Upon Stephane's advice, we first headed for Toucy, who's principal claim to fame is it being Larousse's birthplace. The town is actually very quaint. We walked around it a bit, tried unsuccessfully to find the entrance to the ancient church and decided that if we were here already, we may as well go see the birthplace of France's most famous dictionary compiler. After about 10 minutes walking we could see we really weren't getting anywhere interesting, so we turned around and looked for things that did interest us. Tart citron and a good cup of coffee.
 |
| tart citron and passionfruit |
 |
| yoni checking e-mails |
 |
| yoni once again checking e-mails. garry napping in the sun |
One patisserie was closed for Sunday, another didn't look good, but the third, oh la la. A real fine shmecker tart citron - the custard was passionfruit scented and had pretty passionfruit pulp in a small piece of peel, resting on the top. At this point I became aware of a possible hormone imbalance in my body. I can't find any other semi-plausable excuse for me craving, irresistibly, a chocolate tart. I'm not a real chocolate lover and never eat chocolate tarts, but I just had to have the one that was sitting in the window. And I did. And it was good. This was no ordinary lump of instant pudding splashed into a mass produced casing. No sir. The filling was at once light and airy whilst at the same time rich and smooth. It wasn't too sweet and had just that hint of real chocolate bitterness. Totally sinful.
Once we'd gotten the tarts out of the way, it was coffee time. In the main square of the village was a very quaint looking coffee shop, with a row of chairs and tables all facing outwards, in order to watch the world go by. And there were 4 empty chairs, reserved for the gringos. We sipped our machiattos and watched locals scurry by, often with baguettes in hand, bought at the local boulangerie a few doors down. The subject of baguette grip was seriously debated and whether sunday morning baguette grip is different from workday, midweek baguette grip. Sitting there, with nothing better to do but worry about how Frenchmen in Toucy hold their baguettes on a sunday morning, I couldn't help but think, once again, that it was a hard life.
Eventually we dragged ourselves up and made our way to our next stop; Joigny. Another quaint village, perhaps a little less quaint than others that we had seen. It's claim to fame is it's church. Well there's a surprise! We parked about 50 metres away from it, but the lane we had to walk to actually get there was blocked. In the end, the 50 metres took us about a kilomtre. When we got to the church, being 11.00 a.m. on a Sunday morning, it was full of people. We briefly snuck in, but if we don't join our own flock on saturdays in our house of worship, we were even less inclined to join in to a group of French Catholics singing in Latin. The church itself was quite big and nice, but I won't be returning on a weekday to do a tour when it's empty.
We were aware that we hadn't so far bought local produce and sat down for a picnic, so we spent a good deal of our time in Joigny looking either for a market, supermarket or supply store, to no avail. This almost quaint one horse town didn't even have a coffee shop open on this Sunday. At this point it was decided that the best idea was to get to Paris and we'd eat there.
From the outset, when we first left Paris, we noticed that the GPS seemed determined to take us along the back routes. On the way out, it didn't matter. We did get out of Paris quickly and efficiently and were probably happy to take the backroads to Auxerre, especially since it went via the beautiful town of Fontainebleau. Now, the GPS pointed us along backroads no matter how we changed the definitions of our journey. If it had at least taken us via Fontainebleau, as it did 48 hours earlier, we would have found some stuff and had our picnic. But no, just plain boring towns with a traffic light or whatever to slow us down. Eventually we decided to get onto the main highway, against Mrs. GPS's instructions. She tried to take us off the road a couple of times and in the end, we ignored her, only starting to pay attention to her, with much distrust, once we got into the outskirts of Paris. To her credit, she led us to our hotel without blemish. No matter. There's a lesson to be learnt here. Be a Luddite like me and use a map.
After dropping our bags off at the hotel and continuing directly to return the car, we set our attentions to our stomachs. (surprise surprise). It took us a while, we argued a bit, but eventually found a very nice brasserie. I ordered pig's knuckles and lentils and they were a revelation. Obviously cooked long and slow, the meat just fell off the bone, into the tasty lentils. The cannibal came out in me, and once I'd finished the meat, set to chomping on the soft, chewy bone. As always, it was washed down with some very nice red wine. Yoni's was even more interesting. He ordered pasta with clams. Nothing adventurous there. However, it came to the table in a plastic cooking bag, similar to a roasting bag. It appears that all the ingredients, pasta, olive oil, spices and clams in the shell, were cooked together in the bag. A novel idea that I must try at home. Not surprisingly, Yoni said it was delicious. Phil, who garners more enjoyment from eating with his good friends than from what he actually eats, had, as usual, salmon washed down with cola zero and Garry, the least fussy of us all, was happy with his salad, as he almost always is.
After correcting centuries of misplaced views in regards to the French lack of courtesy towards English speakers, the desk clerk at the hotel did his best to try to convince me to rescind my positivity. It wasn't just that he was rude and disinterested, he seemed to be making a genuine effort to be that way. When we had the gall to interrupt his chattering on his cell-phone, he turned his back on us. Our room keys were nonchalantly thrown at us across the reception desk whilst he continued to talk to the girl sitting next to him at the desk. You can forget help in finding something within Paris. He pointed with a flick of his wrist to a pile of tourist maps and told us to look it up for ourselves. Finally, a true Frenchman.
Our rooms were only on the second floor of the hotel, but with our luggage, we took the elevator. The 4 of us squeezed into a not very large cabin, with our luggage and pressed the button for the required floor. The elevator doors closed and almost in unison we saw the sign on the wall. 4 passengers, maximum weight 320 kg. Without talking, each of us gulped and did some very quick and simple math in our head. Still without talking, we all were thinking exactly the same thing. These 4 middle aged men, with luggage, weighed in together somewhere well above the 320kg mark. How far above we didn't know, but rest assured, it was above. The elevator seemed to be taking a very long time to go up 2 very short floors. I was sure I could hear the cables creaking and groaning overhead. We held our breathes, partly out of tension and partly as if the air in our lungs only added to the combined weight. Eventually the elevator stopped with a shudder and out we poured, escaping as quickly as we could. I think we walked down the stairs rather than all take the elevator together again.
Yoni, Garry and PhilI had ordered tickets to see Rodriguez that night in Paris. I was a late joiner to the trip and missed out on the tickets. I could have quite easily ordered an extra ticket, of course, but to be honest, didn't mind at all missing the concert, giving me time to wander the streets of this city that I love so much. As it turned out, the others were disappointed with the show. They actually walked out early, saying that he looked as if he didn't know where he was and what he was going to play next until his band would remind him. They described it as both strange and disappointing. A real pity. If you're going to see a concert at the Odeon in Paris, you'd expect it to be a real highlight of the trip. I'm really sorry that it wasn't.
After I met the others back at the hotel, we slipped out for a late bite to eat, a very short wander around the area and around midnight we all turned in, not entirely happy that tomorrow was our last day.
Eventually we dragged ourselves up and made our way to our next stop; Joigny. Another quaint village, perhaps a little less quaint than others that we had seen. It's claim to fame is it's church. Well there's a surprise! We parked about 50 metres away from it, but the lane we had to walk to actually get there was blocked. In the end, the 50 metres took us about a kilomtre. When we got to the church, being 11.00 a.m. on a Sunday morning, it was full of people. We briefly snuck in, but if we don't join our own flock on saturdays in our house of worship, we were even less inclined to join in to a group of French Catholics singing in Latin. The church itself was quite big and nice, but I won't be returning on a weekday to do a tour when it's empty.
 |
| nobody home |
From the outset, when we first left Paris, we noticed that the GPS seemed determined to take us along the back routes. On the way out, it didn't matter. We did get out of Paris quickly and efficiently and were probably happy to take the backroads to Auxerre, especially since it went via the beautiful town of Fontainebleau. Now, the GPS pointed us along backroads no matter how we changed the definitions of our journey. If it had at least taken us via Fontainebleau, as it did 48 hours earlier, we would have found some stuff and had our picnic. But no, just plain boring towns with a traffic light or whatever to slow us down. Eventually we decided to get onto the main highway, against Mrs. GPS's instructions. She tried to take us off the road a couple of times and in the end, we ignored her, only starting to pay attention to her, with much distrust, once we got into the outskirts of Paris. To her credit, she led us to our hotel without blemish. No matter. There's a lesson to be learnt here. Be a Luddite like me and use a map.
After dropping our bags off at the hotel and continuing directly to return the car, we set our attentions to our stomachs. (surprise surprise). It took us a while, we argued a bit, but eventually found a very nice brasserie. I ordered pig's knuckles and lentils and they were a revelation. Obviously cooked long and slow, the meat just fell off the bone, into the tasty lentils. The cannibal came out in me, and once I'd finished the meat, set to chomping on the soft, chewy bone. As always, it was washed down with some very nice red wine. Yoni's was even more interesting. He ordered pasta with clams. Nothing adventurous there. However, it came to the table in a plastic cooking bag, similar to a roasting bag. It appears that all the ingredients, pasta, olive oil, spices and clams in the shell, were cooked together in the bag. A novel idea that I must try at home. Not surprisingly, Yoni said it was delicious. Phil, who garners more enjoyment from eating with his good friends than from what he actually eats, had, as usual, salmon washed down with cola zero and Garry, the least fussy of us all, was happy with his salad, as he almost always is.
Our rooms were only on the second floor of the hotel, but with our luggage, we took the elevator. The 4 of us squeezed into a not very large cabin, with our luggage and pressed the button for the required floor. The elevator doors closed and almost in unison we saw the sign on the wall. 4 passengers, maximum weight 320 kg. Without talking, each of us gulped and did some very quick and simple math in our head. Still without talking, we all were thinking exactly the same thing. These 4 middle aged men, with luggage, weighed in together somewhere well above the 320kg mark. How far above we didn't know, but rest assured, it was above. The elevator seemed to be taking a very long time to go up 2 very short floors. I was sure I could hear the cables creaking and groaning overhead. We held our breathes, partly out of tension and partly as if the air in our lungs only added to the combined weight. Eventually the elevator stopped with a shudder and out we poured, escaping as quickly as we could. I think we walked down the stairs rather than all take the elevator together again.
After I met the others back at the hotel, we slipped out for a late bite to eat, a very short wander around the area and around midnight we all turned in, not entirely happy that tomorrow was our last day.
No comments:
Post a Comment