Friday, Oct 19th – The Long Road to Bordeaux

Actually, not THAT long a road.  We feel like we’re in a good area with Broze – under 3 hours to Saint Emilion, one of the pretty towns in the Bordeaux region.  We’re meeting Bill and his family for the week-end.

But, before that…  Very windy over night.  Our landlord took in tables and chairs and plants.  Howling noises.  Glad the walls of our house are nearly two feet thick.  Never felt like it was going to blow away.  But, the lights did flicker dozens of times during the prior evening.

Stopped for lunch at a highway rest stop.  Had very good sandwiches for around 5E each.   Got to Saint E around 2:30, and it was raining…  And, it continued to rain till Sunday morning…

We arrive.  This is our second visit to Bordeaux and that feels nice to contemplate.  Most of the time, our first stop in any town is the tourist office.  They’ve always got free maps, sometimes walking tours, they know where the bathrooms are, and they’re typically centrally located to the touristic sights.  And they speak better English than our French most of the time.

We walk the town for an hour.  Maxine had researched restaurants for dinner and we check out the menus at the top three.  It’s a purpose to our walk.  We see also that two out of every three storefronts are selling Bordeaux wines.  Also beautiful glass decanters.  We’ve decanted maybe five or six wines in our house ever.  Sort of intimidating.  Besides it all feels like you really DO have to know which producers and which years are best.  And we don’t.  We do find a wine bar with a dozen reds by the glass.  In order to learn, we order one glass of cheap wine and one expensive.  There is a difference.  But, there’s also a difference between the cheaper Bordeaux and the Gaillac wines too.  The bar has only got 4 tables occupied and one is a group of six speaking English VERY loudly.  Loud enough that we move further away.  Then Maxine catches the waitress’ eye and they share an unspoken acknowledgement about the loud Americans.  French would never be like that and certainly not in a bar.

After our drink, we go back to the tourist office and sign up for their underground Saint Emilion tour.  http://www.saint-emilion-tourisme.com/uk/que-faire.html?idcat=1&idfiche=53  The highlight is the largest underground cathedral in Europe.  The size of an above ground cathedral, except carved out of the hillside.  And, to give this more perspective, they didn’t open up the hillside, they carved a hole into it and dug further in from there.  Worth the price of admission.  And, in our continuing self-amusement with speaking French, our tour is in French.  And the guide has an accent.  And, to our delight, we understand how to speak in French well enough to tell that she’s got an accent.  (If it isn’t clear how fun this was to us, sorry.  It’s just so self-satisfying).

Our hotel is sterile at best.  The online info had put it down as a 2-star, but they’ve got a 3-star placard at their front door.  It’s quiet and comfortable and dark, so it works as a place to stay.

Dinner in town.  It's more and more obvious that Bordeaux is simply better tasting wine than what we get in Gaillac -- more expensive too.  Our favorite of the dinner is Chateau Grand Corbin Manuel 2005.

As we’re getting ready for bed, I get a text message from Bill, who’s just pulled up to the hotel.  So, I go help him unload the car – with a family of five, he’s got a lot of luggage to get in.  We agree to meet for breakfast tomorrow at 9am.

Castres – Oct 18th

Last night was windy, but warm.  It howls all night.  Mistral winds from Africa?

But Castres is another “why bother” after Montauban.  It’s another one star sight in the Michelin guide book, but after today we have a new rule – one stars are not worth it as destinations, only if they’re on the way to something else.  (These views of houses on the river are "the" sight in town and the guidebooks)

 

 

The town is known for Jean Jaures, the Goya museum, and as one of about a dozen towns large enough to have morning markets.

Jaures is a famous French socialist.  Didn’t particularly care to pay to go into his museum (Tom speaking!).  The Goya museum has the largest collection of Spanish art in France (Spain is only a few hours south), but seeing Spanish art in France seems counter-intuitive.  And the market is suffering from the bad weather (truly amazing strong winds) and the fact that October isn’t high season – there are only 5 vendors occupying less than 5% of the town square.  There are also pretty houses along the Agout River that runs through the middle of town.

So, we take on that most important of French customs (at least as far as we can understand French customs) and go in search of a good lunch.  We find a place on the river, Le Medieval, that got good reviews in TripAdvisor.  Run by 2 older ladies with one cooking and the other fulfilling front of house functions, they welcome us.

Just about every restaurant has 2 ways of ordering.  There are a couple, or as many as four or five, menus of the day.  Usually a subset of their overall menu, they’re typically much cheaper than ordering by the item.  The other way you can order is just that, by the item.  Here though, the woman hands us the “carte” (the item menu) but makes it clear that we will be picking between her 2 menus of the day.  No problem.  The server was also a nice grandmother-type.  I did my usual spiel in French about understanding but not speaking well and she replied, in French, that she would speak slowly in that case.  Lunch was OK but not a place we’d try again so not worth going into detail.

On the road back, we stopped in the village of Lautrec.  It’s another of the “prettiest villages in France” (the official list, you know).  Yet another pretty village…  There’s a windmill.  And the wind was really picking up as we walked up the hill at the top of the town to get to it.  We got pictures though…

Evening was at home.  We filled the gas (diesel) tank and picked up cash at the Credit Agricole ATM so we’d be ready for tomorrow’s excursion.  Went to sleep to the sound of howling winds!

The Distillery – Wednesday Oct 17th

The area where we’re staying, variously called the Midi Pyrenees, the Haut Garonne, the Albigeois, the Vignoble de Gaillac region, also likes to emphasize that it’s an area of craftsmen.  Yesterday’s expedition to look at potteryin Maitres Toulosane was one example.  Today, we go in search of distilleries.  There are two within 20 minutes of our house.

There is one odd factor at play here.  Lots of places, for reasons that escape us, do not have addresses. Even the Leclerc grocery store, which is in its own little mall, only lists the street that it’s on.  We don’t understand because the French are somewhat officious and rules/orderliness oriented.  So, not assigning numbers to locations on streets makes for a challenge. 

So, today we take a 1 ½ hour walk through the neighborhood vineyards.  Then we leave for the local distilleries.   Maxine puts into the GPS what she can, which is only the road that they’re on.

We head out and have passed the first one before I can easily stop the car.  And since we previously decided that we should drive by both and decide which seemed more amenable to visitors, we head on to the second, Castan.  There’s one other car in the parking lot when we arrive, which we take to be a good sign, so we decide this will be our stop and head up to the tasting room.  Unfortunately, it looks closed, so we peer in windows instead.  Then a woman comes from the back and opens up, with her daughter alongside her.  We’ve got our little patter down (in French) about how we speak just a little French, but understand more.  That usually works and the other person admits to the same language skills – they typically later prove to be MUCH more proficient in English than we are in French.

We ask to taste her various products, tentatively, because while we’ve been to plenty of wine tastings in our life, tasting distilled spirits and liqueurs seems a bit more out there…  She says, “but of course” and asks what we want to try (mind you, all of our conversations at Castan are in French – she’s more than willing to help us, to speak slowly, to put up with our garbled grammar).  We work our way through their product line, in the end deciding that the 80 proof spirits are the best, we end up buying 375ml bottles of the eau de vie de Poire William (pear), and the eau de vie de Vieille Prune d’Agen (plum eau de vie aged in acacia wood) . 

 

Our conversation with her goes well enough that we talk about the founding of their small business.  It was started by her husband’s grandfather in 1946.  She doesn’t say, but it seems obvious that that’s what he did to make a living when World War II ended.  We wonder what he, or his family, had done before.  We also talk about yeast fermentation, distillation, and how the liqueurs are made.  She shows us a promotional video they’ve made for the business and we get to see pictures of her husband as well as brother-in-law and sister-in-law.  It all serves to help us better appreciate the artisan quality of what we’re buying.

We walk away happy.  And, since we’re taking the bottles back to LA with us, you will to if you stop by and try some!

Another Day in Toulouse, Plus a Search for Pottery – October 16th

It’s cleaning lady day, so we’re intending to get out so she can spend her 2 hours on the place.  We’re out in time to get to Toulouse by 11:45, find a parking place, and head over to today’s restaurant, Le Genty Magre.  We’re early and not as hungry as we’d like, so we poke our heads in and ask about coming back at 12:30.  Without missing a beat she says, "but of course" in French.  We wonder if people are nice here, nice to tourists, nice to people who speak French to them, or however else we can interpret this.  Either way, we head out to a store we’d been to in 2005 that had regional food souvenirs.  It’s where we got some violet liquor, which we still haven’t finished drinking 7 years later…

The store isn’t as interesting as either of us remembered -- more of a concentration on wine and less on regional products.  We do see a possible interesting purchase, Armagnac.  It’s the same (yeah sure!) as Cognac, but from the adjacent region in France.  One of the differences though is that Armagnac typically has a vintage date on the bottle.  So, we think about buying one to commemorate our wedding anniversary.  But, it’s so long ago that bottles of *that* age cost over $125…

Toulouse isn’t a very big city so we easily make our way back to Le Genty Magre in time for lunch.  Maxine found the restaurant through Tripadvisor and a NY Times article.  The chef worked at Daniel Boulud’s restaurants and in Japan so the food sounded innovative and interesting.  Again, we planned lunch since Le Genty Magre (like most others) has a reasonably priced lunch menu. 

We started with sausages and potatoes in a mustard sauce (more German than Japanese or French) which was delicious and could have been our entire lunch at home.  Tom had pork cutlets in a mustard sauce with polenta gnocchi (delicious!) and Maxine had duck with a berry sauce (also delicious).  Duck is really the traditional protein here in SW France and Maxine has eaten it at least four times since we arrived.  The other thing we both remember about the restaurant was the hearty, crusty brown bread.  And, yes, we did have dessert and coffee too.  We didn’t have wine with lunch since we had a lot of driving to do this afternoon.  But, the three businessmen sitting next to us finished two bottles over their lunches.  Our friend Bill says that the French adopt American attitudes 20 years late.  Does this mean that the wine consumption at lunch is analogous to the 3-martini lunch and will fade over time?

Afterwards, we decide to take another stroll through the city, to the retail streets north of Place Capitole this time.  The walk takes us to Eglise St. Sernin, which is a cathedral and one of the ‘sights’ of Toulouse.  It is very grand inside.  I’d never been despite having passed it dozens of times when I’d been here in 2000.  We pay 4E to see the crypt which contains relics, including a piece (small) from the True Cross.  (Albi  has a piece as well).  No, I don’t think it was really from the True Cross – I’ve read about the mid centuries having had a market in religious souvenirs like that…

After our walk we make our way out of town to one about 1/2 hour further west (away from Broze).  It’s called Martres Tolosane and is an ancient center for painted pottery called faience.  Before we left LA, we had the idea that we would go there and buy replacement dishes for our house.  But, the prices are huge and make that idea unrealistic.  We leave with a lovely coffee mug as a memento.  From there, it’s a 1 ½ hour drive home to Broze for dinner and a quiet evening.

 

Why Montauban? Monday Oct 15th

It’s a 1 star sight according to the Michelin guide for the region.  But, we are coming to the conclusion that a 1 star is worth visiting but not driving out of the way to get to.  And, we’ve seen LOTS of cute villages.

We get underway, our first truly cold morning of the trip.  And foggy -- the GPS takes us on what's probably an interesting route but all we see is fog.

Before the trip my reading had made it seem like Montauban was someplace we’d possibly go more than once – a nearby city, etc.  But, having spent an hour walking around, I feel done with it.  One of the issues was that on Monday the stores are largely closed.  It's a problem throughout France in planning sightseeing.  BUT, especially here it was plain that there’s more interesting shopping in either Albi or Toulouse.  So, that’s not it.  We stop by the tourist office and they give us a map with a walking tour.  It’s boring enough that by mid point I’ve proposed that we abandon the tour and just take a walk across one bridge and back across the next so that we can see some water views and some views of the city, and then be done. 

 

 

One good/great thing came out of our abbreviated city walk.  We stroll past a restaurant called L’estanquet.  The name had struck me as vaguely familiar from my Tripadvisor restaurant research that morning.  It’s noon, and I try the door but it doesn’t open.  However, we’d seen a woman leave from it a few minutes earlier (I thought it might just have been someone who worked there) – Maxine tries to push the door, it opens, and we go in.  Great restaurant.  From a price-value standpoint, our best of the trip.  We actually wish Montauban were closer to Broze because we’d go back!  And a locals place, which is to us even more validating.  Here it is:

 

 

We leave town with a quarter tank of fuel in our car.  On the drive we pass hunters, and hunters cars & trucks, parked at various places on the roadside.  We see dogs racing across fields and at one point they even (dangerously) cross the road in front of us.  Fall hunting season.

But, we need diesel.  We try a gas station on the outskirts of Montauban, but it is an unmanned one, meaning that you have to have a European credit card (chip, rather than a magnetic stripe) to pay.  So, we can’t get fuel. 

We’re only about 50 kilometers (30 miles) from Gaillac so we feel pretty confident that we have enough fuel to get home.  But, we soon learn that we have one of those cars where the gauge drops more quickly as the tank gets lower.  Continuing onward the gauge continues to drop and then, when we’re about 20 km from Gaillac, it chimes that we’re out.  Not really, of course, but at that true danger zone.

We’re more than a little nervous, we’re a lot (!) nervous.  There are no gas stations.  We’ve seen not a single one since that unmanned one even though we’re traveling on a major road between Montauban and Gaillac.  We’ve got the cell phone.  We’re on a road without shoulders so we’re worried that when the car coughs to a stop we might stall out directly on the road…  We coast our way, limp really, all the way back to Gaillac.  Incredibly tense.  But, finally we’re at our Leclerc.   We buy our $100 worth of diesel fuel, stop at the store for some stuff, and then head home to open a bottle of wine and toast our survival from a nearly really bad day!

Really a Relaxed Sunday – Oct 14th

Resolved to take it easy today, we plan only one excursion, to Lisle Sur Tarn which is a pretty little town less than 30 minutes drive. 

As intended, we get there in time for the market.  There's a light and intermittent rain falling.  We buy two breads, from two different vendors.  Walk away from the cheese guys because at home we still have 4 or 5 cheeses in the fridge.  Buy some jam, vegetables and a sausage flavored with Roquefort.  There isn’t much to the market, but that’s OK per our plan. 

We get to the restaurant that was another focus of our visit just at noon as they open up.  Le Romuald was a recommendation from our landlord, one of just a few restaurants in Lisle, but more than worth the trip.  They seat maybe 30 people in total.  We were the only non-locals.  And we only got a table because of a cancellation and the fact that we were the first at their door when they opened (note to self:  make reservations in the future).  I had grilled steak, which they actually grilled on the fire 8 feet from us.  Maxine had leg of rabbit, also grilled.  For dessert, Maxine ordered crème brulee, which they finished off at the grill by putting a hot iron over the top of the serving container, a novel way to caramelize the sugar.   The fire served another purpose – keeping us warm on this drizzly day. 

The chef prepared one table’s main courses at a time.  We were first, but it would be easy to see how patience would be necessary here.  But, from a price-value stand point, the best meal we’ve had so far in France.

We spent the remainder of this cold, rainy day at our ‘home’ in Broze.  We try to use the huge fireplace in our living room and smoke ourselves out.  We never dare to use it again.  We read.  Watch movies on the iPad.  Simply no different than a similar day could be in Los Angeles.

Chez Bill and Dinner with French People – Sat Oct 13th

We’d made plans to spend the day again with Bill and his family.  But, wanting a slow start, we got there at 3 pm.  They’re considering moving, so we went with them to see one of the houses they’re thinking of buying, which was nice.  It was interesting to listen in as the owner (not the realtor) explained the house.  I think we understood 25%, which is quite a bit lower than some of our other experiences.  We’ll chalk it up to the regional accent.

As an aside, I love foie gras and the fact that it is so accessible here in the south.  When we were staying with Bill & Isabelle in 2010, they had a party for Robin.  Estelle catered and made foie gras.  I think I was probably a bit greedy -- I ate what would have probably cost $50 in foie gras that afternoon a few years ago...

Bill & Isabelle’s friend Estelle was making dinner for several of their friends that night and she graciously invited us to join in.  Coincidentally, she lives near Place St. George where we went for the chocolate festival the day before.  Estelle was maid of honor and I was best man at Bill and Isabelle’s wedding, so we’ve met her before on several occasions.

Dinner was great!  We feel extraordinarily lucky that we have such long term friends in France as Bill (nearly 34 years) and Isabelle (7 years).  They open up their lives in France to us and, as a result, we feel fortunate to have experiences that would otherwise be inaccessible to foreign visitors.  Like dinner for 10 in a French woman’s apartment.  Where she was experimenting with various appetizers for her catering business.  Everyone spoke enough English to get along with us.  And we spoke enough French to understand most of the rest.

One of their friends tells us that he organizes a challenge every year, a foie gras competition.  I wonder when it is and, more importantly, if the strength of my friendship with Bill & Isabelle could get us invited to their friend's event.  Maxine observes that American's hold chili cookoffs and French have foie gras cookoffs...

A language nuance we learned that night.  According to one of the guests, people in northern France reply to a thank you with “de rien”, which means “it was nothing”.  But, people in the south, like them, reply “avec plaisir”, which means “with pleasure”.  Interesting nuance of a view towards life.

Another late night – home again around midnight, but feeling appreciative the whole way home.