Day One
After a long day in the car from Erlangen
it was delightful to slip into Jura time and wander the village this morning.
In the afternoon we did the same in neighbouring Treffort. These delightful
little towns struggle to keep the primary school open, spend all their money on
the wrong things (each and every one of them has a huge hall, used once or
twice a year for mayoral events!) and absent owners renovate the old houses but
visit infrequently from Paris. That said, Elaine and Colin have carved
themselves a lovely existence and are making the most of all that French rural
life has to offer.
We had a hilarious evening with Wiebke and
Michel, friends of Elaine’s & Colin’s, who had kindly invited us to
gatecrash their dinner invitation to E & C. Wiebke is a professional chef,
mad keen traveller and multi-linguist so we were well fed, wined and
entertained variously in French, German and English. I also rediscovered the
humour in Andrew’s same old same old jokes told in another language complete
with French pantomime gestures.
Day Two
Andrew is still claiming jetlag and woke at
10am this morning. After a lazy breakfast we all went into the nearby
metropolis (read: small provincial town) of Bourg en Bresse to view the sites
while we waited for lunchtime. B-en-B has a smattering of 13th
century half-timbered houses, a lovely 19th century theatre, fine
Gothic church and lots of picture postcard crooked lanes and geranium filled
streets. Lunch outside and my first taste of foie gras in a delicious salad.
On the way home we stopped to look at the
16h century royal monastery and church at Brou, which were built in a style
called flamboyant gothic! The church has a striking tiled roof in the style of
the architecture of Beaune.
In the evening we settled down to a fix of
Jeux Olympics on the TV, which Colin has just had connected to the BBC – our
timing was perfect for a change! The Beeb doesn’t get quite so one-eyed as
Australian, French or US TV commentators and the Poms have more to boast about
than usual. Colin cooked us his delicious signature dish of “poulet au facon
Helliwell” - which has even featured on the menu of Wiebke’s restaurant .
Day Three
Elaine: We can’t say you didn’t warn us –
France was one big parking lot today as we inched our way southwards along with
every Parisian family, Belgian grey nomad and Dutch caravan for the grand
“fuite” and annual holiday to the Mediterranean. So we left the autoroute near
Valence and took a long but scenic drive on N and D roads through the Ardeche
hills and down into the countryside north of Nimes.
Nimes (with accent circumflex on the i) was
35 degrees in the shade but with a big blue sky and the smell of the Med in the
air. After a swim in the hotel pool, we wandered into the old town for dinner.
It is a beautiful small city with more than its fair share of Roman
antiquities. None of this crumbled down stuff though: there is a well-preserved
and nicely restored 2 AD temple and amphitheatre right in the middle of town. A
lovely stopover before we drive to Carcassonne and our canal boat holiday with
Fiona and Robin.
