barmatelliandfriends

We have just about worked Lyon out now. We know the number 40 bus which always gets us to where we want to go and home again. We know the Saone and which side is which. We know the place Bellecour and what’s around it. And its nearly time to leave.

We catch the number 40 bus and get off at the bridge over the Saone where the tourist ferry leaves from. There is only one departure today as it’s Sunday. The markets are busy but town is eerily quiet with the bustling shops and restaurants of yesterday now firmly shut up shop.

We cruise down the river and it’s amazing how different it is to the bus as it now holds my interest and I can photograph things easily. I think I shall picture a thousand words today and show you the view from the river.

We leave the river Saone and walk through the quiet town centre to the Rhone as we haven’t yet been to that side. We go across the bridge and through yet another market. I love these. The way they are just such a part of life here. We don’t need to but anything as we are now hotel based and we have had breakfast. Again i shall leave it to pictures paint the words.

This little fella who has his goodies stashed in his basket and then stops grabs a chocolate pastry out and keeps going.

WH will be wishing he didn’t eat breakfast as we pass his favourite chicken and tatties stall. But pass we do. We even find a coffee shop that sells flat whites and have a nearly nice coffee which feels like the first in a long time. We sit on the banks of the Rhone and I think it’s been a blast. Thanks Lyon.

We ditch the rental at the TGV station and train to Lyon. It’s all pretty chillax and we check into our hotel. We bought a rugby weekender package which gives us four nights accomodation and the All Blacks vs Italy and the Aussie vs Portugal. We are planning to ditch the Aussie tickets by giving them away to someone who wants them but that’s another story.

The next day is test day we hop on the hop on and hop off bus and go around a loop. It’s not that great, the commentary doesn’t work and the bus breaks down but it helps get our bearings. We catch up with whanau’ s, whanau, and all is well with the world, all be it a little bit nervous re game day.

Our whanau bought there tickets online from the French World Cup rugby site and have worked out they are not sitting together but they are only a few blocks apart. One of there tickets however is in the same block and row as ours 10 seats away. What are the odds of that in 56,000 people? We are also trying to locate WH brother who came over from London for the game and that is relatively easy as well. Then just because it is all going swimmingly we find our seats are brilliant. Game on.

View from our seats. Front row in the second tier.

It’s a fun, exciting, try scoring game. Bring on the quarter finals.

The following day is the final day with whanau and we head off to do touristy stuff. The travel gods are with us and everything falls into place. Buses turn up just when we need them, we see ginormous queues have appeared for people to go in when we are coming out, we get a table in the shade to have a drink and a tart, we are happy tourists.

I still have my tickets for tomorrows game, Aussie vs Portugal. We had to buy them to get the weekend package with the All Blacks and I was never intending to go but my theory months ago of listing them for resale is long gone as when I had looked last week there were literally hundreds of them now for sale. I have seen quite a few aussies but when I approach them to ask them if they would like two tickets they think I am a crazy ticket selling woman and brush me off. I only want to give them to someone who will use them. I feel that someone must be here and know someone who wants to go, someone’s son or daughter or cousin or somebody’s something. But nope cant even give them away. An Aussie I approach tells me I wont be able to give them away – Until, we are in the square watching a fun, dress up, brass band play and a group of young men dance on past. They have Portugal jerseys on so I chase them down and they are very happy. I don’t know how they will work out who will go but they are happy, we are happy. Everybody happy, its been a good day.

Portugal Fans

We say ma te wa to our whanau as there adventures take them on a different path. It’s been great to spend time with them and share some special moments that we can dine out on for years to come.

Whanau are here and in order to enable them to get their French legs and recover from jet lag we decide to drive the “beautiful village” circuit on the tourist map. The countryside is really pretty and truth be told its a few days ago now and I am struggling to remember. I blame said whanau for keeping us busy doing all the “ings”. Seeing and doing and eating and drinking and talking and lots of other verbs.

There is a “fairytale” castle I want to visit. I have seen it online and it looks beautiful. The only trouble is when we get there it’s overgrown, run down and looking very unloved. The drawbridge is fenced off and we cant get near. So we wander down a dead end path and back and stop at the end of road to take a picture.

We drive around some more looking for some lunch but alas we are too late. Lunch is strictly 12 until 2 on a Monday and no-on will take us. We call upon a bar in a small village square and the man in charge (I deduce this by him being the one sitting on a chair, next to the door, smoking ) waves his hand at the young waiter when he tells us no we are closed. He tells the young waiter we we can have the plat du jour only. The young looks annoyed at his lost opportunity to call it an afternoon and the smoking man tells us it’s tre bien. So we order it and sit down. It is good it’s got gourgette and sausage and salad and all is well with the world.

The next day: We have booked bikes, electric ones of course, to do the bike trail through the vines. Pom bikes is the name of the company we used and they were great. They dropped the bikes off to us and the day was a “pinch me day”. Cycling through the vines, past the foilies, past the chateau, past the windmill, it just felt good. Pinch me, I am here, I am grateful.

We stop for lunch in Santenay and then cut across to cycle the canal back to Chagny where the plan is to catch a train back to Mersault and buy supplies for dinner before heading home.

We reach Chagny and are under pressure as we are on the wrong side of the tracks and we cant find a way over. We finally get to where we are going and the train that is going our way pulls up. WE haven’t yet bought a ticket and the doors look really high. We follow a lady with a bike to the bike carriage, which has space for two bikes, she has one we have four. It’s three steps high and electric bikes are very heavy. The door keeps trying to shut on us. We form a chain gang. One hold the door, two grab the front wheel from three and manoeuvre into the carriage, three push. Four (that’s me) say “hurry up, hurry up, quick, quick, hurry up, the whistles gone, its gunna go, its gunna go”.

All onboard squished into the vestibule I then try to buy tickets online. It wont let me so and chucks me out twice when I finally get to the end. I decide it’s probably a dumb idea to buy tickets for a train that has already left the station so I try and buy tickets for the next train at that station and that works. Hoorah. I look up from my phone as we have just arrived at a station and ask where we are. “Beaune” comes the reply. “Get off”. Get off”. Quick, quick, hurry up, hurry up, the whistles gone, its gunna go, its gunna go”. Turns out we are on the big speedy train not the regional one and by the time I had bought the tickets we had already gone past our stop and next stop was Dijon.

We head across the road to a dodgy pub with sticky floors and regather our equilibrium and decide we will bike home the ten kms to Mersault rather than try to get on another train. It’s a quick trip and a lot less stress and as we are nearly home I use the full advantage of the electric bike. Vroom, vroom. Veet, Veet.

Once home we bike into town but again have no joy with the village shops as they close early on a Wednesday afternoon. Who knew? No worries we go home for a freshen up and will go out for dinner later. Later as we are turned away from the gorgeous little bistro above (they are fully booked). We end up down the road at the only one we get into and there is a reason it had spare tables. We had a very average meal but a great day and a very enjoyable evening despite the meal.

We have been here for three days. It’s been busy. We have been making up for lost time after leaving our beautiful villa with pool and pool table we are now in a little cottage with not much sun and a drippy shower, it is however amongst the vines in the delightful village of Meursault.

We have much to do as we are being joined, in a couple of days, by some whanau, a slice of home, some hugs, some catching up and no doubt some laughter. Long story short but we have to go to Dijon and Beaune before they arrive as they are heading there later on. We leave the car behind and train to Dijon which is real easy. Then walk into the centre. It’s really quiet as it’s a Sunday and everything is closed except the kids merry go round and the odd cafe. It’s quite strange as we are so used to all the shops being open all day everyday at home.

We tire ourselves out. Or at least I do so we sit in a square and order a coffee. It’s always an experience fraught with the unknown. We look at the coffee menu and decide an Amercaino is the best option. But it’s not and it tastes gross, but we drink it and watch the world go by. I love “squares” in France and for that matter Italy. It’s like all the families come out and meet and play and sit and enjoy the sun and company. The Notre dame is opposite and as I people watch I start church watching and I am once again intriqued by the architecture of these buildings that often took generations to build. The hundreds of gargoyles, all different. The spires, the tiles, the arches, the stained glass. Anyway moving on.

We decide we will cover more by hiring city bikes as there is no traffic and they cost 1.50 for 24 hours. There is a tourist trail marked by little brass owls in the footpath but we lose it often and end up pretty much lost but happy.

We stumble on a bric a brac or antique market and decide to park up and wander through. Check out the travel trunk and imagine lugging that around today. It is ingenious in its layout though.

It’s nearly time for our train and of course we head back and get lost. This time I am not happy as I thought we were nearly there and ditched our bikes but it turns out that we are quite literally on the wrong side of the tracks and its a long, hot, up hill walk way back around.

Back home the shops are all closed as well so we decide we have eggs for an omelette and half a baguette for dinner so all will be well. We decide to walk up to the foiles in the vines at the back of our cottage and the view is lovely.

We get home and decide to have bruschetta with olive oil from Ruoms and tomato from the markets and then omelettes seem to hard so we call it a night.

The next day we are busy busy busy. We are going to a village market up the road for fresh supplies for a welcome dinner. Then to supermarche for top up of essentials. Stop to drop this back home and then off to Beaunne to site see before they arrive. We are picking said whanau up from train station at Beaunne at 4pm. Tick tock goes the clock.

We get to the market at Nolay, to be held under the centuries old market Halle’s. WH tells me the roof is limestone and each square metre weighs 800 kilos or maybe it was 600. Anyway there is no market here.

We turn around and go to supermarche to get supplies and decide there is a nice butcher in our village so we will get the rest of the dinner supplies there. Alas the butcher is not open on a Monday so we head to Beaunne still having to stop and get something for dinner. Beaunne is beautiful and worthy of its very own blog so maybe i will just finish this story then and give it its own space.

We park at the train station in order of ease to pick whanau up and follow the signs to the tourism office so i can get a map and not get lost. We walk around in a ginormous arc and arrive just as they have shut the door for the afternoon. We walk back through the streets and it appears that everything is shut, just like Sunday. We then get a text from our whanau saying the train they are on is not moving and hasn’t done for about an Hour, they will miss their connection. We check for new schedules and decide to kill time by taking the wobbly tourist train. But alas the next connection is missed and we decide to trudge our back to the train station car park and leave to go again to the supermarche and buy a cooked chook for dinner and some tatties and salad and head home and come back later. The travel gods are not smiling today.

A couple of hours later we are bound for the station and we strike traffic (which we never have before) and my visions of waiting on the platform to jump and clap and hug as they leap of the train are gone. Instead we pull up double park and throw them in the back. Not without a hug first. Which feels good. Feels like home. Feels like love and laughter.

We get home and eat our cooked chook, tatties and salad and its delicious mixed with conversation and catch up.

Just got reminded that I left you all hanging in regard to the Michelin restaurant so I had better go back three nights and address this. It was simply a great, genuine experience. We first chose our menu out of three options. I chose the local one but without two courses- the trout and the smoked eggs. WH chose the beef menu without the frogs legs. They then presented us each with a little typed menu translated in English. . Next we were to choose an aperitif from the cart, this was just a ginormous bucket of ice with about 8 bottles of bubbles in. The sommelier (that’s fancy for wine man who knows everything about wine) explained each bottle and then asks us to choose. “You go” i say to WH, no “you go” he says and I know that we are secretly scared we may order a 100 euro glass of champagne. If so what a waste on WH when i know he really wants to order a beer but there is none on the trolley. I order and it’s delicious. Even WH says its tasty.

With two deleted courses I had four to come and before the first course even began we are first given some sort of water in a small glass which cleans and refreshes the mouth. Next the most delicious mousse thing, followed by this little biscuit thing with beef carpaccio on top again delicious. We haven’t even started our menu yet and a little loaf of warm you guessed it delicious looking bread and a big spoon of whipped up butter turns up. I say delicious “looking” as I am trying to just stare at it. Step away from the bread. Luckily the first course is served.

As you can see from above it’s served beautifully. Those green balls in mine are mustard ice cream and WH’s bit on the side is like beef crackle. Mine has a little brioche bread with it which they pour over some sort of olive oil sauce. They tell you where each ingredient is from either from their own gardens or the producer 2ks down the road, some of which they have worked with for over 20 years. Then next comes the Breton lobster which i don’t enjoy nearly as much as the tomatoes.

We had ordered a lovely Pinot noir from the area (the prices were on the menu so it wasn’t to hard) and enjoy the next rounds of courses. I am extremely grateful that I skipped two. The service is exceptional and they accept our nearly non-existent French with joviality and most of the time there English is enough for us to get the gist.

We end on dessert and the soufflé was delicious but I had eaten it all before remembering to take a picture of the other courses and anything else as the meal went on.

The place used to be a pub where the Michelin chef grew up and he took it over when his parents died and it’s now a restaurant where people from everywhere go to.It still has a pub meal across the road, where we ate on the first night and it was a good pub meal. Just before the main we are asked to go to the kitchen to meet the Chef. It is a hive of activity and the chef shakes our hands, we talk about where we are from “nouvelle Zealand” as we always like to get that in quick. He takes a piece of meat with some green stuff though it (some sort of leaf) and sears it on a very hot cast iron plate, whilst telling us these are the same plates his father used 40 years ago and it has all the history and all the flavours in it. It is delicious.

So all in all. A 9 out of 10 for fancy food. A 10 our 10 for service. A wonderful and memorable experience. Not one I think I would need to do again but the delightful unpretentious service and staff made me very glad we picked this restaurant to do it in.

PS

Just as a side note I will say that on finishing this delightful meal we were both extremely full. The young couple sitting next to us had the full menu and ate the bread and they were skinny. Also further to all of the above both of us had an upset stomach that night and a crappy sleep. In the morning we went to the restaurant for a pot of mint tea (not even coffee) and a slice of dry baguette and sat in awe as the said young couple ate a course of yoghurt and fruit, followed by a plate of meat and cheese and bread, followed by three pastries each. We are amateurs.

PPS the champagne was not 100 euro a glass, phew.

I know some things about myself and one is that I am competitive. Not in the sense that I need to win all the time but in the sense that I will definitely try to win no matter what the quest.

Pool is the quest. I am not great but I like to think I am not useless. The problem is that WH is good. So in order to keep the competitiveness streak in the right zone I set my own goals

1. Try to improve your game.
2. Try to read the angles.
3. Try not to lose by too greater a margin.
4. Super duper goal of unimaginable proportion WIN ONE GAME. ( not by him losing but by me winning)

It always starts with such good intentions. One nil, two nil, three nil. I commend myself on the odd good shot thinking I have my eye in and then blow the next one. Four nil, five nil. I dont want to play, it’s hot I need a swim.

And then. I am cool, I am rested, I am in control. I can do it. Let’s go again. Meanwhile it is important to know that WH has his own goals. First is to sink three in a row, then four and then skighty pants five in a row. He has goals like holding me out so I don’t sink a ball. I KNOW RIGHT. I only learn this when I still have 7 on the table and he only has two and I finally sink a ball and he says it out loud. “Bugger I was trying to sink them all and keep you to seven on the table.” RUDE.

He tries to teach me. “Just cut it fine here:Just think about where the white will go: If you hit it here the white will come to here and you are set for your next shot: just short and sharp down low”. I start by listening and I know he is genuine in his support and believe me I try hard but then I just want the ball to go in the pocket, I don’t care where the white goes, or where the next shot is, and I will give you a short, sharp and low. I don’t want to play, its hot, I need a swim.

And then. I am cool. I am rested. I think I am getting better despite my continual losses. May the force be with me. Let’s go again. I get to where i finally sink three in a row. A new record to be proud of but it’s the only three I sink in the entire game and I deflate quickly. Continually losing creates a duplicity in the brain. The one where as he makes the masterful shot off the cushion, into the centre pocket and the ball sits ready and waiting to make the next shot and you say out loud “great shot” because it was, there is another voice echoing from somewhere in there saying FFS. The same one where when is on his 5 in a row goal you say, “oh is this five, good luck” and he says “don’t say that it whoodooos me”. “Really I would never of guessed”, but secretly its worked the last four times I’ve said it so I say it again.

I do win occasionally. When WH sinks the black by error, or sinks the white at the same time as the black. Hollow victories. Twice in four days, in I don’t know how many games we are both on the black. Once and only once it’s mine for taking. I blow it. I never want to play again.

Until…………

We go to Ruoms. Don’t know why. Actually I do. I found this amazing villa online. It was in a cute village. It had a swimming pool. It had a pool table. It had a BBQ. It had long outdoor lounges. Say no more.

Actually truth be told we have been here three sleeps already and are on our last one before we depart again. Yesterdays blog was really a few days ago and I just added the end and posted it last night. This place is lovely.

We arrive and it is all that we expected. We are met by the owners and there three kids who are about to depart back to somewhere 4 hours away on the borders with Sweden. We get a quick handover and they depart. The villa is over looking the river. It’s three floors, although we only have the bottom floor (thank goodness). which has a big kitchen, huge ensuite, lounge and dining room to seat 12.

We had stopped at the grocery store on the way here as its Sunday and most shut at midday, this proved to be a good choice as it meant we need not go anywhere, and we did not. We cook sausages on the BBQ, for dinner, eat Jambon and baguette for lunch. Walk to the shops and restock with baguette and Jambon, raspberry tart for dessert and meat and salad for dinner. We swim. We read. We walk to the village. We play pool. We swim. We read. We walk to the village. We play pool. (More about that later)

There is a market in a town about 7 kilometres away so we think we will go there for our daily supplies, instead of into the village. We arrive and there is no market. But at least we have ventured out. The village unfolds itself to us as we turn a corner, go under an arc, along a path.

We decide to walk to the lookout above and it’s pretty walking through the bush. It’s different than our bush but its canopy is cool and green, just like ours. Same – Different. The birdsong is loud and I notice how different that is too is to ours. I have no idea of the birds that are singing but the feeling it brings is the same. The simple pleasure of the walk with the river in the background swirling, the coolness of the green and the birdsong and THEN, what’s that. It sounds like a giant angry mosquito. It’s a drone. I so wish I had a can of fly spray or a big cricket bat that could leap into the air and swat it from existence. I need to retreat to my villa and swim, and read, and walk to the village and play pool.

Pretty unfolding village with lovely bush walk – Lebeaunne

See below and say no more. Time stands still here. WH says it’s like being at the house at the beach and staring out the window. The minutes, hours, days go quickly and before you know it the day is done.