late), because the castle was absolutely thronged and was not much fun to visit. The highlight of the self guided tour for me was the cool kitchen in the "basement" (in the piers of the castle in the river Cher).
look at this stove!
a few other pictures:
Kenji and Gail from above
kayaking the moat
the cold shoulder
and of course the beautiful castle itself
Chloe in the gardens
me in the gardens
It also rained briefly
and then we headed for Blere and checked into the Cheval Blanc. Things were pretty quiet in town, it being a Sunday on a long weekend but we had a decent pizza dinner at a restaurant around the corner. Unfortunately, the water was off when we got back to the hotel, which meant no showers (annoying), no drinking water (also annoying) and no flushing toilets (cause for rebellion). I was so tired from the drive that I fell asleep immediately, but was woken up at various points later on in the evening by the noises of other hotel guests trying to turn the water back on. You see, no one was at the front desk, and the hotel phones stopped working as well. Very annoying.
We decided to get another late start today and stay in Cordes until right before checkout time (Much to the chagrin of the hotel's front desk). The breakfast room at the Hotel has a beautiful view North towards Bournazel and is a great way to start the day.
We wandered around for a while,
saw a house for sale:
and went into the Laguiole shop, but the prices seemed a little steep.
Heres kenji in front of an expensive foie gras shop where chloe bought some delicious caramels (don't worry, they weren't foie gras flavored).
I wandered down through the western gate and watched as cars barely made it through
And then headed back towards the hotel.
We navigated out of Cordes without any collisions with gates or pedestrians or other cars and headed North. I had wanted to see the town of Cirq-la-Popie, but the GPS couldn't find it, and I didn't want to overdo things since we had a long way to go. Instead, we went to a town called Najac
Where we walked around for a bit
and then had lunch in the main square. Kenji and I somewhat ill-advisedly ordered a lunch menu with beef as the main course. The lesson to be learned here is to never order beef dishes that cost less than 9 euro. The steaks looked great, so Kenji and I dug in and cut ourselves big chunks. Twenty or thirty seconds later we each looked at eachother still chewing like cows and almost burst out laughing. The steaks were as tough as old tires, and our only hope for chewing them was to cut them into thin little strips.
Najac appears to be a popular vacation spot for the British, since we heard a lot of English spoken (from inside houses) and saw some very un-french nameplates (like "Adams") on doors. It was a charming town and my parents are considering renting a gite there for a month next year. Interestingly, you can buy a beautifully restored farmhouse with land there for ~250,000 euro. This seems like a much better deal to me than a shoebox in Berkeley for $800,000, but maybe thats just me.
From Najac, we drove to the town of Turenne. Kenji impressed all of us by walking not only up to the top of the citadel, but to the very top of the tower (with the flag).
To save Kenji from the long walk down, chloe and I sprinted down the hill to get the car. On the way up we had seen a store that was selling a regional specialty: a walnut cake. Neither chloe nor I can resist things like this so we bought one, and it turned out to be delicious. Here is a recipe that I found for it:
Préparation 20 mn cuisson 45 mn.
3 oeufs, 250 g de sucre, 125 g dc beurre + 20 g pour le moule, 25 cl de tait, 250 g de farine + 10 g pour le Moule.
too g de cerneaux de noix, 12 cerneaux de noix pour le décor, 1 paquet de levure, 2 paquets de sucre vanillé.
Réduire te beurre en pommade, incorporer le sucre et les jaunes un par un, ajouter ta farine et la levure, le lait et le sucre vanillé, bien travailler le tout.
Incorporer délicatement les blancs en neige, et les cerneaux de noix grossièrement hachés.
Verser l'appareil dans un moule beurré et fariné, cuire à four moyen pendant 45 mn. Décorer avec les cerneaux de noix.
We were all set to drive up and pick Kenji up when we saw the dreaded sign: Entree interdit "Sauf Riverains" : locals only. However, we had no choice and broke the law to drive up to the top. Oh well, I doubt that was the first time a traffic law was broken in France!
From Turenne, we headed to our final destination: Collonges-la-Rouge. I had found this town on the "plus beaux villages de france" web site, and the hotel on gites-de-france.fr, so we really had no idea what it was going to be like. The town turned out to be incredibly picturesque: ancient steeples and spires all made out of red sandstone bricks, small walkways and charming stores. 
It's true that the town is a bit touristy, but not overly so. The hotel turned out to be one of the best of the trip. Here are our rooms:
After checking in, we looked around in the town 
and I found a place which makes knives by hand in the town: Le Couteau de Correze. My friends know that I'm a little knife crazy -- it's a Japanese thing. I was totally uninterested in french or european knives until we stumbled on Laguiole a few years ago, when I bought myself and Chloe two exquisite folding pocket knives from the Forge de Laguiole. The Correze knives are in my opinion just as nice as the Laguiole knives, but a lot less expensive. Before the trip I had priced Laguiole steak knives in the US because I wanted a set of six. However, I didn't really want to spend $300! So I was happy to find a beautiful set of steak knives at this store, with olivewood handles for just over $100 
Chloe also bought me a mystery birthday present there, which she has claimed is a "Spife" -- like a spork, but a spoon-knife. I hope she's joking.
The town emptied of people by 6 pm, which coincided well with some excellent light (this one was actually taken a bit earlier):
We had dinner at an informal place down the street... the best parts of the meal were my foie gras (a specialty of the region) and a dessert that I am forgetting the name of.
