We were all a little sad to leave
Italy, and today was our last. Jo was quite depressed actually, to say the
least, we headed to Naples airport, bid farewell to decent coffee, and caught
our flight to Geneva. Wondered what Paul was going to do, as ‘prego’ had become
his favourite word. He used it all the time, even when it was out of context. When in doubt say ‘prego’!
The weather was warm, but clouds
were gathering so decided not to head to Chamonix as visibility would not be
good from Mt Blanc, so set off in the direction of Annecy. The guy at the rentals gave us a bit of
a bum steer with directions and ended up taking the scenic route. We wound our
way through cute little French villages in the gorgeous countryside. By the time we hit Annecy, the day was
almost done so found a hotel, and as we hadn’t eaten since breakfast headed off
for an early dinner. Finally after a couple of hours settled on crepes and an
early night.
Woke up to rain, so headed down
to the ‘old town’. It was quite
beautiful even in the rain.
The rain finally got too much so we decided to leave and set off for
Lyon, based on a tip brother Mal had. Lyon has the most restaurants/cafes per square metre anywhere
in France is reputation for the ‘gastronomical’ centre of France. Sounded like the perfect place for us. So for those of you not interested in
food, you can stop reading now, cause the next few days is all about the
food….even more so than usual!! Lyon did not disappoint.
Arrived at Lyon in the rain, and
after a couple of hours finally
settled on a hotel, that we had found on the net the previous night. Went for walk in the afternoon and found
our bearings and a quick look.
Every second shop was a shoe shop and next door was a patisserie, so Jo
particularly pleased and very distracted.
Mal, the epitome of an Aussie male became a bit impatient and just kept
walking anyway. Found where we were coming back to dinner that night, a little alley frequented by the locals, and a great tip from the lady in the info centre. Ended up in a great spot outside right in the middle of everything, loads to keep us occupied while we waited for our food to arrive. Dish of the night had to go to Paul's escargot with creamy mushroom and garlic sauce, well done everyone was wishing they had ordered it. All of our meals were more than satisfactory though and if this was a taste of things to come, our waistlines were in a lot of trouble.
Woke up the next day to more rain, even though a promise of some finer weather was made by the weatherman the night before....damn you weather man!! We decided to go inside and check out the covered markets "Les Halles" as we were a little over walking in the rain sightseeing by now and a little shelter was just what we needed. Well weren't we greeted with a bit of a treat, these food markets were out of this world, the standard and abundance of fine food mind blowing, only problem was we had only just eaten breakfast and were all still quite full, but oh the temptation!! The cheese, pastries, macarons, handmade chocolates, meats, Lyon sausages, fresh fruit and veg, seafood, and last but not least the ducks, chickens and whole fresh bunnies with skin and fur attached!! It was well and truly foodie heaven, you couldn't close your eyes and imagine anything better if you tried. Made a few purchases...of course we did, and even made some room in our full tummies for some samples, hence the purchasing!! Miraculously the sun was shining when we came out for air, and left us the entire afternoon to explore Lyon. We wandered through the old town, which was delightful, and even came across some of the old tunnels (traubles) that weave through, linking the buildings like little secret passageways. Very cool.
After a little R&R, we set off for another taste sensation in our little alleyway, finally settled on a restaurant that we were all happy with, I'm not going to mention anything else other than the Creme Brulee, we had a great meal, but the Creme Brulee was exceptional, something we will be talking about when we're all old and wrinkly and sitting in our wheel chairs in the sunny spot on the verandah of our nursing homes!!! Honestly.
