Lazy Saturday in Eze

From now on I am going to call mandarins ‘Clementines’, isn’t that a great name!.  They are in season at the moment and are super (as the French would say with their charming accent).  Another cute thing about them is they often have leaves on the stalk – just makes you want to take a photo. 

Woke up to a dark sky this morning.  It has turned out to be a wet, windy and cold day by French Riviera standards but we are very cosy here in our abode looking out over the water watching the weather coming in across the sea.

Earlier today we caught the bus into Beaulieu to have a look around.  We weren’t there very long, weather put us off.  We can save it for another fine sunny day.

I spent the afternoon making pasta tomato sauce for our dinner tonight from vine ripened romas and fennel bought at the Ventimiglia market yesterday.  The train trip from Eze to Ventimiglia was a half hour trip.  The trip over we were jammed in like sardines, ironic considering we were headed for Italy the home of sardines.  The trip back was spacious and we even got seats.  The train stops at Monaco (two stops up the road) – we might go back another day and have coffee in the main square that is about the only thing that interests us in Monaco. 

While waiting on the train platform at Eze a lady started chatting to me in French, I replied with my normal response ‘Pardon, no French’ and she replies with ‘What would you like to talk in’.  I said English is good for me.  We ended up standing, jammed next to her more like it on the train and chatted the half hour to Italy.  She was in her late sixties (at a guess), German with dyed red hair.  She was very funny.  During her working life she had worked for Ansett Airlines and spent time in Australia and New Guinea.  She moved here to work in a travel agency before she retired.  She says it is a relaxed lifestyle and easy to get use to living with the sun year round although she does get bored so goes over to Ventimiglia every few weeks to pretend she is travelling and to speak Italian for a few hours.  She has travelled widely as you can imagine and spent 5 weeks last year on a train trip around Canada (on her own).  She said we were friendly just like Canadians, which she said is not the norm in France – the friendliness.  We must be lucky because all the people we have dealt with have been friendly and helpful.  We have spoken more English in the past few days with our new Chinese friend and now our new German friend than we have in weeks. 

After a wet day today the forecast for the week is sunny with temperatures of 13C.  Super!

Talk towards the end of the week, you never know we may have made more new friends.

PS. Jim has found a new website 'Filmon.com' so he can watch TV from all over the world including the ABC from Australia and the BBC from the UK which shows 'Home & Away' - perfect.  He is currently match ready for the rugby match Wales Vs Australia on BBC2 - talk about the 'Accidential Tourist'.  

Have you bought your Poinsettia for Christmas?

Cyclamens, one of my favs at Ventimiglia markets

Morning coffee at the markets

Our first day in Eze

It is 2.49pm on Thursday afternoon and I am sitting on a sun bed overlooking the Mediterranean with the afternoon sun warming my face and toes.  It has been a long time since I haven’t had to wear shoes and socks.  It feels great.  I have to make the most of the sun, as it is starting to go behind the hills (the end of the alps is really what they are, they are massive and very impressive).

We arrived in Eze last night at 8.20pm and Nicola was at the train station to pick us up as promised.  The apartment is only a few minutes drive up a windy road above the train station ‘Eze-Sur-Mer’.  Our apartment is on the ground floor of her house where she lives with her Norwegian husband, Egil, their 14 year-old daughter (don’t know her name as we haven’t met her yet) and ‘Chloe’ their standard poodle – another one, what a coincidence.  Chloe is white and very friendly.  Nicola is English and they have lived here for 8 years.  They return to Norway to their summerhouse for the European summer school holidays in July & August.  Perfect!

The apartment is well equipped and will be a lovely place to live for the next three weeks.  I just love this outdoor area, especially if the sun shines for part of the day.

This morning Nicola drove us into Beaulieu, 4kms away (heading towards Nice, the other direction takes you to Monaco and the Italian border) to the supermarket to do a heavy shop as she called it – so thoughtful.  

Tomorrow we plan to go to Ventimiglia, which is in Italy, only a half hour train trip away.  Apparently the market is huge with everything from clothes to food and everything in between – but Nicola said be careful when buying imitation goods as the customs police can confiscate items at the border if they are inclined – lucky that won’t be a problem for us as we are not in the market for anything along those lines – can’t carry anything extra.  It is more the fruit and vegetables we are after but it never hurts to have a good look around, you never know what you might find.

After shopping this morning we walked down to the esplanade to a local café for lunch straight across from the train station.  There is a short cut (of sorts) from the apartment to the main road via many flights of stairs between the streets.  You can imagine who had to bite their tongue with Jim’s love of walking and stairs. 

We ended up having the funniest lunch being entertained by ‘Annie’ a Chinese lady (forties or fifties, hard to tell).  The tables were set so close to each other you couldn't help but acknowledge your lunch partner whether you wanted one or not with a 'bonjour'.  She was very chatty and I asked her lots of questions.  She is married to a Norwegian guy and has been living in Oslo for the past 3 years, prior to Oslo 11 years in USA.  She has been on holiday in Eze with friends from China who live in the USA.  She is flying back to Oslo tonight and just filling in time today.  She says her hobby is travel and spends $70K approx each year on travel – I nearly spat my food out at that remark.  Like I said, she was very entertaining.  She went on to say she would love a winter apartment in Nice because they are so cheap at 250,000 Euros ($375,000), at this remark I said ‘and why not at that price’, rich coming from the girl who doesn’t have one house let alone a winter or summer house. 

Anyway, she liked us even if we do wear jeans (she actually said this in a round about sort of way) and gave us her phone number and invited us to stay in her summerhouse in Norway.

PS.  Pieta, if you are reading this, don’t worry we didn’t buy mussels in Beaulieu this morning only salmon, scallops and prawns.  The seafood is so fresh and appealing.  Jacq told us about your in-house joke of warning Frank against eating mussels while you were on holidays here years ago.  Maybe another day, I’ll let you know.

Part of our view from our apartment

Looking back into the apartment

Lucky we sold the Polo

Looking down the (short cut) of stairs to the main road

Another day, another market

Today (Sunday) we visited Issigeac and its market.  We have driven through Issigeac a few times on our way to Bergerac but today was the first time we stopped and walked around the village.  What a cute village!  The market was busy and stallholders were both French and English.  As I have mentioned before this part of France the southwest is very much an English strong hold – don’t let any French read this, they would dispute that, as they don’t like the English as a rule.  We were told by our English friends to let the French know we are Australian not English if asked.  

I was very excited at the market.  Whilst walking around I was planning our Christmas day lunch in my head because there were so many appealing stalls to buy fresh produce and ingredients.  We plan to visit again on the Sunday before Christmas and buy up.  For starters Jim can have freshly shucked oysters and prawns and I can have smoked salmon and goats cheese.  The main can be a chicken roll stuffed with prunes accompanied by assorted roast vegetables.  All locally grown produce.  There was an English lady selling home made Christmas cake and mince tarts, I’ll see if she has Christmas pudding when we return and buy all three. 

Melinda (home owner) recommended La Bruceliere in Issiegeac for a more up market meal but unfortunately they are closed for a few days over Christmas so we have booked lunch for 27 December.  Check it out - it looks lovely.  I have translated the menu so armed and ready to order.

http://www.labruceliere.com/Accueil.html

On Tuesday afternoon we pick up Melinda from the Bergerac airport.  We have the evening together and she will drive us to the Bergerac train station on Wednesday morning.  Our train leaves at 8.30am for Eze.  We change at Bordeaux and will arrive in Eze at 8pm.  Jim is looking forward to being a passenger, to sit and look out the window at the countryside.  We bought a couple of English books at the market this morning for the train trip.  Nicola, the lady that owns the apartment in Eze will pick us up from the train station.  How nice of her.  So until Eze, au revoir!

The markets are so colourful

Yeh!, what to buy & cook

Looking down a side street off the main square of Issigeac

Food & wine - the things that France is made of

Markets, patisseries & boulangeries (bakery) are common place throughout France as is the wine produced in each area.  Wine is cheap compared to Australia.  You can pay 4 Euros ($6) for a reasonable bottle and as low as 2 Euros - not sure what they taste like, that seems a bit too cheap to me.      

After visiting the Villereal market on Tuesday we also visited the markets in Montapazier and Bergerac during the week. 

On Thursday we visited Montapazier.  It is 16km away.  It is another bastide town.  Bastides were only built in the south west of France so most of the local towns are bastides.  

The weekly market was set up in the town square.  We bought fresh fish & mussels.  We had fish & chips for dinner that night and I cooked the mussels up for Friday lunch in leeks, shallots, wine, stock and crème fraiche (sour cream).  They were really good, so fresh.  We soaked up the stock with the obligatory baguette.

This morning (Saturday) we visited Bergerac and its market.  It has been a cold day at 3c.  We bought a pastry and an espresso to warm up and sat and watched the market activity.  The old town is picturesque and very appealing.

Just in case you were wondering – at the end of the previous blog we were off to buy pizza that night from the pizza man in the van in Beaumont.  It was yummy – just the way we like it.  A thin base and not too heavy handed with the topping.  Jim had ‘jambon’ – ham & cheese with olives, you know who ate the olives and I had the vegetarian – artichoke, asparagus, green pepper and olives.  If we go again I will have to remember to take a photo of the van.  The guy in the van looked warm and toasty with the wood fired oven keeping him warm.  We took the menu (translating it at home prior) and pointed at the pizzas we wanted.  Where would we be without the Internet – hungry!!!!!!

I spent so much time yesterday translating menus from a couple of local restaurants trying to pick one for our Christmas lunch.  It looks like we will be having a cooked chook here.  Our chicken and seafood will be fresh anyway with the markets to visit a day or two beforehand and buy our Christmas lunch.  Wonder where I can buy a Christmas pudding!

Montpazier's town square (part of)

Montpazier's Mayor's office

Lola - the more bossy one

Fizz - she is more docile & submissive than Lola

Sights of Bergerac

More Bergerac sights

River Dordogne in Bergerac

Melinda's (home owner) soap books - I couldn't fit her other 27 crafts books in the picture

Daily life in Larocal

Autumn is cold, wet and grey here in Larocal, thank goodness for the fireplace in the lounge room.  We are lighting it after lunch to warm up the living room and kitchen (and us).  There is a good supply of firewood.  We are wearing three layers for most of the day.  When we return in December for our second housesit (here) the central heating will be on.  That will help warm the house up.  In the meantime I just have to keep picking up the autumn leaves for exercise to keep warm.  They will continue to drop for the next few weeks.

Lola & Fizz love their walks.  We walk after breakfast and at 3.30pm because they like to be fed at 4pm.  We take a different route for the morning and afternoon.  In between walks they sleep on the lounge – that is their day.  Jim has been making them go outside every hour for a wee because we don’t trust them to let us know when they need to go.

This morning we drove to Villereal for a look.  It is 8km away from Larocal.  It is a bastide town built in the 13^th century.  You should Google bastide and Villereal.  It is an interesting read about French history.

We picked up a walking tour map of the bastide from the tourist office.  Once we located number one on the map we were on our way.  The tour only took 15-minutes but it was informative and enjoyable. 

Tonight we will drive into Beaumont for pizza.  On Tuesday nights in the village square there is a man with a van.  He cooks wood fired pizza.   The van is fitted with a wood fired pizza oven.   It comes highly recommended from Melinda.  We’ll see. 

13th century church

Same church in 1913

Notice the 'Look-out' in the photo, now look at below photo

The 'Look-out' today at the end of the street

I just love the old Citroen cars

The Leper House - creepy! 

Day 4 at Larocal, Sainte Sabine Born

Arriving right on dinnertime Tuesday night Melinda made a yummy scallop stir-fry.  

Wednesday morning she showed us the closest village for food shopping and the bank, Beaumont 8km.  On the way home she shouted us lunch at a local restaurant in Sainte Sabine Born, just down the road, literally.  I had grilled goats’ cheese salad, yummy and Jim had veal with pasta – he said it was tasty.  Most of the restaurants in France offer three or five course lunches, aimed at the tradesmen.  Here in Sainte Sabine the five course is 11 Euros ($16.50) what a bargain & especially when it includes a half carafe of wine.  Now you know what they do with their two hour break in the middle of the day.

Thursday midday we drove Melinda to Bergerac airport, a 20-minute drive.  She is off to London.  Then we went onto the Bergerac train station to buy our tickets for Eze.  We will return to Bergerac next Saturday to go to the market.  Melinda says the Saturday market is very French, a bit difficult for us to buy things but good for new sights.  It looks like a beautiful town.

Melinda is an interesting person just like all the house sit owners have been.  The below link is an interview with her.

http://www.gil-sa.org/castile-soap/melinda-coss/

We didn’t know anything about her till we arrived.  Her name on the house sitters website is soap queen.  I assumed she might have a soap making business because she did tell me she was returning to London for this period for work.  Soap making – what an understatement.  You must read the interview.

She is currently working on an online handmade clothing website – made from African fabrics.  The clothing is aimed at women like her, middle age that find buying clothes to fit difficult especially here in France where the typical women’s shape is shapelier shall we say (Melinda’s words).  Also on the go is an online handmade jewellery website – made from Bakelite & antique trinkets.  She is very enthusiastic and says she gets lost for hours in a day on the Internet working on her projects.

Lola & Fizz are lovely if you ignore the upset tummy in the house we had to deal with on our second day and being woken up at 2am this morning with them barking at a mouse they were trying to catch.  Yes, you read correctly mouse.  Melinda did warn us mice get into the house.  It is an old farmhouse that she rebuilt 9 years ago and fields of crops surround it.  I know it is still takes a bit of getting used to.  Jim was great he went down to them four times (our room is upstairs) they sleep on the lounge, say no more.  The scene was the equivalent of girls squealing and standing on a chair when they see a mouse – big babies!

This morning we drove the Polo (our car) to Rob’s neighbour, an hour away.  Rob of Karen & Rob of the Surrey housesit.  Rob bought the car from us.  It was good timing as our insurance was due to expire tomorrow and Jim was over driving long distances and Melinda offered us the use of her car.  It was a sad moment.  The car did us proud.  We purchased it on July 4^th and did 10,000kms.  Amazing!

The outside of the house from the roadside - it is a house & a gite (granny flat in French)

The local plumber's house next door - impressive isn't it!

Jesus guarding the rubbish at the end of the street, communal rubbish bins in France & Italy is common

Jesus again, at the other end of the street, blessing the corner

Final farewell to the Polo at Karen's family's French property - Lot et Garonne

Bellentre to Larocal

Saying good-bye 

Bellentre to Larocal - our drive was 8 hours in total. 

The plan was to go from Bellentre to Chambery picking up the motorway to just below Lyon and up to Clermont Ferrand then follow the motorway south for a few hours taking us to Sainte Sabine Born & Larocal. 

2 hours from our destination the GPS couldn’t locate the new part of the motorway we were on and went into a spin.  We ended up leaving the motorway at the next exit which was 20km further on to get back onto an old road and lucky for us we did otherwise we would have missed out on the beautiful old villages and amazing scenery we passed along the way. 

France is different from England where we took the scenic route most of the time, here the country is large and getting from location to location we need to use the motorway to reduce the travel time as the scenic routes would take you days.  The motorways are not cheap, yesterdays trip cost 44 Euros approximately $66 in tolls.  I think I have mentioned this expense before. 

After leaving the motorway we passed a village called Montignac then drove into an area known as the prehistoric capital of the world.  It definitely looked and felt like it.

The grottoes are caves once inhabited by prehistoric people.  You remember the books ‘Clan of the cave bear’ apparently it was based on this area and the caves.  I was in awe looking up at these caves in the rock walls with rock overhangs.  Poor Jim was busy driving with me saying WOW, look at that!  We will go back for a day trip. 

Leaving the valley we drove over the River Dordogne passing through the villages of Le Buisson and Cadouin, both very picturesque then onto Beaufort another pretty French village and finally ten minutes down the road Sainte Sabine with its mayor office, three restaurants and bakery turning off to Larocal. 

Larocal consists of a collection of houses set up a road that does a block.  The fields surrounding the block of Larocal were full of sunflowers this summer.  It would have looked glowing at their prime.  Apparently there is crop rotation each year but now being autumn the ground is empty except for the odd sunflower straggler.  The deciduous trees of which there is plenty have nearly finished their colour change and starting to drop their leaves. 

This area of France known as the Dordogne is popular for expats buying up and renovating old farmhouses quite a few Australians among them.

Lola (in front) & Fizz (behind)

Front entrance of the house - Lola sitting on guard

Looking down side of the house

11th of the 11th

This morning we went with Carolyn & the girls for the 11th of the 11th celebration in the village.

 John had to work, the ski season doesn't stop for anyone although today is a public holiday in France.

The parade started near the village chapel.  Beside the chapel a tree was planted in 1919 to celebrate freedom at the end of WWI.  (Forgot to take a photo of the tree!)

The parade was led by the Mayor followed by 4 elderly local returned soldiers from the Algerian War, the children of the commune (shire or local government area), followed by the residents of the village (& us) down to the cenotaph.  The Mayor made a speech.  Obviously, we couldn't understand a word of what he was saying but the sombre mood is the same world over.

After the speech the parade continued on to the village cemetery to honour the returned dead soldiers.  The celebration finished with a drink at the village hall.

The cenotaph before the parade

Carolyn & I outside the chapel

View walking through the village down to the cenotaph

The 4 elderly returned soldiers holding flags 

The parade walking through the cemetery

Bellentre Sunday 10 November

This past week has been a real holiday for us based in the village of Bellentre in the French Alps.

Our friends John & Carolyn have lived here for the past 9 years.  They are the only non-French family in the village.  John is English and Carolyn is from Port Fairy, Australia.  They have skied many resorts around the world spending ten years in Falls Creek where we met up.  They purchased this 100+ year-old skeleton of a building 9 years ago then set to rebuild it as a family home.  They have done an amazing job. 

Their summer business is Alpine Cadence - training & tours for cyclists and in winter they have an English ski school franchise of New Generation, both businesses are based here in the Alps. 

The girls love their French life.  Lotti, 10 was born in Andorra and Matilda, 8 was born here.  The girls go to a small school of 35 students, a three-minute walk from the house.  The girls speak French at school and English at home.  John and Carolyn both speak conversational French so the girls love to correct their pronunciation. 

During the week we visited the two closest towns of Bourg St Maurice a ski town 18kms north and Aime (pronounced M) a town 8kms south in the direction of Albertville/Chambery, both towns Carolyn shops in and Aime is where the girls will go to secondary school. 

We were keen to visit at least one ski resort while we were here so we chose Tignes.  It was a 45-minute drive.  Tignes and Val d’Isere are both large ski resorts beside each other.  You can ski between the two.  They are already open for the ski season.  The other resorts in the area will open between Dec 1 & Dec 21. 

We had a day trip to Lake Annecy a 2-hour drive in the direction of Chambery.  It is a beautiful alpine lake 15km in length.  We wandered around the old city and had lunch of a baguette sitting on the seat overlooking the lake.  It was a beautiful partially sunny autumn day.  We drove home around the other side of the lake passing a few cute villages along the way. 

You will see in Flickr many photos of beautiful cows.  We walked past many yesterday afternoon on a walk down to the river and around the village.  They are native to this area of France known as the Savoie (pronounced Savoy).  The cows are Tarentaise cattle.  Their milk is used to produce Beaufort cheese.  It goes well with the local Savoy white wine, both of which we have sampled in the past week.  The cheese is a bit smelly, pungent is a better word but tasty.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarentaise_cattle

Tomorrow is 11^th of the 11^th and the village will have a celebration at 11am so we will all attend.  Will tell you more after the event.

Tignes, from the top of the funicular

The 'Bridge of Love' overlooking Lake Annecy 

Local Tarentaise cows

Looking at the village of Bellentre returning from our walk yesterday afternoon

Sunday lunch - outside the mountain restaurant

Inside the mountain restaurant - enjoyed yummy local fare

Bellentre

A quiet moment!

Sunday morning 9am we gave the dogs one last pat and started our day’s driving to Bellentre. 

France and Italy (not sure about other countries) have Sunday as a truck free day.  It’s so much easier to be on the motorways without them as there are so many, one after the other.

The road trip was long but uneventful which is what we want while we are driving.  Only one incident where the GPS lost it’s way on a new part of the motorway.  The timing was bad because it was at a junction, head either north to Geneva, Switzerland or south to Grenoble, France.  We needed to be in between ‘what to do’ quick quick decide.  We decided on Grenoble.  In the meantime I got out the hardcopy (the old fashion way) of the ‘European Road Atlas’, to make sure we were headed in the right direction.  

I said to Jim, at least stay in the same country.   A few minutes later the GPS picked up the existing motorway and we chose the right way – thank goodness.  Aside from that one hiccup we arrived safely at 5pm at our friends village of Bellentre.

When we drove into the village we had to ring John and Carolyn for directions to their house.  We pulled over and rang their number but there was a French message.  Oh no, we had run out of money on our mobile.  ‘What to do’, we’ll just have to drive around and see what we see.  It is a small village, hopefully we either find a phone which is near impossible these days the worldwide or we'll have to find a person to ask.  I notice a young boy chatting to a young girl.  I say to Jim stop the car, that’s Carolyn’s little girl.  I’d seen her on Facebook a couple of days previous.  I said ‘hello, are you Carolyn’s little girl?’ and she answered yes.  They have two little girls Lottie (10) & Matilda (8).  It was Lottie who walked in front of our car to her house one road below the road we were on.  How lucky is that.

We have a self-contained apartment under John & Carolyn’s house.  The views are fantastic, looking across to the Alps.  It has been snowing in the evenings so to wake up to fresh snow is beautiful.  Fortunately, it is too early to snow here in the village as the little red car wouldn’t like it – the tyres wouldn’t cope.

It is revitalizing to be with people we know and to be able to talk about absolutely everything and nothing. 

View from our room

Our apartment (windows on bottom right)

John & Carolyn's house

Snow - so of course Jim is smiling