Thursday 10th September 2010.

We spent a brilliant 4 days with Tony and Carol, an English couple who have been living in France for 20 years. They run a B&B in the village of Montblanc. As always with airbnb you’re never sure what you might get and when we arrived there was a b&b with dinner option that I could not resist. So each evening around 6pm we would start to wonder what was for dinner! And each evening at 8pm we’d “ooh and aah” our way to the table, where Carol would serve us with “oh, it’s nothing”. The conversations over the meal lasted for hours. It was like going to a dinner party every night!

Food has been an important part of this trip. In the beginning it was about how lovely French food, or Italian food is or how incredibly yucky sauerkraut is! When we were in Rouen we ate at a restaurant in the square. When we were in Luzern we ate outside on a balcony in the cold with our raincoats on, wrapped in blankets (the Swiss were all warm inside!).

When we were in Italy we ate in a restaurant on the side of the road where the italians waited for their takeaway, and we wondered what they must be talking about? They talked for the entire time they waited, maybe 30 minutes. All the time gesticulating, all the time looking into the eyes of their companion. And not just lovers, but friends (guessed from body language) and father, daughters, wife, husband. In Nice we ate by the fountain with the forgetful waiter (and Dev from Coronation Street!).

And then in the small town of Montblanc in the south of France we ate with people who cooked in their own kitchen for us and who wanted to talk to us and in this we have found something else lovely about food – companionship. Maybe that’s what the Italians were doing as they waited for their food.

This is a new way of thinking about food. Not a necessity, with it’s preparation a chore. Instead, every morsel is a piece of joy, a vision to behold, to touch, to taste, to swallow, to digest, to be nourished by. And to nourish those you share it with, those you talk with as you eat – the companions on the journey of a meal.

Last night I watched a Frenchman prepare a simple meal of ingredients he found in the cupboard of our current host’s kitchen. He moved with passion and joy, present in every moment to the vegetables he chopped, to the oil he poured, to the laughter he evoked.

I want to take this new food home with me! Not the recipe, not the ingredients, not the cooking tins or the cooker, not even the Frenchman! What I want is the joy and love of food.

Thursday 9th September 2010.

We’re in a town called Pontlevoy near the Loire, and the Where are we? competition has closed with a winner. One emailer, who for legal reasons cannot comment directly (!), suggested if we didn’t know where we were then we were in more trouble than she had previously considered.

Firstly, it was the Millau Viaduct. Notice the curve of the road? This was not a necessary part of the construction, it was for aesthetic reasons only. Don’t you love France?

We put the three names into a hat and you can watch what happened…..

Congratulations Cormac! Email me your address and I’ll send on your prize!

Update:

Postcard Arrived to Cormac….

Wednesday 8th September 2010.

I enjoyed the last competition so much, it’s already time for a new one! This is a Where are we? one. And it’s not first in, it’s first out of the hat (or in this case helmet).

We were travelling all day yesterday. Where are we in this picture?

We’ll be travelling all day today also, so, the competition will end tomorrow (Thursday 9th September) at 6pm French time. Again, answers via comment and this time extra facts about the place are encouraged.

The prize as always is a postcard. Include your address on the comment, but if you don’t want the world to know where you live let me know and I’ll keep your address bit private.

Monday 6th September 2010

We’ve been staying in a small town called Montblanc (not the mountain!) in the Languedoc region of southern France, since we arrived from Nice on Friday. It’s another airbnb find, but with a difference. Here we’re getting breakfast and dinner and there’s a swimming pool! And every morning the weather is the same – sunny! When our wonderful hosts Tony and Carol realised that Denis was working and they knew there was no bus tour in the town (!), they offered to drive me to the nearest big town, Pezenas. And Tony took on the role, for me, of tour bus and audio guide!

He pointed out archways through open doors, thresholds I would never have crossed, but we went straight in! And he also took me through the market, giving me tips about how to get the best prices. And told me the history of the town and the area. The writer Moliere stayed a while in Pezenas and there’s a statue to him near the market.

It’s a beautiful town, lots of winding streets again that lead into a square where there was an organic market.

We have breakfast served to us each morning at 9.30, either out in the garden or in the dining room, depending on the heat of the sun. Our delicate skin tone must be protected…. And after that Denis goes to work and I have been reading or doing some needlework.

When we were packing the bike to leave on our trip there wasn’t a lot of room. We have two side panniers a top box and a tank bag. One of the panniers is for my stuff – clothes, shoes, books, vitamins and toiletries.

One is for Denis’ – clothes, shoes, lap top, iPad, backup disk, assorted connection wires and French power adaptor.

The top box is for daily incidentals – groceries, drinking water, my handbag, spare waterproof bag and bungie clips to tie it on if used, space for the protective clothing’s inner linings which are worn in cool weather and taken out in warm weather.

The tank bag is for the camera, the map, Denis’ sun hat (delicate skin tone, again!), note books, pens, a little flexible tripod that will grab on to a tree or such to take pictures by remote (never used!), spare ear plugs and spare glasses.

By the time we’d finished packing in Greystones I had already spread to the top box and needed to make a decision about bringing books versus putting in some last minute craft making. Since we had the iPad, (a small portable computer which has, among other things, software to allow you to read books), I decided to leave my books and bring two balls of wool and a crochet needle. But the book reading has not been that satisfactory, mainly because of the choice of books available to download to the iPad, but also because it’s not that easy to whip out your computer as you sit at a roadside cafe or by the pool! So here at Villa Roquette there are lots and lots of books to choose from and I found an Anne Fine that I’m enjoying.

The crochet is coming along nicely though and I may yet get the courage to try again for some felt from a French material shop! I saw one in Nice and realised that in Torino, I’d been in a Haute Couture material shop when what I needed was a “Guineys” type material shop! Still, it was an experience!

Monday 6th September 2010.

The competition is now over! I was overwhelmed with the response from the 4 people who entered. Not a huge number, no…. but their enthusiasm and generosity of interest warmed my heart. One even went as far as inviting me to visit him in Canada! Another, (via email) who will remain nameless was unable to enter due to her lack of knowledge in this area, but she did mention that my own Tipperary won a different kind of competition in Croke Park yesterday. Against long time rivals Kilkenny, too.

Again and again it’s the simple things, I have been giggling away happily to myself as I imagine you reading and examining the picture and writing a reply, thousands of kilometres away from here. Technology seems to bring us closer, not isolate us. Thank you for your part in that.

Enjoy the revelation of the winner using the medium of pictures:

The answer was Dev who owns and runs the corner shop. The first correct answer was from Keith McCabe. Congratulations Keith! If you would be so good as to send a picture of yourself receiving your prize I will happily post it here.

Sunday 5th September 2010.

As there’s been some interest in the Coronation Street star, I’ve decided to run a competition to guess who he is. The prize will be a postcard. Yes, I will purchase a pretty postcard and make my way to a post office and ask, in French, for an airmail stamp and post the card to the lucky winner. (While I’m there I’ll be posting a birthday card to my little brother who’s birthday I forgot on Friday!)

To help in the identification of the star I’ve discovered a photograph that I took earlier with the star in the background.

Competition:
Send your answer as a comment on the website to the following question:
What is the name of the character played by the person in the photo above, and what does he work at in Coronation Street? The winner will be the first correct answer received.

Now I’m off to relax at the pool……

Friday 3rd September 2010.

By 5pm it was nice and cool in Nice! So off I went to the old town. As I said previously Nice was built by the Italians and styled on Torino so there would have to be porticos, wouldn’t there? There are!

 

And winding little streets and lane ways and little restaurants and shops and then big open squares. Very pretty, in a dilapidated way. Where the promenade is big and clean and shiny and impressive, the old town is dark and cramped with shutters falling down and paint peeling but in spite of its age and condition, still beautiful. In fact, more beautiful because it seems real, somehow. Again, like the cobblestones peeping through an ugly pothole, the beauty and history of these buildings peeps through the shutters and paint.

 

 

 

 

Later when Denis had finished work I collected him and we went back to the old town for dinner. We picked a place beside a fountain in a little square. When he came to take our order the waiter seemed distracted or bored and I wasn’t sure he had understood our French. He hadn’t! He was a stereotypical French waiter with handlebar mustache and lots of sighing. He arrived back with three starters for us (we’d ordered two – promise!), so we called him back, and if he wasn’t bored before he certainly was now. But he took it away and we got down to eating happily. But when the bill came we noticed we’d been charged for three meals and an extra desert. By now we though that maybe we were in a hidden camera program and a French presenter was going to jump out from behind the fountain. So we called a different waiter and explained that we hadn’t and couldn’t have eaten all that. No problem, he sorted it and our original waiter came back, with perfect English, to apologise for the mistake! I’m still convinced we’re going to get a call from French TV.

Ps while we were eating we spotted an actor from the soap, Coronation Street, we took a picture so you can see him for yourselves.

 

Thursday 2nd September 2010.

It’s really hot out so I’m waiting until later to go visit the old town of Nice. Also, I’ve been bitten by mosquitos and my legs are itchy so any excuse not to walk around is fine by me at the moment!

This morning I went for a walk on the promenade by the beach. Already by 10am it was busy with people, walking and jogging and riding bikes. There are amazing hotels and restaurants all along the street opposite the sea. On the beach, literally on the beach, there are more restaurants. These have a private section of beach where you can rent a sun-bed and parasol. Except for the bit about lying in the sun (I don’t like lying in the sun), that sounded like a brilliant idea. You set yourself onto your sun-bed and when you’re thirsty, you call a waiter and get a drink. When you’re hungry, you call a waiter and get some food! How easy!

 

 

 

Not for me, I was off to check out the tours and the tourist office was situated somewhere on the promenade. But before I found it I saw the Little Train Tour of Nice. Just like on Bray promenade! I had to take it. There were headphones for the commentary and channel 2 was in English. I was sitting in the front seat (every opportunity) beside two young Italian girls, whose mother was sitting behind us.

 

The Little Train is not as comfortable a ride as the big buses but it’s added charm is that everyone notices you! So we bumped along taking out of focus photos as we went. Nice has embraced rush hour and liked it so much they kept it all day, so the first part of the journey was slow through heavy traffic. Turns out Nice was owned by the Italians until very recently (150 years ago), and the city was built-in the style of Torino! On our travels around the edges of France we are finding that borders come and go, but the architectural practices remain, and the buildings reflect the origins of the place. So that Nice looks like Italy and Munster looks like Germany.

 

I noticed as we were travelling along that the two Italian girls didn’t wear their headphones, and I was tempted to ask why with my newly acquired Italian communication skills. Anyway, I didn’t, but the answer became obvious as we moved along. Their mother behind us was wearing her headphones and from time to time she would tell the girls some titbit of information from the commentary. Only now do I realise, this is ingenious!

 

From my extensive experience on bus and indeed train tours on this journey I am now very well placed to design my own tour.
My tour: There must be only 5 points of information about the city we are touring – there’s always too much information and with all the picture-taking you’re too busy to listen. (Thank you to the Italian Mammy for this idea.)
The 5 points must be strategically posted around the bus/train to aid memory – it’s very nice to sound knowledgable when you have completed a tour, but this is only possible if you can remember anything from the tour.
The bus/train must be only one person wide – this is to get over the problem of having the other people in your row in the way when you want to take a picture through their window.
The bus/train must have a roof, but only in sunny climates – this would ensure that you do not get burned by the sun but still leaves room for fun and games of see-through umbrellas in the rain.

 

That’s all I have for now, but I think I’ll be adding to this list.

Thursday 2nd September 2010.

We arrived in Nice yesterday afternoon and I needed a drink to settle my nerves. So I had a cappuccino. I haven’t drunk real coffee for about 5 years but I thought it might help.

 

We had driven for two hours through tunnels and over roads on stilts. The tunnels were fine but the roads on stilts were very, very scary. In the beginning I thought “Look at those lovely villages down there”. And then I noticed that the traffic going in the other direction were travelling on a road high in the air held up by cement supports stuck into the mountain-side. It was like something a smart eight year old might do with sand and tracks and bits of wood. “Gee I’d hate to be on that road!”. Then I realised we were on exactly the same kind of road! From then on I couldn’t look left or right as I was holding on so tight to Denis, and was it my imagination or were the barriers getting smaller and smaller?

It might not have been so bad if the roads were straight but they wound around the mountains. At one time I could see the sat-nav and the road ahead looked like a scribble – bendy bits joined to roundy bits, like a roller-coaster. Again there’s no pictures – we’re going to have to get some bit of technology attached to my helmet with a button in my glove to take these kinds of pictures in the future. Although if I had to turn to look at the scene around me I’m not sure it would work. Remember when I said tunnels were boring for the pillion passenger? Well I take it all back, you can have too much to see!

 

Anyway, we’re safe and sound now, and settling into our new home with Tamara, a German-speaking (with perfect English, of course) Dutch/Indonesian lady, her apartment is 5 minutes from the beach on a busy shopping street. There’s a cafe/bar downstairs where we ate dinner while we waited for her to come home from work. And guess what floor we’re on – yes three 🙂 But there’s a lift this time!

 

I’m off to check out the bus tour of Nice and see how it stacks up against Reims.