Chenonceau, Bordeaux, & Carcassone (2005)

The next morning, we got all packed up and took the Metro to Gare de Lyon to pick up the rental car. We spent a couple of minutes wandering around in the railway station before spotting a "voitures" sign. Then, when we spotted the Hertz stand, we saw that was boarded up and locked shut. I was pretty worried at first, but when we got closer we were able to decipher a sign telling us that the Hertz was now located across the street. After that, we quickly found the right place.

Unfortunately, that wasn't the end of our troubles. The person who was helping us seemed fairly junior, and he was certainly very confused by our reservation (which we had made through Auto Europe and not Hertz, with a reduced drop fee). It took us 45 minutes to get our car, which ended up being two classes larger than we had wanted (Peugeot 407 wagon). Apparently it was a pain to drive, not that I dared to attempt driving it in Paris. We finally got on the road around 11am.

Our goal was to arrive in Bordeaux by evening, but along the way we visited the Chateau Chenonceau, not too far from Tours. We spent most of the afternoon there, walking in the gardens and looking around inside the castle itself:



In Bordeaux we checked into our hotel, the Hotel Choiseul (kind of old and dingy), before having dinner at Le Valentino, a small but trendy Italian-French fusion place off of the rue St. Remi. We had some trouble locating the restaurant (my fault) so we did get to see a fair amount of Vieux Bordeaux (Old Town) that evening, as well as lots of fancy boutiques in the Palais du Bourse area.

The next morning we checked out and headed to a nearby laundromat. Laundry cost 3.80 EUR for a 3kg load (washer only), and 1.10 EUR per 10 min for the dryers. In the end it was quite expensive, but we didn't have much choice. At this point I realized we'd forgotten our travel towels in the hotel, so I ran back just in time to catch the desk clerk as he was leaving for the afternoon! Luckily he was able to understand my broken French and he let me in to retrieve our towels.

For lunch we got some panini sandwiches near our parking garage in the Place des Grandes Hommes. Then, we set out for St. Emilion, a famous wine region near Bordeaux. It turned out to be a charming area with lots of old buildings and small streets. We walked up a tower to admire the view, and then decided to rent some bikes to further explore the area (10 EUR apiece). During our ride, we also stopped by a small chateau called Villemaurine and had a nice tour and tasting.

We left St. Emilion around 6pm, and arrived in Carcassonne just in time to check into our hostel at a decent hour. We'd chosen a tiny place called Sidsmums which was run by a British family. It was pretty bare but cute, with wood cabins and pebbled paths, and it was completely dark and silent at night, so we got a good night's sleep.

We got off to a later start the next morning, partially because we consciously decided to sleep in a bit, but also because one of our friends had forgotten her wallet under her pillow, so we had to turn back and get it. I guess I wasn't the only forgetful one!

We had a fairly cheap (5 EUR) breakfast in a small cafe near the canal in the lower city, and then tried to catch the shuttle to La Cite proper. We waited about 25 minutes before giving up and driving up. Surprisingly, we had no trouble finding parking up there, and it only cost a couple of Euro.

We wandered around inside for most of the rest of the day, climbing up and down the ramparts and watchtowers, and exploring the castle and the churches, including one very old cloister wall:


We did some souvenir shopping on our way out, and I was surprised they didn't have the Carcassonne board game available.

Paris, France (2005)

D and I moved back into our house around Halloween, but I'm still cleaning up boxes from my study. A few weeks ago, I ran across a stack of composition notebooks. Back before I bought my netbook, I used to keep travel journals using pen-and-paper. I have notes from our trip to Western Europe in 2005, our trip to Eastern Europe in 2006, Cambodia and Vietnam in 2008, and Argentina, also in 2008. I'm glad that I have all the details down somewhere, but when people ask me for travel advice, it's way better to have them online, so I think I'm going to take some time and start transcribing them into this blog.

I'm starting with the oldest notebook, which chronicles an 18-day trip through France, Spain, and Portugal that D and I took with two friends. We left San Francisco on September 2nd and returned on September 20th.

We arrived in Paris in late afternoon of the 3rd. I had pre-booked us at the Fourcy branch of the MIJE hostel, which turned out to be centrally located, with small but clean rooms (32 EUR per person for doubles). Reception spoke excellent English but I did have to speak a few words of baby talk to the guy selling phone cards down the street: "telecarte" "pour telephoner", and "oui".

One of our friends had a high school friend who lived in Paris with her boyfriend. We met up with her and she took us to her apartment in Montrouge, where they served us delicious homemade crepes. Her boyfriend is from Bretagne (Brittney) which is where crepes originated, so I imagine they were quite authentic. We had toppings such as salmon and cheese, eggplant and pork, and olives. For dessert the choices were: assorted fruits, lemon and sugar, nutella, chocolate, and cointreau with sugar. Delicious!

The next morning we had free baguettes, croissants, coffee and juice at the hostel, and then headed off to the Louvre, since it happened to be the one Sunday a month that museums in Paris are free. D and I had been to the Louvre previously (in 2000) but our friends had not, so we hit all the famous pieces first (Mona Lisa, Madonna on the Rocks, Venus de Milo, Winged Victory, etc.), before perusing the Richelieu wing at a more leisurely pace. We also saw the apartments of Napoleon III for the first time, which was a bit like Versailles, although smaller and less grand. We also hung out in the Jardin des Tuileries for awhile before meeting back up with the friends from the previous day, plus another who arrived from London on the Eurostar. Once we found everyone, we took the subway out to Montmartre, where we hiked up to Sacre Coeur.

I had been up there twice before, but the view is really nice and the surrounding neighborhood very cute, so I certainly didn't mind returning again. We tried to get lunch, but the restaurant that we had in mind was closed for holiday; apparently it's common for French people to do this in late summer. We finally just got some fresh sandwiches (ham and cheese, etc.) from a little sandwich shop.

After eating, we went to check out L'Arc de Triomphe, and then walked back up the Champs Elysees, past the shops to the garden-like area, before cutting over to Les Invalides, and then into the Musee Rodin. The museum was nice, small, and filled with Rodin sculptures, both in the gorgeous garden and inside the one small building.

For dinner, we ate at Le Petit Prince, where the decor was interesting and the food was fabulous. The special was a duck-themed meal with three kinds of foie gras; one raw, one chilled, and one cooked. I had an appetizer of mussels and a main course of veal, cooked with fondue cheese and onions. It reminded me of French Onion Soup, but with different cheese. For dessert we had warm chocolate cake and millefeuille with strawberries and cream.

On our last full day in Paris, we had planned to sleep in, but were woken up around 8am by the fire alarm. After standing in the courtyard for 10-15 minutes, we were told it was a false alarm, but since we were already up, we figured we'd just head out. Note to self: in the future, when there is a fire alarm, go ahead and take the extra five minutes to get fully dressed and pack a day pack, because everyone sure as hell will.

After that auspicious beginning, we decided to go to Notre Dame, followed by the Centre Pompidou, and then the Picasso Museum. We had some problems finding lunch again (everything was closed) but finally ended up at a brasserie called Les Quatre Fils, where we ate croque monsieur, omelettes, and salads.

Afterwards, we decided to go back to the river to catch a boat tour. We went by boat from Notre Dame to the Eiffel Tower, where we tricked D into taking the elevator to the very top, from where we took tons of pictures.


One of my relatives had recommended Le Relais de Venise, so we went there for dinner. Upon being seated, we were asked one question each: "medium, well done, or rare?" before being served a salad, bread, fries, and steak with a curry-style sauce. At first we were a little worried about the portion sizes, but then the waitress came back around and dished out seconds, which made it a great deal for 24 EUR each (including wine).

We then took the Metro to Montparnasse where we had drinks at the restaurant on the 56th floor, while waiting for the Eiffel Tower to light up (every hour on the hour). I snapped a lot of photos, none of which turned out, but it was a nice view nonetheless.

lunch at Hostellerie du Chapeau Rouge

During my week in Zurich, I went with some coworkers to Dijon for the weekend. Another coworker had recommended several restaurants in Burgundy, and it turned out that one of them was in Dijon, so we called them up on Friday and managed to get a lunch reservation for Saturday.

As an aside, we actually asked a French coworker to make that call, since none of the four of us had any confidence in our French-speaking abilities. I grew up speaking English, Taiwanese, and Chinese, so French is perhaps my fourth-best language, just edging out Japanese. Of the other three, one is an American living in Switzerland whose second-best language is now Swiss German, one is a Swede living in the US who probably speaks four or five languages not including French, and the last is a German living in Switzerland (I bet his French is the best).

Anyway, we got off of the train, dumped our bags at our hotel, and were off to lunch at the Hostellerie du Chapeau Rouge. Interestingly, the hotel itself is poorly reviewed, but the restaurant was recently awarded a Michelin star. I was certainly not impressed with the exterior facade:


The interior was surprisingly nice and modern, though, and soon after being seated, we were served a set of four amuse bouches:

I just realized that it's been several weeks and I've started to forget a lot of the details about the food. Also, most of the explanations were in French, so my comprehension was shaky to begin with. Oops. Anyway, I believe the first one was a falafel-like fritter, the second was a veal dumpling, the third a fairly bland sushi roll, and the last was a veggie spring roll. The dumpling was by far the best.

The wine menu was very extensive and way beyond me, but luckily we had a wine expert at the table, so he ordered us some champagne to start, and later on tried out several local reds:

We chose the tasting menu (of course), so the wine consumption was spread over the next four hours.

There were four or five varieties of fresh bread, all of which were tasty, but my favorite was this olive bread:

I was amused when the waiter offered us a second piece of bread after a few courses, and he seemed shocked and/or offended when one of my dining companions refused. The next time he came back we all obediently made additional selections.

The first real course was a foie gras au torchon with potatoes and champignons. Everyone else liked the foie gras very much. I liked the mushrooms very much.


Next was a shrimp tempura paired with (I think) rabbit, with giant capers:

The shrimp tempura was very, very good; it may have been one of my favorite things on the menu. Whatever the meat was, I did not enjoy it at all; it was very gamey (and I typically like game) and very fatty.

This interesting presentation is of a sea scallop, served with corn puree and more champignons:

It was quite good but interestingly I liked the accompaniments more than the scallop itself.

The fish course was next; I believe it was some kind of sea bass, with shaved black truffle and some assorted vegetables:


I had this veal shortbread dish instead, with fresh pasta underneath. The shortbread was pretty good but very crispy and salty, so I couldn't finish it. The pasta was fresh and delicious and I ate every bite.


The poultry course was a duck breast with some vegetables. I don't remember much about this dish so I guess it wasn't particularly memorable.


I do remember this beef. I was quite surprised to find it very overcooked; I gave up after only a few bites. It compared very poorly to the sous vide beef that I'd had at Baume last month.


There were four "dessert" courses, the first of which was this cheese mousse, served with prunes and honey, with mesclun salad and a black pepper tuile:

This was my favorite dessert, and possibly my favorite dish overall, since the gamey rabbit offset the delicious shrimp. The cheese mousse looked like it should be sweet, but it was not sweet at all. It was extremely cheese-flavored, but not cheesy. I thought it was very creative, unusual, and very delicious.

Next we had a pear-themed dessert. I think the pear was prepared three different ways; there were chunks of cooked pear, there was pear flavor in the cream/foam, and there was some kind of sugary syrup as well. It was tasty but not as impressive as the previous course.


I liked the next dessert better; it was a trio with passionfruit souffle, pineapple sorbet, and pineapple rum. The sorbet and the rum were not that interesting, but the souffle was amazing; the texture was perfect and it was tart enough even for my taste.


I was a bit surprised that the last real course was the lightest of the desserts; it was a very simple grape sorbet served on a toffee crisp with some citrus-y sauce. Again, yummy but not that interesting.


Finally, we were served four types of petit fours. I believe the pink one was a raspberry meringue, the macaron was chestnut flavored, and the tartlette was apricot. The fancy one in the back was pistachio on fruit gelee on top of a piece of chocolate with financier underneath. It was also my favorite of the four.


Overall it was a very satisfying meal. The service was outstanding, despite the occasional language difficulties, and the decor and the tablescape were impressive. The food was a bit uneven; it seemed like some of the courses were much more ambitious than others, and I was especially disappointed in the overcooked beef, but the shrimp tempura, the shortbread pasta, and the cheese mousse were all creative and memorable. The foie gras and the passionfruit souffle were very well executed as well.

It was after 4:30pm by the time we left the restaurant, so despite walking around for several hours after eating, none of us were interested in dinner. Instead, we caught a showing of Orlando at L'Opera de Dijon, and then went straight to bed.

Europe pictures

As promised, here are some pictures:

Château de Chenonceau, in the Loire Valley	Carcassonne, in southern France	view from the top of the Sagrada Familia, in Barcelona
view from the Olympic Park, in Barcelona	inside the Alhambra, in Granada	inside the Alhambra, in Granada
the Giralda tower, in Sevilla	eating paella, in Sevilla	view from the Moorish Castle, in Sintra (near Lisboa)