All you can eat in two weeks

The purpose of our stay in St Martin was to relax and decompress after the ‘Tour De France’, similar to the last stage into Paris where the winner shares a bottle of champagne with his team mates whilst riding their bikes. Well, we neither rode bikes or shared a bottle of champagne, though I managed to have a couple of beers during the weekend.

We had stayed in St Martin De Re and in our hotel, La Baronnie before. It’s a lovely, luxurious hotel and does a fab breakfast. The town is small, though the harbour area is both interesting and lively. There didn’t appear to be a huge amount of tourists and we had two delicious meals, in O Parloir, a quirky restaurant with pop art decor and Baline Bleu, which is a more traditional portside eating place. Our first night in the hotel was unfortunately disturbed by some Irish guests, making a row and unloading boxes from a car at 4:30 in the morning. No, we didn’t know why either.

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We wandered around the town, looking in some of the tourist shops, stocked with nautically themed items and those horizontally striped T shirts, designed to accentuate the two kilos you’ve gained in Michelin starred restaurants. The harbour is pleasant to sit beside so we had coffee and just people watched.

We left on Monday morning and drove up the boring D road to join the autoroute for home. Unfortunately Charles, our sat nav voice, had a minor embolism near Angers and directed us through the city center. He had done this once before, so I should have ignored him and continued on to Nantes, but his voice is so persuasive I decided not to. Besides, who then would have brought me the mid morning G&T? What it did do was to convince us that Angers was worthy of a visit rather than an unfortunate wrong turn.

So, we arrived home mid afternoon, somewhat weary but pleased to see our animal crew again. We’ve discovered places we want to return to and others which we feel we’ve ticked off our list. France has many more corners to discover… a bientot!!

Well, as I was hinting at in the last blog, our experience of staying at Creamundo was quite different to eating there. It’s a lovely place, Nicolas is wonderful chef and whipped up the most wonderful breakfasts with french toast or scrambled eggs straight out of the kitchen. But the stairs to our room were challenging, the wifi was out of range upstairs and it was turned off late in the evening. I suppose that’s a good thing, to divorce yourself from the connected world but a little frustrating when you have a blog to publish.

Anyway we met up with friends during our stay, had two great meals (one in a chateau) and tried to relax for a while.

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Toulouse may only be a short drive from the Ariege but it’s a world away in many respects. I must admit that on my second stay there I did begin to appreciate it’s qualities. It’s busy, with a large student presence and very handy for shopping, which Susie did. She’s recently taken up crocheting again and she called in to a wool shop, where she bought so much they were herding sheep into the rear of the shop so they could re stock.

We had two fabulous meals in Toulouse, the second in Sept (which we’d dined in before). It’s a one Michelin star restaurant with no menu. You eat what’s put in front of you which can be revealing, interesting or challenging. They also dim the lights when the place is full, mainly so you can’t see the bill at the end.

The night before we ate at Hito whose cuisine is French but with a Japanese twist. It’s very small and almost floodlit by comparison to Sept. We were served by a Russian waitress who was really charming and the food left us speechless with it’s textures and flavours. A definite one to return to and probably our favourite meal of this trip.

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So, we left Toulouse on Saturday morning by almost deserted streets, negotiated the inner city and the peripherique and after a long drive arrive here, in St Martin de Re, which is where the next blog will begin…

I must say, here and now, that this blog may be either long or truncated due to lack of or unreliable wifi during the last week or so. It is also possible that tiredness and over eating had an influence of my writing abilities.

So, we had intended to visit Uzes while in Nimes. On paper (or the internet) it seemed an easy trip but we had an unfortunate attack of Nimes Knees so decided to wander round the Roman Museum instead. Preparations for the evenings bullfight were in full swing and from the upper floors of the museum we could see the horses being led away from their transporter. It’s a nice museum with excellently curated exhibits and a friendly staff. We’d had a snack at the museum cafe before our visit where our waiter told us that his 17 year old daughter was going to begin a job as an aupair in Peterborough. Bit of a change from Nimes…

We went back to the hotel to massage our wonky knees and prepare for our evening meal at the restaurant on the top floor of the museum. We were one of the first to arrive and were seated on the terrace, overlooking the arena where mercifully, the bullfight had just ended. During our meal we were serenaded (all at the same time) by a jazz band, a samba band and a France Bleu disco. It didn’t spoil our meal or disturb our nights sleep. We really like the Ibis Styles hotel in Nimes and would use it again. Next morning we left for Pezenas, by way of Aigue Mortes.

Pezenas is only a 90 minute drive from Nimes. Sadly our plans were again thwarted by roadworks and a loud French motorist who shouted at me for cutting him up on a roundabout..the nerve of some people.

This was our third visit to Pezenas and apart from staying in a boutique hotel, which was tired and not a little scruffy nothing had changed. We wandered round the artisans shops and had an excellent tapas meal on our second evening. It certainly outdid the hotel bistro, whose food was not scruffy but definitely a bit tired.

We then moved on to Leran, to visit friends in the area. We stayed at Creamundo whose breakfasts were out of this world but whose wifi was….well more of that in the next blog.

We had an early start this morning, as our train to Arles left Nimes at 8:15, so when we arrived 30 minutes later a lot of the town was yet to wake up. Still, by the time we had walked from the station the Roman arena was open and we could wander round it. The arena is still used for bullfights sadly, so essentially, not much has changed in 2,000 years.

It’s amazing to see the original Roman construction under the arches and how talented and clever the workmen were in ancient times. After a few minutes we were joined by a group of noisy French schoolchildren, one of whom I would have cheerfully thrown to a passing lion in the arena. They followed us round for most of the morning…

Next stop was the Roman amphitheatre, though we paused for coffee first. The amphitheatre is not as well preserved as the arena but has a large modern stage for performances. It has brilliant acoustics, in fact you can every shout from a French schoolboy in an orange T shirt. Yes, he avoided the lion….

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We slowly trudged back to the station, suffering the effects of humidity and chocolate. There was no sign of the Orange T shirted schoolboy. No doubt he was back home and safely tucked away in the cupboard under the stairs. Our train arrived dead on time and we staggered back to the hotel. Arles is worth a second visit we think, as is Nimes. It’s our last full day here tomorrow and we plan to visit the Roman museum. Provided it isn’t washed away during the night…

It was a warm late summers morning when we drove away from Les Douaires. I was slightly apprehensive about the start of our holidays but happy that after almost two years of Covid lockdown and restrictions we were finally able to ‘go away’, albeit to France.

After a long and sometimes slow drive we arrived in Troyes and our hotel for the next two nights. Troyes is pronounced ‘trois’ and is the city where the troy weight for gold originated. So, nothing to do with Greek legends and wooden horses.

It’s a lively town, a little touristy and with a sizable student population, which we observed on our first night, eating and drinking, well mostly drinking but then it was Saturday. We’d reserved a table at Le Valentino, which was really nice but a little reserved. We strolled back through the old town which is really charming and got to bed quite early as we were both very tired.

Today, fortified by a buffet breakfast, we explored more of the old town which I gradually warmed to. There were slightly less people around which probably helped. The historic centre is quite small, though we managed to fill in nearly five hours of walking. Perhaps I should point out that the walking was interspersed with stops for sedentary recovery of tired limbs and ‘refuelling’

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We staggered back to the hotel and had a nap before going out for dinner. Yes, this holiday will follow the pattern of other preceding ones, walking, sightseeing and stuffing our faces. Tonight we ate at ‘Chez Felix’, an appropriately cat themed restaurant in the ‘Ruelle De Chats’.

It was really nice and had a much warmer ambiance than the previous night. I chose a dessert which contained a pear sorbet and a sizeable shot of eau de vie. Be warned, it’s very potent.

Anyway, we are now back in our room, with an alarm set so we can breakfast fairly early. Our next stop (for one night only) is Macon, 300km further south. Then on to Pont Du Gard, Nimes etc…..

This is an ‘off the cuff’ or ‘spur of the moment’ blog, written after our visit to the departmental prefecture at Saint Lo.

Both myself and Susie have lived in France for about 20 years. When we first arrived we had to obtain a ‘carte de sejour’ which doubled as an identity card and work permit. After a few years the French Government decided that these were no longer needed and withdrew the requirement to renew them. Fast forward to 2016, Brexit happened and the government here thought that cards for British permanent residents should become mandatory again.

So here we were, some five years later, in the midst of Covid, driving to our appointment at the prefecture to complete the final bits of paperwork so that we could obtain our cards. It was an unreasonably early rendezvous, just before 10 a.m. and as it was a lengthy drive, we set off at 8.

To alleviate the largely boring journey, we listened to some podcasts, along with occasional interjections from our very English sat nav voice. A podcast of a Gerald Scarfe’s radio program on the subject of Europe and Brexit was playing and Daphne (as I’d christened the disembodied and occasionally helpful voice) kept pointing us, generally, in the correct direction. It turned out that the podcast consisted of edited sound bites which alluded to the pros and cons of remain or leave. Daphne seemed to be uncertain as to which of these two camps to lean towards as she kept telling us to ‘turn left’ or ‘turn right’. Then after we’d listened to a sound bite from Boris Johnson she decided that we should, ‘make a U turn where possible’. Her timing appeared to be impeccable.

Well, we secured a convenient parking spot and suitably masked, walked to the prefecture. An amiable security guard met us just outside the main door, checked our names off his list of appointments and invited us to use the hand sanitizer. A further check of our passports at reception and we were directed to follow the one way staircase and present ourselves at the appropriate cubicle. Our documentation was again checked, our I.D. photos were cut out and attached to yet another form which we had to sign.

The last element of our application was to provide fingerprints. This was achieved with an electronic scanner connected to a computer terminal operated by the official dealing with our cards. Susie presented her hands, first right, then left and finally both thumbs. Scanned without problem. Then came my turn….

Both hands scanned well, however my thumbs proved to be difficult and the scan of them locked up the computer. I do wonder if my prints flagged up a ‘red alert’ when they sent them to Interpol, however no SWAT team or vans with blue lights appeared and with the assistance of two colleagues (who decided that rebooting the computer would solve matters) our official was back on line. I again presented my now infamous prints and all went through.

Of course, this being France, we couldn’t have the cards immediately. They will arrive via the postal service in two to three weeks. No doubt she will serve me with my European arrest warrant at the same time. We made our way to the car and drove home. We chose music, not podcasts to amuse us on the way. All the while I nervously glanced in the mirror to see if we were being tailed but it looks like my crimes are minor. I’m not destined to be classed as a criminal mastermind just yet…