Au Revoir, Paris
Our last night in Paris was a celebration of our 40th wedding anniversary. We had reservations, a must for most places even at this time of the year. The restaurant had about a dozen tables, half of which had English speaking patrons. The good news was that the other 50% were French. We both ordered the Tasting Menu because we have had good luck doing that in quite a few other restaurants (in the US). We were expecting to have tiny plates of this and that. Instead, we had what seemed like full-sized plates. I ordered some wonderful sounding things: Spring roll with crab and shredded cod for my two starters, then I ordered a slow cooked pork and a deep fried raviolo with a side of fish as my "mains".
I was more than surprised when the spring roll turned out to be a sushi roll with raw crab and the usual vegetables in nori. I figured it probably wouldn't kill me to eat it, so I did.
Next up, the shredded cod. Here was something that I would really like. I could just picture it. Well, not really. It was raw cod, not even marinated: not cheviche, raw cod. I survived the crab, so I ate the raw cod. I did not think it was wonderful -- I thought it was raw. I really prefer my animal products to be cooked first.
Comfort was next, slow cooked pork. I was back on track. Very tasty, flaky soft, lovely. Next up was the deep-fried raviolo (only one, so it's raviolo, not ravioli). Since it was deep fried, I felt assured that it would, of necessity, be cooked. Well, it was slightly cooked. The shrimp inside it was barely warm, certainly not cooked. The outside was fried, true, but it was not cooked all the way through. The piece of fish which was mysteriously served with it was cooked perfectly. I tasted like monkfish, one of my favorites.
For the life of me, I can't figure out how we managed to pick a restaurant that specialized in raw fish. I never connect French food with raw fish. There was nothing about their website that would have indicated that. I'm still alive, so the raw fish didn't kill me, or even give me food poisoning. But, I would have had a much better experience if the fish had been passed over a flame. The major success of the evening was that I managed to prevent Larry from taking photos in the restaurant -- a favorite occupation of his. however, he did take this picture of me while we were waiting in front of the restaurant.
The Dordogne
The next morning, Monday, Sept 27, we left Paris (sigh!) for what might be the last time. It's getting harder and harder for Larry to navigate city streets, subway steps etc. So, we might find that we are not able to go to Paris again. I have enjoyed our five trips to Paris and consider myself unbelievably lucky to have experienced a city so absolutely beautiful. That neither one of us can communicate in French beyond buying a baguette hasn't been much of a problem. Sometimes it's created funny circumstances when sales clerks chuckle at us, but we've never been treated rudely.
We picked up our rental car just a short walk from our apartment, then picked up our bags stored at the apartment for the moment and then navigated our way (for better or worse) through the streets of Montmartre and onto the peripheral road on our way to the superhighway. Whew, we made it. Then all day of driving so that we could arrive at our "gite" (apartment to the rest of us) in the lovely countryside of the Dordogne region of southwestern France. If I had done a little more homework about the area, I would have known that this is the very famous area called Perigord, which is the home of truffles, foie gras and the absolute best french chefs in the world. Practically all of the top tier (not the Food Network type) of chefs come from here. As soon as I figured that out, my interest in the area increased exponentially. I am definitely a foodie.
We got here to this tiny, tiny village (not even a village, really) about 7:00. We were a bit tired from being on the road all day. We had stopped at the grocery store in a town nearby on our way, so we were provisioned well enough to have some dinner. We got accustomed to the gite and settled in to read the slew of tourist brochures left by previous renters.
Here's the view from the patio of our gite, overlooking the magnificent valley below.
Some of the caves are really quite high up, and as of now, I haven't figured how ancient people would have been able to access them. Probably I will figure this out when we go to the archeological museum, which I have heard is really worth the visit. What amazes me is that it is thought that these cave drawings had some relationship to religious practices. To have thoughts about a higher power is a relatively advanced activity. I did not know that these prehistoric people could imagine a higher power. Well, that's what the guidebooks say.
Here's a picture of the town.
Being that it was lunch time, everything except the restaurants and the gift shops were closed. So, we had lunch. The idea here is to have the "menu du jour", a set lunch with three or four courses. In some cases, you have no idea what is being served that day, and in some cases, you can choose from two or three menu items for each course. I had cassolet for the first time. I had wanted to have this for many years after reading about it in "Mastering the Art of French Cooking", but I never wanted to go through the steps to make it. Not to mention that we don't have preserved duck legs at every local supermarket. It was quite good. Now that I've had it, I might not need to have it again. Basically, it's French style Boston Baked Beans.
In the afternoon, we went to one of the many caves around here. The one we tried to go to was full for the day and we were informed that we would have to make reservations , and that the next available reservations were in 15 days. Somehow, I don't really think that the reservations clerk had her English down pat, but maybe it really was 15 days' wait. At any rate, in 15 days, we will be in the French Riviera, quite a long way from here. So, we went to a less popular cave a couple of miles away. Obviously, the reason that it is less popular is that it is also less interesting. This cave, Combarelles, had the carvings, not paintings. The cave that Larry really wants to see is at least an hour away from here, probably more. So, we may not get there. (Also, I'm not so thrilled about caves. It's not claustrophobia, I just don't think that they are very interesting).
On our way back to our gite, we passed through Sarlat, the town that most tourists come here to see. It is an unbelievable medieval town. I quickly found a parking spot smack in the middle of town. Little did I know that it was the biggest street in town. It was one lane wide, with another lane, which changed every few feet from one side to the other, for parking and dining tables to share in a strange system of ceramic blocks in the street to determine the exact use. It was quite strange. We were looking for the bank, which was easy to find. Then, having a little more time on the meter, we wandered around and nearly got lost in the maze of little lanes with the ancient buildings still standing. It didn't take much imagination to visualize the old town with a mix of vendors and their carts, hawkers of various kinds, a few dirty, shoeless kids begging in the street and the usual allotment of stray cats. This town could be emptied of modern people and used as a movie set with precious little cosmetic redecorating of the shops. The lanes were cobble stones, the buildings were cheek-by-jowl and the whole thing looked basically unchanged in about 500 years, give or take a couple. I'm hoping that we have time to go back and stroll around a little more. It was the end of the day and we were getting tired, so we didn't stay very long. This is a lovely town to stay in. Even though we had heard of trouble parking there, we didn't have any trouble at all. Of course, we weren't there on a market day.
Here is Sarlat.
Today is Wednesday, the 29th. I was very sick last night, so we got a bit of a late start this morning. We dallied at the gite for a while, reading email and the such. By the time that we left and got to our destination in a nearby town (Salignac) to find a post office, it was lunchtime. We had a typical menu de jour. Another great meal. We had great fun walking around the town. The ancient town is mixed right in with the more modern town. The chateau here is in disrepair and closed to the public. There are lots of piles of ruble, right next to fairly new houses. The style here is to build new houses in just the same style and with the same materials as the ancient buildings. The result is that everything blends very well. There is no jarring juxtaposition of buildings from 1500 made of stone and buildings from 2000 made of glass or the like. Even houses in the countryside blend.
Here is the lovely town of Salignac. I really liked this place. If I was going to buy a house in Perigord, this would be the town.
All of those lessons that we learned in school about how medieval towns were built -- castle, workers' homes around the castle, farm around the castle, etc, -- all become real when you look at these towns. There is always a walled castle (chateau), the surrounding out buildings for the tradesmen who were employed to build the castle, the church, the marketplace. It's easier to understand the basic tenets of fortification and defense when you can see it up close. I really enjoy walking around these old towns and imagining the various times that the town went through.
Our expedition for the day was to go to the gardens at d'Eyrignac. These are magnificently sculpted shrubs and trees. I really enjoyed it. This is not necessarily one of the larger gardens, but it is well cared for. The interesting thing to me is that even though the land and manor house have been continuously owned by the same family for 500 years (22 generations), the gardens are actually a modern construct. The father (now deceased) of the current owner actually designed the gardens and provided the funds to build them. These are private gardens, not part of the national trust for preservation of gardens and antiquities (I don't actually know the name of the trust). To keep the gardens and manor house in the family, the family opened it to the public. Signs posted said that it takes five full-time gardeners year round and that it costs 800,000 Euros a year to maintain. It sounds like this just might be a break-even venture because the entrance fee is 9.50 Eu per person and they have 80,000 visitors a year.
Here are the gardens on a late afternoon in late September when the sun is lower in the sky and gives long shadows.
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