Dormans, the Champagne area of France

Before Nathalie left last Friday she took us to their co-operative ‘Dom Caudron’ in Passy Grigny, 10-minute drive up the road.  We were given a personal tour in English around the co-op and museum and then watched a film on the process of champagne making.  It was very interesting. 

http://www.visiter-la-champagne.com/en/marne/passy-grigny/champagnes/champagne-dom-caudron/description

Nathalie and Christian sell the bulk of their picked grapes to the co-op.  These grapes are mixed with other grapes of the area and the Dom Caudron champagne is produced.  Nathalie says the flavour of this champagne never changes.  It is a set formula that is followed. 

Christian makes his own champagne with the remainder of the picked grapes.  Nathalie markets and sells their own champagne via their website.  I asked Nathalie about shipping to Australia, she said it would be too expensive.  What a shame it is delicious.  Their market is France, Belgium and England.

After the co-op we went to their vineyard.  The vines still had many grapes even though they finished picking a week ago.  Nathalie says under French law (and apparently there are many laws) grape growers are only allowed to pick so many grapes, the rest will be cut off and thrown away not before the casual staff that help with the picking get to take a few, maybe for their own wine making I assume.

The oldest vines Christian has growing is 45 years.  These belonged to his grandfather.  Vines are depleted after 50 years of producing.  At this age they should be pulled.  Nathalie said they are always growing new vines to replace old.

Also, on Friday Nathalie showed us the three bakeries in town, the best for croissants, the best for cakes and the best for baguette - the essentials of a French life.

We have been here a week now and settled into a routine with the dogs.  We walk them each morning after breakfast.  I’ll admit we aren’t getting out of bed till 8am, it is still dark.  The dogs don’t stir till then and we are happy to leave them as quiet as possible for as long as possible.  The sun doesn’t seem to rise till between 8 & 9.  I also admit I am feeling homesick at the moment with the sun gone into hibernation for the autumn and no friends around us.  We were spoilt having Laurel with us for a few weeks.

During the week we went on a couple of local drives and up to Paris for the day on Wednesday to the Indian visa office (take two).  The train station is within walking distance from the house, so handy.  The trip took one hour; the visit to the visa office was under an hour, so far so good.  We wander back to the train station as the next train is in one hour and don’t want to leave the dogs too long.  Lucky Jim notices a yellow flashing word in front of our train on the departures board.  He puts it in his iphone French translator and it means ‘cancelled’.  Great!  The next train is in four hours time and at this stage we are not even sure if it is going.  We find the information office and the helpful young girl (in her broken English) tells us that the line is being repaired, something to do with a tractor.  She says we need to catch a suburban train to the end of the line and then a taxi will be called for us to take us to Dormans.  Simple!!!!!

Two hours later we end up being we are meant to be.  When we get off the train we decide to follow two ladies, they are headed in our direction and look like they’re on a mission.  We reach the office and the younger of the ladies starts going off at the admin guy.  I say to a young lady standing between us and them, ‘Dormans’ and she asks me am I English.  All is good, she helps us out and yes we were right the other two ladies are also trying to get to Dormans.  A half hour later a taxi pulls up and the four of us start our road trip to Dormans, it takes a half hour.  Not far along the road police are on the side of the road with their lights flashing.  The angrier younger lady starts going off again.  I say at this rate we’re never going to get to Dormans, first a tractor, now an accident.  At this the angry one laughs, turns out she speaks a little English so now we joke about how dangerous it is getting to Dormans – a quiet country village.

The Marne River at the end of the street

Jim & Bandit 

DS & Filou 

Dom Caudron co-op

Typical local countryside driving around

View overlooking Chatillon-Sur-Marne

Dormans (pronounced dorma, the n&s are silent)

How lucky are we – the homeowners, Nathalie & Christian Cougnet are champagne makers.  Funny that, seeing we are in the Champagne district of France, didn’t even think about it. 

http://champagnechristiancougnet.com/

We honestly came into this housesit blind.  There was little correspondence between Natalie & Christian and us.  Back in mid September we applied, they accepted voila! So, here we are – one email last week to confirm our arrival.  They are French and that is out of the normal for the Trustedhousesitters website.  Most homeowners are English even though they live in Europe.  Natalie speaks English.  Christian is reluctant to but can manage a few words.  Jim’s French is about the same as Christian’s English.  My French is non-existent.

Upon our arrival late Thursday afternoon the dogs (Bandit - a standard wirehaired dachshund 8yrs, Deesse pronounced DS – a Beauceron 6yrs & Filou – a wirehaired miniature dachshund 2yrs) and the girls (Charlotte 16, Manou 12 & Margot 8) were at home to greet us.  Nathalie & Christian turned up an hour later, they had been at a champagne exhibition all day – needless to say they had sampled quite a few champagnes.  They did invite us but we couldn’t get here in time. 

Once the introductions and kissing of cheeks was over (I got a bit confused on how many kisses there should be) the first of many bottles of champagne were opened for the evening.  It was delicious – even Jim enjoyed a few glasses.  Friends, a family of 5 also champagne makers arrived for dinner.  More kissing of cheeks, very confused now on how many kisses, they appear to be doing two on each cheek.  Must Google that.  Yet another bottle of champagne was opened.  Natalie did really well to cook a pasta meal for 10 people with all that champagne being drunk.  I give up cooking after a glass or two.  I said good night at 10.30pm.  It was getting really messy with all that champagne. 

Nathalie & Christian are very generous with their champagne, they have left many bottles in the fridge for us. 

The three dogs are lovely.  Very friendly and love to get on your lap which is a bit of a problem with DS as she is big, heavy and strong.  Not speaking the same language doesn’t seem to matter.  I think body language and tone of voice is more important. 

The dogs like to be walked together so for us it is a challenge as DS is big and strong and pulls on the lead but once down the end of the street near the river she can be left off.  Jim has that responsibility.  I take Bandit and Filou.  Nathalie warned us not to let left them off the lead as they are hunting dogs and will run off.  The lead doesn’t seem to worry them.  They walk along happily.  Our plan is to walk them every morning so they get use to a routine (and us).  It is getting easier as each walk is better than the day before.  

The morning walk

The Marne River - at the end of the street

Jim with Bandit (both grumpy old men)

The front gates of the property

Monterosso to Chambery (Tues 15 & Wed 16 Oct)

It is over 1000kms from Monterosso to Dormans in Reims where our house sit is located.  I chose Chambery as a stop over for two nights because looking on the map it was the place of most interest for us to break up two days of 5-6 hours of driving each day. 

We left Monterosso the same route we came in on – a windy steep mountainous road with fantastic views not that you should be looking at them while driving.  I tried not to say WOW, look at that all the time. 

We drove through many tunnels on route; a couple was 3 & 5kms long.  Once the mountains surrounding this area came into view we could see the first signs of snow and feel it, the temperature dropped a lot.  We are close to the Italian and Switzerland border here. 

Chambery is known as the gateway to the alps.  There are many ski resorts within an hour or two drive from here.  This morning we visited the tourist office and decided to do what we like best – the toy train, next best thing to the double decker tourist bus.  It was a 40-minute trip around the town city.  

Chambery is a town for visiting churches, cathedrals and museums all of which interest Jim very little and I am happy to wander around and look at the buildings anything so long as I not stuck in a hotel room for the day.  Aside from yesterday being very wet when we arrived and today the sky is overcast and grey Chambery is a pretty town.  It is quiet and peaceful but feels cosmopolitan at the same time.  It suffered badly during the war, being bombed by the Americans because of the German occupation.  

Road tolls are expensive in France and Italy.  Rob, at the Surrey housesit mentioned that road tolls were expensive.  He wasn’t exaggerating.  It was lucky having Laurel with us on the trip over because we shared the cost.  Yesterday the tolls from Monterosso to Chambery amounted to 75.10 Euros ($114 approx).  Jim checked out our next leg, Chambery to Reims and it looks like it may only be 40 Euros. We still shake our heads and wonder how we ever thought we could have done this trip without a car.  Before leaving Australia we had no plans to buy a car but then really we had no plans after India.  Everything has evolved along the way – in a good way. 

I have been sitting writing this back in our hotel room now for the past couple of hours so that is enough from me.  I am off for a walk, must put on a few layers as it is cold out there.  I’ll try and get Jim to come out as well.  He has been reading while I have been typing.  It is amazing how he will read if there is no Internet or TV to watch. 

Castle in old Chambery

Streetscape in town centre

View of city rooftops from our hotel window

Monterosso, Cinque Terre (Friday 11 Oct to Tues 15 Oct)

As you know we arrived safely in Monterosso at the farm B&B.  Our four nights went very quickly (as time always does).  Each morning the sky started out overcast but managed to clear except for our last day when it rained and rained all day. 

The Cinque Terre is a national park.  Cinque meaning five.  The five villages are: Monterosso, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola & Riomaggiore, in that order, visible from our room.

The family’s farm is 32 acres.  Living on the farm is Franco & Silvana (the parents, in their seventies), Tommy (son 36yrs) & wife Elena, and Francesca visits on the weekends with her husband and two young daughters from Genoa.  Franco bought the first piece of land 40 years ago and has bought more over the years as it became available.  As you can see by our photos the farm sits high on the hill overlooking Monterosso Al Mare (village & beach). 

To walk down to the village and beach it is a 15-minute walk through the property but coming up is a different story.  There are many hills but 2 really steep sections and as you know I like walking so I'm not exaggerating.  It was good exercise and needed with all the food and wine (beer in Jim’s case) we have been devouring.

The family pride themselves on cooking with their own produce grown on the property as much as they can and with seafood that Tommy catches himself.

Picture the breakfast table: fresh fruit salad & yoghurt, OJ, home grown tomatoes, hard boiled eggs, cheese, salami served with bread & home made green chutney followed by homemade crostata served with home made fig jam and marmalade, homemade biscuits served with Italian coffee.  I know OMG!!!

Our first night out for dinner we ventured down to the beachfront.  Jim had fresh grilled calamari and I had homemade spinach pasta with swordfish and tomato.

The second night Silvana & Francesca made a vegetarian dinner for us and the other guests (a family of 7 from Boston).  They felt bad that Tommy wasn’t there to cook.  Tommy greeted us on arrival, which was nice but then had to leave to go to Genoa (1.5hr drive) where Elena and their new baby girl, she was three days old were still in hospital.   Silvana is a vegetarian herself so the food was delicious.  Pumpkin soup, pasta with tomato sauce, two different kinds of vegetable flan served with beans cooked in tomato sauce with a cabbage salad followed by a choice of dessert: fresh watermelon or lemon tart (light and fluffy pastry) sprinkled with pine nuts.  The meal was finished with Limón cello made by Tommy & Elena.

Our third day in Monterosso we caught the local train to the other ports.  The trip is only five minutes between each village.  The ticket is great value at 4 Euros ($6) each for 6 hours in the one direction.  Many people walk between one and more of the villages, (each village is 1.5 hours from the next) have lunch then catch the train back. 

We visited three ports then had lunch at Manarola.  Jim had mussels with linguine & I had walnut sauce with spinach & ricotta ravioli.  The mussels & walnuts are specialties of the area.  The homemade pasta was mouth watering.  Lucky for those steep hills to and from the farm.

Tommy arrived back at the farm late Tuesday afternoon and offered to cook dinner.  On Tripadvisor the reviews rave about his talents as a fisherman and cook so we were keen to have the seafood dinner.  The plan for Jim’s birthday was to have one of Tommy’s seafood dinners so we were lucky we got it in the end.  The meal started with spaghetti and eggplant with tomatoes – normally that would be dinner, wouldn’t it!  Next the fish, it was cooked slowly in the oven with lemon and drizzled with their homemade olive oil served with Mediterranean vegetables - potatoes, red & green capsicum and tomatoes.  It was sensational.  Dessert was vanilla pannacotta with chocolate sauce.  I can’t believe Tommy made it all in a few hours.  Then he bought out an assortment of homemade grappa’s (blueberry, rose petal, pomegranate & lemon).  We aren’t into liqueurs but we had one to toast to Tommy, Elena and the new baby, Eirene ‘Goddess of Peace’ & people think happy is a hard name to live up to. 

The B&B 

The view from the B&B

Jim having a rest along the walk back to the B&B from the beach

What a pose!

Luna & bunny of Camaiore

When we were packing the car to leave Camaiore last Friday Jim took this photo.  I didn’t know he’d taken it till the other day. 

It was lovely in the mornings to look outside the door and see bunny & Luna waiting for us to start the day.

It is now Wednesday 16 October and I am behind on posting blogs (again).  The Internet was better at Monterosso than Camaiore but it took a long time (too long) for those photos to load.  I am writing this from Chambery where the Internet is also extremely slow, too slow to post a blog or photos so I have decided to write the blogs and post at a later date.  Tomorrow we are driving the 500+kms from here to Dormans in Reims for our house sit.  Hopefully the Internet is faster there. 

Photos for Camaiore

Afternoon!
Here we are in Monterosso.  The drive from Camaiore this morning was all good.  Down the windy hill along the motorway for one hour and then up and down and around more narrow windy roads for a half hour but the drive was worth it.  The B&B farmhouse is delightful.  Our room overlooks Monterosso Al Mare - what a fantastic view.  The B&B is everything the website says it is.
http://www.ulivetonelparco.it/eng/storia.html

The internet is faster than Camaiore so I thought I try to post a few photos for you as I don't think we will able to download all of Camaiore till we reach our housesit in Reims this time next week.

View from our front door with the ocean in the distance

Camaiore town (proper) 

Our house taken from the road (near cluster of houses) in the first photo

A church in Lucca

Lucca - a maze of streets

Fungi display at fruit shop

Lido Camaiore - in summer this is packed with deckchairs 

Bunny & Luna (we asked Umberto puppy's name this morning when we were leaving)

Camaiore & Jim's birthday

I can imagine this area (as all of Tuscany) is busy during the summer months.  Because we are here in autumn it is quiet and peaceful. 

Our street is between the suburbs of Panicale and Montemagno.  Twenty minutes on from Montemagno is the town of Camaiore.  In the other direction past Panicale is Lucca, a twenty-minute drive.  

Further on from Camaiore is Lido Camaiore, Viareggio and Pisa.  Florence is an hour south.

We have had a couple of day trips – Viareggio (the beach), Camaiore, Lucca, Lido of Camaiore, (the beach) and Massarosa.  We are happy to not venture far, the obvious being the hills and we have quite a few long days of travel over the next few months so this is a time to just sit and be quiet. 

The Internet is something we rely on so much to keep in touch with family and friends and for general research and entertainment so we have found it quite restrictive not to have access to it here 24/7.  It is almost impossible to Skype and posting photos on the blog, forget it. 

Tomorrow is Jim’s birthday.  It is a shame not to be able to share it with family and friends but we will go to a restaurant and have a nice lunch (of pasta or pizza) and toast for health, happiness, family and friends.  

Friday, we are off to Monterosso in the Cinque Terre.  It is only a hour and half drive.  We are both very excited because it is an area of renown beauty and the B&B we are staying at gets rave reviews - it is belated birthday present for Jim.