Ok, ok, I know... it has been a while since my last post. Sorry. Being John's last week, the last think I wanted to do was to sit blogging all week just to keep you lot happy. Also, as we have been here a while, life has settled down and we have seen so much, some days we enjoy not having to rush out and about.
Today John chose to spend his last full day here in the Beaujolais region . It has been one of our favourite places to venture to. Alex went off to school and John and I headed to Beaujolais. We drove through tiny villages like St-Julien, and Blace. They were so quiet - John always says it is like a nuclear bomb has gone off in some villages the streets are so void of life. We drove into the heart of Beaujolais and it was so pretty. Some of the roads we took were more like cow tracks, but they all seemed to connect us back to something bigger which kept us feeling like we weren't too much in the wilderness.
We headed through the villages of Denise and Liergues which were lovely . We didn't stop, we were on a mission. We had decided to head back to Charnay and have lunch at the little Auberge we had visited weeks ago - The last hurrah!
Well, we possibly should have left the memory as it was. Not that there was anything drastically wrong, but today's experience wasn't in keeping with the lovely memories of before. We sat in the upstairs dining room where windows on one side overlook the village square and on the other side, hills and vineyards, It wasn't as cosy as downstairs where we had sat on our last visit. Sophie-Anne was rushed off her feet with full dining rooms to contend with, she just wasn't warm and welcoming. So much of a dining experience is about the feeling, it had changed. There was fish on the menu - John doesn't eat fish. Maya happily made him an omellette which was lovely, but at the end of the day, an omelete is an omelete. On our last visit (remember they brought us one of each dessert on the menu), I had tasted the best praline tarte I had ever had. I ordered it today and it was a shaddow of its former self. The deep pink filling was chrystalised and grainy rather than smooth and silky, it was a dissapointment. I sent it back and they were just lovely about it. No problems, 'what would I like for a replacement'? I ordered an apple crumble but in the interim, the electricity went out and it could not be heated, no electricity meant no coffee as well. Gggrrrrrrr!!!
Back in Lyon, the sun slipped away and the streets came alive with the energy of Friday night. The three of us wandered into the city, sandwiched between the two wide rivers whose bridges were lit with golden lights, their reflections twinkling on the water. We wandered up rue Republic, Alex's favourite, and stopped at Voisin, the chocolatier famous for the coussin de Lyon. We found 'Bistrot a tartines' and settled in for dinner. We all had the same, a tartiflette tartine and praline tarte for dessert. This place is simple, cheap as chips and is packed to the rafters at any time of the day. It bustles with life inside its walls decorated with grandmothery wallpaper of delicate stripes and soft pink rosebuds, and 50's and 60's memorabilia. The produce is bought at the riverside marche every morning, 'we use only the best breads, cheeses and produce because what we do is simple so it has to be of the best quality', Florian, the manager says. The menu consists of various tartines with glorious toppings like brie, walnut and cheese, or the potato, onion, lardon and roublechon concoction called tartiflette. There's a simple green salad sprinkled with walnuts with a choice of three dressings, we choose the mustard one, gosh its good. They have a range of sweet, old-fashioned tartes for dessert. The prices are great, the food is great, the atmospere is buzzy and energising, what's not to like?
We walked the half an hour home via the discovery of the beautiful Theatre des Celestins. Around the square where it sits were trees in precocious pink and white bloom, it was a picture.
John's impending departure stimulated deep and heartfelt conversation. I walked behind and watched as my boys walked homeward, arm in arm and happy.
