No trip to Europe would be complete without commenting on the driving habits of the locals. In general, there’s lots to be envious of in France as the have an excellent highway system with fast 130 km/hr speed limits on the major freeways. Europeans in general are quite disciplined about keeping to the right on highways except when passing. The left passing lane sometimes has cars roaring by you at significantly faster speeds than you are doing.
In the case of our recent experiences, if you plan on doing the 130 km/hr speed limit you can expect to be passed on the right at upwards of 150-160 km/hr. One of the first lessons that we learned here is that the French drivers really like their speed. If you are passing someone don’t dare languish in the left lane a moment too long as you will bear the brunt of the local drivers; notably having the high beams flashed to you while a car is close behind your bumper. If this happens to you it must be considered as a personal defeat as the driver behind you is reminding you that his car is faster than yours. No vacation to Europe could ever be considered truly successful if you ever let this happen to you.
Off of the main highways, things change dramatically as the roads go from a
6 lane divided highway to often narrow country back roads. If you can envision the width of the average driveway in front of someones house and then put cars driving towards each other at 70 km/hr with the mirrors almost touching then you pretty much get the idea. As a general rule, if you think of what speed that you drove on that road would be considered a maniac by most drivers, you would be having 2-3 French drivers behind you as you’d be going too slow.
Day 9:
We dropped off our rental car in Avignon and boarded the TGV train to Paris.
TGV loosely translates into “Train à Grande Vitesse” or really, really fast train. As one of the fastest trains in the world, the TGV travels at close to 300 km/hr! During the stretches where we went along the highways, those cars rocketing down the highway were being passed by our train like they were standing still.
We pulled into Paris in the late afternoon and took a taxi to our hotel: the Hotel Levant that is in the Quartiér Latin (Latin Quarter). The last time we came to Paris we made the mistake of taking the subway to out hotel from the airport. While Paris has an excellent subway system, it also has many, many stairs going up and down in each station so having large, heavy suitcases with you and going through the subway is not the best idea.
My personal preference when travelling is to be in the big cities. Barb and I don’t always agree on this point but I just cant spend enough time in the major centres. I can put up with the charming country towns for only so long before Ive had my fill. Give me Paris, London, Madrid, Rome and Berlin any time. Its kind of like the 60s show Green Acres in reverse where I guess I’m the Eva Gabor who likes the cities and Barb Eddie Arnold who likes the country.
We walked around the area around our hotel and quickly found out that there are about 100 restaurants within a 3-block radius of the hotel. We had a light dinner tonight and spent the rest of the evening strolling along the river Seine and the City of Lights amongst the evening crowds. After walking for about half an hour, we caught sight of the Eiffel tower. We were surprised to see that the tower was not just lit up but actually sparkling.
We had never seen this before on our previous trip to Paris and I will try and get some pictures or video of it as it was quite spectacular.
Day 10:
Today is Barb’s birthday.
Before we left home Barb asked me what we were planning on doing for her birthday? I told her I was taking her to Paris. Now you would think that for most women that answer would carry a certain cachet to it and be quite enough. However this was not the case so we ended up making reservations for this special dinner as Paris alone was obviously passé.
Before I left home I had found the name of this store in Paris called E. Dehillerin. I was able to find it and I picked myself up a mandoline. Whats this you say? Me buying a musical instrument? No, E. Dehillerin is a store that sells professional cooking equipment and a mandoline is a device used to slice vegetables (you’ve probably seen the commercials of versions of them where the guy puts a potato on the handle and runs it back and forth and presto, instant julienne potatoes).
E. Dehillerin, which is over 100 years old, caters mostly to professional chefs, it carries things not normally found in your usual cook store. If you happened to need a stockpot large enough to sit inside or ladles 6 inches in diameter this is the place to shop at.
We made reservations at a restaurant called Toupary. I believe that this is some kind of French play on words to sound like Tout Paris (or all of Paris). The restaurant was on the top of a department store and had a great view of the Seine overlooking Pont Neuf (the oldest bridge in Paris). We had fois gras an unprecedented 4th time this trip for the entrée. Now some may say that having fois gras 4 times in a week is simply scandalous but this is just not the case. You’d have to have this at least 10 or so times in a week to get to the point of overdoing it. Granted its mostly fat but a better tasting treat you will rarely find.
Our second course was a delicious chopped raw tuna and the main course rabbit. The menu said that dessert would be grapefruit and I envisioned a half grapefruit cut bare and presented on a plate. However our expectations were not let down as it turned out to be server with white chocolate and fresh whipped cream. The entire meal was spectacular and Barbs expectations for a special night were satisfied.
While we were eating dinner we noticed these swank apartments overlooking the Seine right next to the building that we were in. One of the interesting things we saw were numerous tour boats going up and down the Seine carrying tourists and many of these boats had these incredibly powerful spotlights that were intended to light up the monuments that they passed by at night. One of the side effects of these lights was that we were almost blinded by them every time they went past but more interestingly was that the insides of these expensive apartments were light up as if a miniature sun was shining into their windows. I could only imagine how one might feel if they paid probably a million Euros for an apartment and had these spotlights lighting them up from the river every 10 minutes every night.
Day 11:
Today was our big cooking day and we took an early morning subway to Le Cordon Bleu Académie Culinaire building. Le Cordon Bleu has locations all over the world (even in Ottawa) but I think the thrill of taking a cooking class at their location in Paris would just not be the same if taken in Ottawa.
When we got there, we signed in and were led to the kitchen lecture hall where the 1st half of our course would be held. The presenter, chef Terrien arrived with the tall white chefs hat and had the serious look of the classic chef who took no humour in his job. This turned out to be just the opposite as while he spoke no English (and used a translator) he was quite the joker. For the next three hours we were demonstrated the three course meal that was on the menu: mussels with a cream sauce, mackerel with a mustard sauce and for dessert figs served in a French liqueur similar to port. Throughout most of his demonstration, the chef always had 3-4 pans on the go and continually bounced back and forth between different parts of the meal.
The stereotype of French food containing lots of butter and heavy creams is all true. No amount was spared but the taste of all of the foods was absolutely delicious. There is a saying in French cooking: flavour rules. This is not the type of food you would be eating if you were counting calories but it is some of the best food I have ever eaten.
In the afternoon we went into the hands on section of the class and began to replicate most of what chef Terrien had done in the morning only much, much slower. We ended up brining our food that we made back to our hotel and ended up eating dinner in the hotel for once but eating well for sure.
Before leaving the academy, we stopped off in the gift shop and pickup a few items like two Cordon Bleu white aprons. They had many other things like the white smocks used by the chefs and also the white hats. We passed on the other items as taking a one-day course didn’t really entitle us to look foolish at home wearing chefs outfits. That would require at least a weeks worth of courses.
Our final chapter of our adventures will follow in a few days.
Take care,
B+B
Continue on to Barb & Baden’s Excellent French Adventure ver 2.0 – Final