It was with sadness that we left Paris, but the pack up and the trip to the train station were completely uneventful. Three hours later the train was racing through lush countryside with rain beating at the windows (we had had beautiful weather during our week in Paris) and we had arrived in cold, wet Bordeau. A trip through the city streets revealed Roman ruins and beautiful, well kept streets and buildings. We arrived at Hotel Particular (yes it really was called that) to a very warm welcome and an immediate invitation to participate in a wine tasting in the adjoining wine shop. What a good idea we thought! So after we had settled in the children into our warm, cosy room, Chris and I made our way downstairs to the wine shop and were invited into the downstairs “cave” for a lesson on local wines. It was a great lesson – but it was a lesson! Our lovely hostess, Anna, stood at the front of the room with a map of the region and gave us a very throrough understanding of the different grape varieties in each region, the type of soil they are grown in, how long the wine is barelled for etc etc. It went on for two hours with only two tiny glasses of wine to examine, sniff and occasionally politely sip. Although Chris was highly engaged I was practically holding my eyes open with match sticks! However out hostess was wonderfully passionate and knowledegable and we did come out of the session really well informed.
By now the children were starving and so we gathered them up and walked into the old town centre in which our hotel was located. It was still raining and very cold, but the stores were open and the streets and shops were so inviting! We found a Lego concept store which Michael examined for around an hour!
Next door was a Lindt shop and so Nick and I bought a bag of Lindt balls for us all to share. Eventually hunger was getting the better of us and so we sought a lovely place to eat. Pretty soon we happened across a restaurant that turned out to the the culinary highlight of the trip. Tourist free, no English spoken, packed with locals and a three course menu for 16 Euro. I nearly ordered the Cassoulet until I realised it was packed with snails. Most of the menu was a mystery to us but we ended up with foie gras for entree, conft of duck for main and tart tartin for dessert! It was gorgeous and authentic and pretty much what we had been seeking for the whole trip.
Just as an aside, the French food on this trip has been quite disappointing. We are smart enough not to eat in obvious tourists traps on the main drags and yet we have found the food we have chosen to often be poorly cooked or at least fairly ordinary or no better than food we would order in an average restaurant in Melbourne. On several occasions we would order steak and frites, hoping for a tender, juicy, fatty, salty rare steak – instead, it was more often than not, tough, dry, over cooked and underseasoned. The French are very proud of their food but on this trip, I would have to say it was largely bleh! The croissants and the baguettes and the cheese are the exception to this of course!
The prices have also been a bit of a surprise. Last time we were here everything seemed quite cheap. I understsnd now that we spent a lot of our time in the country and the prices are very different to Paris. I have paid up to 6.50 euros for a very ordinary filter coffee – I quickly learned to make good use of the Nespresso machine in our apartment.
Anyway, I do digress! The meal was fabulous, we all felt wonderfully well fed, we’d had a wonderful night together and the four of us rolled home to our warm, cosy room for a good nights sleep and our first sleep-in since we arrived in France.