French Advertising

On a few of our trips through France I've seen these Agip brand gas stations and have wondered how this gas company came up with this logo. I imagine a bunch of advertising peeps sitting around a table saying, "Let's have our logo be a dog. Yeah, everyone likes dogs. Oh, and we should give him six legs. A dog with six legs goes faster than a dog with four, right?" But my question is, who was the ad genius who decided that it should be a fire breathing dog. Yea, gasoline and fire go well together, that's a perfect match.

Provence

We rented a gite near Avignon in the Provence region of France along with some friends, Ben and Melissa, for a week of cycling and sightseeing.

The gite, Blanche Fleur (http://www.blanchefleur.com/) was much nicer than most of the other gites we’ve stayed in. In France an apartment or home rental with a kitchen is called a gite. Usually you have to bring your own sheets and towels and it is a relatively cheap way to travel. At Blanche Fleur, it was a bit of a step up as they provided linens and even had soap and shampoo which is unusual even for B&Bs in Europe.

For dinner the first night, we went into Avignon for dinner to a place that was recommended by the NY times. It was decent but didn’t compare to the meals we had in Burgundy and not one I’d recommend.

That night we watched some cycling videos. Ben brought a bunch of what I like to call cycling porn. I think his purpose was to get us excited about the riding we were about to do, but it had the reverse effect on me. The next day the plan was to ride to the top of Mont Ventoux so we watched a stage of the Tour de France with that climb. After hearing Lance Armstrong say that Mont Ventoux was one of the hardest climbs in the tour, I decided that I definitely wasn’t going to climb it. The fact that there was snow on the top of the mountain wasn’t exactly a selling point either.

The next day after breakfast we set out for our ride. After an hour and a half, we stopped for lunch at the base of Mont Ventoux in Bedoin and had some tasty sandwiches in the sun. While there, we met a fellow cyclist who happened to be an Olympic Swiss cross country skier and knew some of the same people as Ben.

I turned back after lunch and rode home in the sun to end up with a nice 50 mile ride. The others, however, braved Mont Ventoux. Unfortunately for them, they ended up getting caught in a hail / sleet storm and got separated due to the inclement conditions, while I went to Isle sur La Sorgue and wander along the narrow cobbled streets to scope out a restaurant for dinner.

We ate in Isle sur La Sorgue at Café Deco for dinner. It had a pretty terrace along a canal with flowing curtains which gave it a very romantic feel. Melissa and I had some gigantic scallops for dinner while the boys got their raw meat fix with some Beef Tar tare.

Ben was definitely a more adventurous eater than the rest of us. He couldn’t get enough of the blood sausage, beef tongue and knunkle stuffed tripe. I generally opted for the safe fish options at a lot of these country French restaurants.

The next day Jim’s knee was bothering him so we skipped the ride and went to the market in St. Remy. The market had tons of clothing, bags, jewelry, linens, soaps, pottery, specialty food and even antiques. I was in heaven. One of my all time favorite things to do is wander around markets. In all of our travels so far, I haven’t really purchased any suveniors but Provence was just the place to change that.

We had a great typical French lunch at La Fontaine (19, Boulevard Mirabeau) of a cheve chaud salad (melted goat cheese on toasts) with an open faced sandwich of lardons (bacon) and cheese.

Our next stop was The Pont du Gard. The Pont du Gard is an ancient Roman aqueduct which delivered water 30 miles to Nimes by dropping one inch every 350 feet. I’m so amazed by what the Romans were able to accomplish.

On Thursday, Jim, Melissa and I went to Palais des Papes (The Palace of the Popes) and also the Pont Saint-Benezet which was the basis for the French nursery rhyme which none of us knew. The Palace of the Popes replaced the Vatican in the 1300s. A French pope was elected and due to the instability in Italy, the Pope moved to Avignon and bought the entire city. The palace was huge (Popes apparently had quite an entourage) but disappointingly empty so it was hard to imagine the lavish decorations and furnishings.

In the afternoon, Jim went to ride with Ben and Melissa and I went to Beaucaire first and then Les Baux de Provence. In Chardonnay, one of the guys at the bar was talking about a town near Avignon that was beautiful and a must-see in Provence. I thought he said the town was Beaucaire but after arriving in Beaucaire, I realized my mistake. As we were driving in, both Melissa and I thought the other person has some gas. Once we parked the car to walk around the town, we realized that it was the town that smelled. After wandering around the smelling, charmless town for a few minutes, we decided to cut our losses and drive to Les Baux de Provence instead. On our way out of town, Melissa quipped, “Well, we’ve seen Beaucaire and we don’t care”.

Driving up to Les Baux de Provence, I realized immediately that this was the right town. The town was perched on top of a hill with beautiful rock formations in the surrounding hills. It was definitely a touristy town but we realized that sometimes there is a reason something is touristy – It’s pretty. We did some shopping and then headed down some very curvy, fun roads back to the gite.

We decided that we’d eat in that night since we didn’t know when the boys would be home. Melissa had the great idea to make a gigantic batch of mussels. It was the best meal we had in Provence. The mussels were delicious but sauce from the mussels was just as good with tons of garlic and basil; great with some crusty bread to dip.

Our last full day in Provence, we did a long, all day ride. Ben had scoped out some great roads on his solo rides that he wanted to show us. The ride was one of the most beautiful rides I’ve ever done. Some of the terrain actually reminded me of Moab, Utah. We rode 80 miles but stopped for lunch, coffee and bakeries often so I was able to survive.

The next day we drove back up to Chardonnay after dropping Melissa and Ben off at the TGV. We made reservations at a newly Michelin starred restaurant near the B&B (Le Relais d’Ozenay – http://www.le-relais-dozenay.com/) . It was one of the best meals I’ve had. Jim loved it more for the fact that there was a pre-dessert, desert and post-desert. The best part was the price. I think our bill only came to 110 euro.

We each got the 6 course gourmet menu which started with Tuna Tartar and puréed avocado with a black sesame sorbet (this was the best thing of the night even though it sounds odd). Then we had the fish dish course of red snapper with pistachio oil and a roasted red pepper cone with goat cheese risotto inside. The meat course was a bit of a surprise as Jim’s translation wasn’t quite right. It was sweetbreads (veal liver) with linguine, morel mushrooms and asparagus. I gave Jim my sweetbreads but the linguine was still delicious. Next up was the cheese course and then of course the three desert courses – Pistachio flan with pineapple puree and a chocolate covered cookie stick, chocolate molten cake, vanilla custard with a red fruit coulis and meringue cookies. I was ready to be rolled out the door, but it was the perfect end to our vacation.

Chardonnay, France

We kicked off our week in Provence with a stop over in Chardonnay. Chardonnay is located in the Burgundy region of France between Dijon and Lyon. We initially planned to head down to Aix-en-Provence the next day, but we had trouble finding a place to stay in Aix so decided to spend the weekend in Chardonnay.

I found a great place to stay, Le Chardon, on Trip Advisor (http://www.lechardon-chardonnay.com/). The reviews were great and it seemed like a perfect small town to have as a base for riding and wine tasting. Le Chardon was even better than I expected. I would rate it as the best bed and breakfast so far, mainly due to the owners who were such friendly, helpful and warm people. You can tell that this B & B is a labor of love for them. They truly enjoy people. It felt more like we were visiting long time family friends than staying with people we’d never met. We liked it so much that on our way home from Avignon, we stopped for the night again.

The town of Chardonnay is incredibly tiny, probably not even a population of 50. Le Chardon is the only restaurant / bar in town so a lot of people congregate there. Because we had no agenda for our time here, it was very relaxing. After only a day, we both felt like we had been on vacation for a lot longer.

Our first full day in Chardonnay, we went for a bike ride in the morning through tiny French towns, vineyards, and farms. We then went into the nearest large town, Tournus, to visit the abbey, have a relaxing lunch in the sun and do a little shopping.

Back in Chardonnay, we went to the Cave de Chardonnay to do a little wine tasting and purchasing. On the way home we stopped at Brancion which was a recently restored old walled city with a castle. The most interesting part about this area was that people actually live within the walls and it isn’t just a tourist location.
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At our host’s recommendation, we had a fantastic dinner at Le Auberge du Gourmet. The chef of the restaurant has been able to hold on to a Michelin star since the 60s. It was a great meal.

The next day we went for a ride and then headed to Beaune for the afternoon. Beaune is the capital of the Burgundy region so is a larger town than Tournus. We visited the Hospices de Beaune which was a hospital / charitable almshouse of the 15th century. The design of the building was so beautiful that I’m not sure I would have minded going to the hospital back then. However, the bloodletting might not have been too pleasant.

That evening we ate at Nick and Rebecca’s and had a relaxing night chatting with them and drinking some nice Chardonnays.

Ronde Van Vlaanderen

A few weekends ago, we joined 700,000 beer drinking, sausage eating Flemish Belgians to watch professional cyclists ride up a cobble stoned climb of 20% grade (Helligen).

Although I was dubious about the prospect of driving 300 km each way to watch the spectacle with Jim and his fellow cycling obsessed friend, Ben, I was glad to have witnessed one of the cornerstones of Belgian culture. In Belgium, cycling is the only sport that counts. I would compare it to America’s obsession with football. I found it really interesting to see a bunch of smoking, beer guzzling fans who look like they might never have ridden a bike in their lives, get so excited for a bike race. In the U.S., bike races are generally watched only by other cyclists. Since cyclists generally are white men from upper-middle class backgrounds, the crowd is pretty homogeneous. In Belgium though, cycling is really a blue collar sport. The spectators looked more like a European version of NASCAR fans.

Ton Boonen is a Belgian cyclist and has rock star status in his homeland. Belgians affectionately call him Tommeke so Jim and Ben began a relentless campaign of adding eke to everyone’s names. I had to hear them call each other Jimeke and Beneke nonstop for two days.

For those of you not married to a cycling fanatic who revels in his knowledge of obscure cycling trivia (aside from the occasional Team Discovery blunder), professional cycling has a series of races in the spring called the “Classics”. The Classics take place in March and April in Belgium, France and the Netherlands. These races are one day races in extremely difficult conditions. The weather is usually cold, gray and rainy which makes the cobblestones incredibly slippery and dangerous. Thankfully, the weather cooperated or I would probably have spent the day in a café rather than watching the race. We left early in the morning for the race so that we would be able to stake out a good spot on the climb. As we passed through sleepy Belgian towns, approaching Flanders, older people came out of their houses to watch the traffic going by. I’m guessing not a lot happens in some of these towns so a traffic jam counts as a special event.

Once we secured our rock star but illegal parking and calmed Jim’s fears of getting towed, we walked the course to get a sense of what the riders would endure and to scout out a spot from which to watch the race.

We decided to camp out in front of a huge screen T.V. so we could watch the finish of the race and also know when the riders were approaching. Since the riders were by in a flash, I’m glad to have been able to watch the race on the big screen or it would have been a bit anti-climactic to have driven 4 ½ hours for a couple of minutes of a bike race.

I couldn’t help but be swept up by the excitement of the race by the thousands of cheering fans around me. Unfortunately, I was rooting for Tom Boonen (completely based on his looks rather than any cycling statistics or ability) along with the rest of the Belgians around us, but it was his teammate, Stein, who actually won the race.

I’ve added a video down below so that you can get a sense of the excitement of the event. However, you may not be able to hear much else besides Ben screaming like a teenage girl at a Beatles concert. I was worried he was going to pass out with excitement, and I didn’t have any smelling salts on me.

Not to be outdone by some professional cyclists, a testosterone fueled Jim who I think may be doped to the gills (another expression I heard all day), had to make sure to drive home at high speeds on the autobahn.

It was a successful day, but I don’t see myself traipsing around Europe to watch bike races; no matter how cute their little butts are.

German Scoldings

I started this blog a couple of weeks ago after getting yelled at about 3 times in one week. Up until this point, I had somehow evaded reprimand. My friends had all complained about being yelled at for not following the rules, but my Teutonic blood must have caused me to be a rule abider until a few weeks ago. Germans feel that when someone breaks a rule, it is their duty to point it out. My three indiscretions were that: I didn't wear a swim cap in the pool; I crossed the street when it said don't walk in the presence of a child; and while biking, I stopped ahead of the line at a light, and I was wearing headphones.

I came across this article this morning in the Herald Tribune and was motivated to finish this blog posting. This article captures the German psyche so incredibly well.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/05/weekinreview/05KULISH.html?_r=1&scp=4&sq=financial%20rules%20germany&st=cse