Day 121: Another Loing day

After breakfast we packed up and headed north again under grey skies, a light rain falling. Not long after we left, we drove past a large factory that helped to clear up a mystery for us. For some time, we had been driving past fields filled with a low-growing crop that we couldn’t identify – the presence of this huge sugar factory suggested that it was probably sugar beet.

Around lunch time, we stopped in the town of Moret-sur-Loing, which, as it’s name suggests, is situated on the Loing River, a tributary of the Seine. It was raining a little when we arrived, and we it was all a bit miserable as we walked the length of the town and back, through the impressive 12th-century stone gates that bookend it, and across the long bridge across the Loing. There we found a basic bar/tabac where we stopped for a coffee (which was so good I had a second). The town itself was also pretty basic but also quite pretty, with some lovely half-timbered buildings, several with some very intricate carvings in the wood, and two nice old mills on the river. It apparently acted as a source of inspiration for Monet, Renoir and Sisley (this connection is much trumpeted around the town), and Napoleon once slept there as well.

By then the time I had finished my second coffee, it really was lunchtime, so we headed back into town, returning to a rather sweet looking little bistro that we had spotted during our earlier reconnoitre. It proved to be particularly little – essentially just the front room of a house, with a husband-and-wife team cooking in a tiny kitchen right in the room behind the bar. There was only room for 18 customers to sit around five tables. The food was Alsatian, and we ordered three plates of the day – two of pintade (guinea fowl) with orange sauce and one of roast pork. As with our beloved Burgundian restaurant, the food was simple but deeply flavoured and perfect for the cold, grey day.

After lunch, we headed northwest, driving through Fontainebleau forest on our way to Paris. The forest looked lovely and we would have loved to get out to walk, but there were large Chasse en cours (Hunting in progress) signs everywhere, so we just kept driving.

Eventually, we arrived at our hotel in Marne-la-Vallée, home to Disneyland Paris. After checking in, we hopped aboard the shuttle bus and drove out to Disneyland, where there’s a train station. We caught the train into the outskirts of Paris, where we were met by Hugues, with whom Kate worked way back in her CSIRO days. He drove us to his apartment, where we had a lovely meal with Hugues, his wife Annick and their daughters Zoe and Sophie. Afterwards, Hugues and Zoe walked us back to the station, and it was back on the train and back to the hotel.   

Day 120: A fortress in France

This morning we drove to the village of Yèvre-le-Chatel, another member of the association of Les Plus Beaux Village de France (The Most Beautiful Villages of France). From as early as the tenth century, the village has been a popular defensive site, thanks to its location between Paris and Orleans. It contains the very impressive remains of a castle/fortress built during the 13th century under Philip Augustus, which was the only defensive stronghold north of the river Loire not to be captured by the English or the Burgundians during the 100 Years War.

When we arrived, the village was hosting an even smaller market than the one we had visited yesterday – one guy with a trestle table, some wine, bread and veges. We did a peaceful circuit of what proved to be a very pretty little settlement and then headed home for lunch and bit of School of Mum and Dad in the afternoon. 

 

Day 119: Not in the market

Kate has found a website that lists when and where the local French markets are on, so today we headed to the town of Montargis, known as the Venice of the Gâtinais due to its numerous canals and bridges. It snowed a little on the way there, and it was cold and drizzly when we arrived, and as the market was rather small and unremarkable, we looked around for somewhere to have a coffee, bought some bread and went back to our little bolthole for lunch.

Day 118: Museum piece

This morning we packed up and cleaned up and drove north to Troyes – the capital of the Aube region, which is part of Champagne-Ardenne. The city has been in existence since Roman times and has long been an important trading centre; the troy weight for gold is derived from the standard of measurement that evolved there. It’s extremely well preserved, with numerous half-timbered buildings large and small clustered around the old town. (Kate and I were convinced that we had already been there, but our total lack of familiarity with anything that we saw as we drove in and then walked around eventually convinced us that we hadn’t; we then spent the rest of the afternoon trying to figure out which French towns or cities we were thinking of.)

It was very cold, so we headed straight for the information centre to get a map and warm up a bit. We were told there that almost all of the city’s museums were now free to enter, so we trotted over to the modern art museum (with a quick stop in the 13th-century Gothic cathedral on the way there). Troyes was also, for many years, France's knitwear capital, and the rather idiosyncratic art collection, which includes paintings and sculptures by artists including Braque, Degas, Matisse, Picasso and Rodin, had been amassed and then given to the state by husband-and-wife textile magnates. It’s housed in one of the more impressive of the city’s half-timbered buildings - the former episcopalian palace. 

We then headed across the road to the combined natural history, archaeology and fine art museum, which we had to tour rapidly as it was nearing the lunchtime closing time. Which was our cue to set about wandering the bitterly cold streets in search of somewhere to eat. As is so often the case, we struggled to find anywhere that fit our exacting standards, but finally, down a side street, we found a bustling Moroccan restaurant and managed to get the last table. Unfortunately, it was apparently just a husband-and-wife team, and they weren’t coping with the lunchtime rush, so we ended up waiting for an inordinate amount of time for our veal, almond and prune tagines (the plat du jour). The food, when it arrived, was very nice, however, and we were pleasantly replete by the time we got back on the road. 

 

Our final destination was the little village of Lorcy, about 30 kilometres east of Orléans. As we were getting relatively close to Paris now, our accommodation options were becoming narrower, more expensive and less characterful. Kate had managed to find tonight’s lodgings on Airbnb. It’s a funny little two-floor, one-bedroom place in a block set off the road. The owners live next door, and the English-free Pascal gave us a tour and directions to the nearest supermarket, to which we immediately decamped to grab some ingredients for dinner.

Day 117: Return to the restaurant

We went back for another lovely lunch at Le Sabot de Venus today. This time, we had carottes râpées (a delicious dish of grated carrot with cumin), filet mignon de porc à la moutarde and, much to Kate’s and Zoe’s delight, crème caramel. Again, the restaurant was busy – on this occasion, the large central table was taken over by a group of forestry workers. As before, all of the courses were really well cooked and beautifully flavoured.

On the previous visit, I had been much taken with the cute little ceramic mugs in which our coffees were served. On closer inspection, we found that they had been specially made for the restaurant – its name was written into the clay. So today, as we were leaving, we asked Sabrina about them and she gave us directions to the potter who made them (and called ahead to make sure she was there).

We drove over and were greeted by a very large, very friendly and muddy-pawed old English sheepdog. The potter, Laurence Petit, let us into the studio and we had a bit of browse. I found a few of the mugs – sadly in more pastelly colours than the gorgeous red ones in the restaurant – and grabbed two, along with a few other small items. After I had paid for them, Laurence started up her wheel and made some pots and other items so the girls could see how it was all done.

Day 116: Cheesy!

Today we drove to the medieval village of Flavigny-sur-Ozerain, which is a member of the Les Plus Beaux Villages de France (The most beautiful villages of France) association. It's also where they filmed the movie Chocolat.

We parked on the edge of the village and walked in, a light snow falling around us. As we reached the first buildings, a small tabby cat ran over and proceeded to follow us as we wandered around the village. It was almost lunch time, so we kept an eye out for somewhere to eat, but the village seemed to be almost completely deserted and there wasn't a single open establishment of any sort to be found. It was very beautiful, though!

Bellies beginning to rumble, we hopped back in the car and drove to the town of Semur-en-Auxois. However, our lunch-finding difficulties continued – the short menu du jour window had closed and each place we went into had run out – but we eventually managed to find somewhere half decent.

We were now a short drive from the village of Époisses, where my favourite runny, smelly cheese is made, so we popped over to buy a little round and have a coffee. The village itself is quite lovely, with a very impressive chateau at its centre. We had our coffee in a classic French bar/tabac/restaurant, where an elderly American woman was loudly translating her French guide to France to her rather bemused husband.