An Overnight to Saint-Affrique!

Wednesday, December 30, 2015

Hello!

We are now safely back in the apartment in Lyon after our overnight in Saint-Affrique to visit friends!

So…to begin on Tuesday morning.  We had made arrangements to rent a car with Enterprise for the trip south and back.  We caught the C3 bus to the T1 tram, and got off at Suchet, which is the stop south of the Perrache train station. 

The stunning countryside around Saint-Affrique

Love castles on top of hills!

No problems getting the car, and by a few minutes after 10 am we were heading east out of town!  As we left Lyon, the weather, which had been threatening, finally turned to rain, which we had for much of our four hour drive south.  Cute little Nissan Diesel, which drove very nicely, but had the turning radius of a Mac truck! 

Got to Saint-Affrique, and Robert’s memory of our last visit was so good, that when Emmy, our GPS couldn’t find the hotel, Robert was able to direct me right to it! 

Beautiful Millau bridge!

Really do like that bridge...

We were given suite 208, on the second floor.  A really lovely, spacious suite.  Large bathroom with huge shower head, and very comfy bathrobes.  There was also a very spacious living/dining/kitchen area, with a big couch, tables and chairs, and a compact kitchen set up including a hotplate, dishwasher and microwave.  All the conveniences!  Additionally, there was the evidence that Nathalie had already been there, as there were two bottles of wine, LOTS of our very favorite Roquefort cheese, jam, bread, cookies and a Galette. 

We called Nathalie when we got to our room, and she came right over.  It was SO great to see her!  She explained that the Galette was a French tradition – the Galette des Roi (Galette of the kings) to celebrate the epiphany.  Whoever finds the “lucky” token baked into the Galette gets to wear the King’s (or Queen’s, in my case…) crown.  And I found it!  And thankfully didn’t swallow it!  The pastry contained almond paste, and was just delicious (although it did make a big of a crumby mess!)

Me in Suite 208 with all of our goodies!

Nathalie and me!

Our Galette (yum!)

I found the prize!

We visited for a while, and when it got closer to dinner time, we followed Nathalie on her bike, as she rode around the corner and down the street, to pick up her kids, Julia and Nathan, for dinner.  (Pascal, Nathalie’s partner, unfortunately, had to work!)  We all five managed to fit somehow into our little Nissan, and headed out of town to the restaurant.  Talk about down a back road!  How anyone could ever find this place is what amazes me!  

The restaurant is called La PourtAnelle, and we were a bit early for their opening at 7 pm.  We walked around the little village (which actually had numbers and head-phone sketches for audioguides at various points) so obviously there is a lot to talk about in this little village.  Apparently it started life having something to do with the Knights Templar, who were fairly busy in this corner of the world.  The problem was that it was REALLY getting cold, and Julia especially, was freezing!

Back and upstairs to the restaurant, which we had literally to ourselves for the evening!  Lovely meal!  It started with some small muffins with nuts as well as fois gras on bread, and then a really lovely cauliflower soup in a tiny shot glass.  (Do wish there could have been a LOT more of that, and in fact, Nathalie did get some additional soup for Julia, which arrived eventually!)

The menu was not large,   I ended up having a salad and galette of vegetables for starters.  R had a large crepe with veggies, as well as a salad himself.  For mains, I elected to stick with another salad – excellent, with nuts, Roquefort cheese, tomatoes and dried duck breast.  R had three tiny lamb cutlets with mashed potatoes and fennel.  Very enjoyable!  For dessert, I had “floating islands” with caramel butter (Yum!) and R had the tarte de fruits.  Excellent meal, and we really had a lovely time, but truly, inside the restaurant was almost as arctic as it was outside!  I do hope Julia won’t catch pneumonia!  But, in a way, it will be good training for her, as she will be going to school in Montreal starting in January and I expect it will be quite a bit colder there than it is here.

Julia, Nathan, Nathalie & me!

Fabulous soup!

and I think there were three of us wanting to order the gambas (shrimp) – only to be told that they were out of gambas … back to the drawing board!

On our way back to town, we stopped at the movie theatre that Pascal manages for a bit and opened the Christmas presents we had brought from Tucson.  Lovely to see Pascal again, and so sorry that he wasn’t able to join us for dinner!  Then all back in the car to drop Nathalie, Julia and Nathan off at their home, and back to the hotel and quickly to bed.

Robert's heavy crepe with veggies

My galette with veggies and salad

R's lamb cutlets

My salad

Lovely hotel, and nice and warm room.  Up at 6:30 am as Nathalie was coming for breakfast (more galette!) at 7:45 am as we wanted to make it to the Chauvet Replica Cave, Pont D’Arc in a timely manner.  

Nathalie brought wonderful coffee for Robert, and we were packed up and ready to go about 8:30 am.  We were relying on Emmy, our GPS for instructions, and selected the route that she said was the quickest, and had “no obstructions.”  Well … I guess the GPS can’t be expected to know that Route Barree (road closed) signs would take care of two of the roads we wanted to be on.  In fact, we were diverted down a dangereux road, which was really pretty amazing!  Lots of very tight switchback turns heading down, and I’m just thankful that we didn’t run into anyone coming in the opposite direction!!  We covered the dangerous road of about 3 – 4 kilometers, got down to the bottom of one of the gorges and then headed straight back up the other side!  In all, I think we travelled about three hours, and didn’t really get more than 100 km or so from Saint-Affrique, if that!

Decided at that point, that we were not going to make Pont D’Arc (which gives us, of course, the perfect excuse to come back and visit…) and after grabbing a quick sandwich for lunch, we headed east to the motorway, and then north back towards Lyon.  Our beautiful blue sky and sunny day gradually turned dark and overcast, and we made it back to Lyon about 2:30 pm.  Dropped the car at Enterprise, caught the T1 Tram to the C3 bus, and voila!  We’re back at the flat!  

Pascal and Nathalie!

Nathalie, Nathan & Julia

Drive down a "dangerous" road!

Stunning scenery

Having had a simple lunch, we’re going to definitely find a good restaurant for dinner tonight.  Heading out in a few minutes; will report more later!

m

xxx

Back from dinner!  We went to L’Entrecote Lyon, which is similar to but not the same as the L’Entrecote we have visited in Paris. 

Heading down hill ...

Lovely little village!

This one, first off, is considerably cheaper than its Paris relative, and the “sauce secret” isn’t nearly as thick or good.  However, other than that – the green salad with walnuts to start was the same, and the entrecote’s were perfectly cooked and sliced – and the French fries were never ending!  For dessert, R had two very tiny cups of coffee (which I’d say are guaranteed to keep him up at least until midnight!)  I did have dessert:  Vacherin au chocolat.  This turned out to be whipped cream followed by three meringues, with vanilla ice cream and chocolate ice cream between the meringues, and hot chocolate sauce all around the base.  It was great, although the meringues were a little hard.  (Remember what I just wrote about R staying awake?  Wrong!  He’s asleep already, and we haven’t been back all of five minutes!) 

L'Entrecote Salad

Cute customer!

Lots of good food!

Hilarious dessert!

After this, we walked across the street and caught a C14 bus, which lets us off just on “our” side of the Saone and in front of the St. Paul station.  Very convenient!  This was an electric bus, with overhead wires – so now I think we’ve been on all of the various kinds of transport in Lyon!

So!  Goodnight all, and, a demain!

m

xxx