Titbits

Tomorrow we move on north so today was a quiet day as washing needed to be done and the car given a drink prior to the 3 hour drive through to Dijon. Also with supermarkets closing at around noon on a Sunday we need to think ahead and ensure that we have whatever we require until mid morning Monday so we also walked to two supermarkets that were both within 2km of the apartment.

Early evening we took the tram into the city centre and had a meal at the Italian restaurant we had eaten at last Tuesday.

Kms driven today: 5

Some titbits!

Supermarkets - there are various chains in France, the biggest of which seem to be Carrefour, U, Lidl, Aldi & E.Leclerc. Carrefour for example according to Wikipedia has 6336 outlets across France.

As supermarkets are a “relatively” new phenomena and the French towns/cities existed well before they came into vogue, while Carrefour and U in particular have their smaller inner city stores, most supermarkets are on the outskirts of the city which allows them to build very large stores, sufficient to hold say a Pak N’ Save and a Briscoes and also have large areas of off street parking.

The larger sites also have petrol pumps in the car park and the price appears to be significantly less than what one would pay per litre at the motorway stops - anything up to €0.30 less. The price is the price as there also seems to be an absence of supermarket fuel discount vouchers or at least we have never been given one and there aren’t any  signs we have seen to indicate they exist.

Another “feature” is the wide range of organic products available in supermarkets at prices that are not significantly different than the non-organic alternative - maybe €0.20 extra on every €2.00 spent which is a far cry from the add-on in NZ.

As well there are large stand-alone supermarkets selling only organic products, so those who favour the “bio” lifestyle are well catered for.

Villes et Villages Fleuris - when you drive into some towns or villages you may see a sign such as

on which will be between one and four flowers. 

Towns across France can be approved to display such a sign by a national committee who work to strict criteria.

When it was implemented in 1959 it recognised those towns who had developed aesthetic green spaces and floral displays but now it is more about general planning and how it improves the lives of residents and the experience of visitors .

As at 2018 there were 4931 recognised towns and cities across France 257 of which had been awarded 4 flowers.

Saint-Priest-en-Jarez where we are staying is a one flower town and an example of their efforts was seen this morning as we walked to a supermarket 

Three Quarters Dead

After looking at the map we chose to drive to 4 villages/towns east of StE today and of the 4 there was another gem discovered.

The first and furtherest away was Sainte-Croix-en-Jarez but getting there was another challenge as Mrs GPS took us through some terrible terrain, particularly a road that hadn’t seen any maintenance for quite sometime and was no more than one car and a touch more wide and as luck would have it there were other vehicles who also had the same GPS but were coming the other way!

At the bottom of the aforementioned road was La Barrage, a dam which retained a lot of water on one side  however we couldn’t see any flowing on the other side.

Around 5km from La Barrage was SCeJ which is the gem referred to. The village is enclosed in what was a monastery founded by Beatrix de la Tour du Pin in 1280 and is the 49th monastery of the Carthusian Order.

During the French Revolution the monks of Sainte-Croix were gradually dispossessed of all of their property and in 1794 the buildings and gardens were divided into 44 lots and brought at auction by local people

We were able to walk through the village and view the church which had been very well maintained replete with the pews that the monks used to sit on/stand against 

Despite the “stress” in getting there it was a worthwhile village to visit!

We then drove to Rive-de-Gier but apart from finding a place to buy a roll for lunch, sitting in the shade overlooking a park whilst we ate (market day in RdG today) and walking to the supermarket to buy some essentials there was nothing there that we saw that was remotely attractive so we moved on to La Grand-Croix but after walking down the Main Street (at least we think it was the Main Street) we commented to each other that “We have found another dead one here”.

The only thing that attracted us was the name of this hair salon and it is obviously the place to go if you want a natty haircut!

The 4th and final town we visited was La Talaudiere and this one was more modern than any of the others and was starting to wake up, it being by now 3pm, but it still had a lot of sleep in the eyes!

We have seen a couple of different pedestrian crossing warning signs during our travels and this was one of them!La Talaudiere also had a nice Central Park which houses some of the municipal buildings 

Kms driven today: 75

A gem!

It takes the best part of the morning for the temperature to get up to something reasonable in this part of France and we suspect that will continue as we head north - it however turned out to be a very nice day both from the point of view of the weather and also our sightseeing.

First stop was Firminy which when we arrived was crowded for market day and finding a car park was a real chore so much so that after going around in circles we almost headed away only to find parking about 5 mins walk from the centre.

There were actually two markets - fruit & veggies in one area and “liquorice all sorts” in another - and we walked around both. The all sorts market had numerous shoe stalls and Sherry couldn’t resist picking up a pair of dressy sandals from one of them at a very reasonable price.

One stall that stood out because it was one that you wouldn’t expect to see in a market was that selling beds.

We left there late morning and headed to Saint-Paul-En-Cornillon, a small village on the Loire, with the intention of stopping for lunch however that was not to be as apart from some residential properties on the banks of the river there was nothing commercial there, so apart from stopping to take a couple of photos...

...it was off to Saint-Victor-Sur-Loire and this was a real gem.

The small town sat on a hill well above the Loire and was quite beautiful in comparison to nearly all the other villages we have been to.

The feature building is the Chateau
and the view down to the Loire is absolutely panoramic.

There being nothing commercial in the town proper we went to a restaurant (the only restaurant) at the foot of the hill for lunch and threw caution to the wind by ordering both L’entre de Jour & Le plat de Jour without any idea what would be served though the waitress, who had no English, when trying to explain the plate of the day rubbed her tummy but that made no sense to us as she didn’t look pregnant.

The entree was Jambon et Cru (melon and prosciutto) while the plate was a good size piece of tender liver on a small amount of peas in the pod and podded broadbeans with a couple of scoops of pumpkin - the liver  was superb but we could not work out what animal it came from (other than it would have been a dead one), though the reason the waitress rubbed her tummy became obvious - she was indicating her liver.

After lunch we then drove down the hill to “the port” effectively one of the gorges on the Loire and found a very well used beach and sunbathing area again with great views of the surrounding gorge.

The restaurant as seen from the Loire 

No togs, so no swim but doubt we would have hopped in as it wasn’t a blazing hot day.

Returned to the accommodation late afternoon before taking the tram into the city for a light meal.

Kms driven today: 66

A little research on Mr Google suggests that the liver was duck liver - Foie de Canard Grille!

They force feed ducks to increase the size of the liver by 7 to 10 times

StE is the 14th largest city in France...

... by population as at 2013 figures and given that one would think it would have a bit of vibe about it but we have found it to be anything but vibrant (not a complaint but an opinion).

We returned to the centre of the city by the tram this morning to have a better look around the expectation being that most of the shops would be open but that wasn’t what we found.

This whole stretch of retail shops were shut

At a guess only 40% of shops would have been open and in the main they were the chain store shops that we have seen in each city rather than the owner operated shops, as the owners are on their annual holidays. Imagine Newmarket as an example over the January period if the majority of shops were shuttered up! We don’t begrudge folk their holiday break but they could have chosen a more convenient time. It appears from various signs on shops that this is the last week of the holidays so when we move on in the weekend our next stop (Dijon) shouldn’t be affected.

We have planned over the next two days to take day trips to a couple of outlying areas to enjoy whatever the wider area has to offer.

As we were leaving the central area we noticed a huge cross ✝️ high on a hill overlooking the city

Photo on 10x magnification as it was some distance away

And a mural on one of the buildings also caught the eye - would be interesting to discuss with the artist his/her interpretation of the scene

A leisurely stroll took us back to the apartment around mid afternoon.

Too cool so far to be used!

This holly tree would look rather nice when the buds? turn red later in the year 

Last nights meal in a rather nice Italian restaurant in the city, so nice we have booked for Saturday night - they were so busy the restaurant was full by 8pm and many others were turned away at the door.

Kms driven today: 5

The streak is broken

As indicated yesterday the weather forecast was not favourable for today and do it turned out as we woke to a steady drizzle/rain which persisted for the day.

What do you do when it is wet? What most other insane people do and that is go to a shopping mall and here in StE there is one on the outskirts of town with around 50 shops and 4 or 5 large standalone stores e.g. a very poor copy of Rebel Sports!

We spent the best part of 3 hours there including a stop for lunch hoping by then that the rain would have stopped but alas...

So if it was off to Saint Galmier to visits the Badoit factory however on arrival it was obvious that today was not a visiting day as the closed sign was out.

What was also obvious was that the locals came down to the site to full there own bottles with this naturally occurring mineral water so we proceeded to do the same.

We stopped off in the town itself which as we expected would be and was “dead”, tried to buy a couple of decaffeinated  coffees at the cafe (lady was insistent that yes she served coffee and yes it had caffeine in it) unsuccessfully, admired the Hotel de Ville (strange how public money is readily available to keep the town halls across France in sparkling condition but never enough to pick up the dog shite on the footpaths) and set off back to home base.There were two accidents seen on the roads today, one a serious looking smash on the motorway when we were traveling to Saint Galmier and the other right in front of us as we entered a roundabout on the way home when the car in front went from a standing start on to the roundabout, then went sideways before coming to rest in the grassed area in the middle of the roundabout.

Talking of cars the documentary series F1 Drive to Survive available on Netflix is a very good watch in you have an interest in motor sports

Kms driven today: 59

Things have changed...

...well at least the weather has (temporarily we hope) as overnight there was a thunderstorm and this morning we awoke to showers, however by the time we were ready to go out they had stopped and while it was a cool 18degC at least it was fine.

We walked down to the tram stop in Saint-Priest-en-Jarez, brought 4 tickets (€1.40 each usable for 1H30 from when first validated on a tram/bus) and hopped on the tram which runs about every 8 minutes. The trip into the centre took about 15 minutes and we got off near Hotel de Ville.

Not sure how to describe StE as:

a) it is Monday morning and a lot of shops don’t open until tomorrow or 3pm this afternoon at the earliest

b) some shops will not open at all during our stay as the owner takes his summer holiday

c) this morning it was a rather grey day

d) at times we were the only ones in a street so there was no vibe

One of the features of the city is that there are some extremely long straight roads running through the city (the following two photos are taken from the same sport but at 180 degrees to each other)

As the first feature mentioned is the length of the streets one may start to build a picture of what the city has to offer!

There were a couple of reasonably attractive buildings 

but not much else.

After lunch we ambled around some of the shops that were open (found one where Sherry brought a very nice dress) picked up some essentials and then started walking in the direction of “home” knowing that at anytime we could jump on a tram.

Before we knew it, or more correctly before we ran out of steam, we had arrived in the general area of our accommodation simply by following the tram tracks - the distance from where we had lunch to home was 4.5kms.

We have been in Europe 5 times now since 2011 for periods of up to 3 months at a time and so far we have never had a day where rain has stopped us - will our luck hold? Not sure looking at tomorrow’s forecast.

Kms driven today: 0

Pays to have an alternative plan!

Last evening we had decided to drive to a quaint little village, Uchaux, near to home for our meal as we were aware of two restaurants there.

Arrived around the 7.30 mark when restaurants typically open and went to the more upmarket one first only to be told they were fully booked so we reverted to plan B and went to the other restaurant but a sign outside said it all “Restaurant Complet, Merci” and even our basic French told us that it too was fully booked. Nevertheless we spoke to the manageress to confirm, which she did so we asked her for a recommendation.

She suggested that most restaurants in the villages would be booked and we should go to Orange - so it was back to the car, set the GPS and follow the instructions. We arrived in Orange and it became pretty obvious that finding a car park was not going to be easy however we scored one in the underground car park near the theatre. It was at this point that it clicked - there was a show (Famous French DJ) being held at the Roman amphitheater we had visited earlier in the week and the town was swamped by folk going there. A restaurant was found, a meal was had and we trekked back home.

After bidding farewell to Yvonne and Jean-Paul (& Cachou) and receiving a nice gift from them we set off for Saint Etienne but the detail on the GPS quickly indicated that the A7 was barely moving and there would be around 35 minutes delay over the journey - nothing we could do and we had all day as check-in was not till the ridiculously late time of 6pm, so we added one more car to the many and moved slowly on arriving in StE at around 3pm.

The challenge was now to spend three hours in a city that was closed it being a Sunday - we walked a little, we sat in a patisserie and had a cold drink, we walked a little more, we drove past our new accommodation, we parked the car and we walked a lot more. And (nearly forgot) we sweated like you know what because it was blazingly hot.

First impressions of StE aren’t that great however we have been pleasantly surprised many times before so we reserve judgement until we have been back in the city again tomorrow .

Kms driven today: 229

They never learn!

You would think Aussies would have more nouse than to poke our team with a pointed stick! Followed the game as best one could without good internet connection before we went exploring, this time to two villages east of here - Seguret and Vaison La-Romaine.

We were impressed by both but more so Seguret which  was another village built around a hill and looking across some very nice open countryside.

The “roads” inside the heart of the village are so narrow that vehicles cannot access it which contributes to the pleasantness when walking through it.

There is a Chateau above the town hidden by trees and given the heat, the steepness of the path through the “forest” and a dickie knee strained while walking down from the fortress the other day we decided that for us at least it would remain a hidden treasure.

Vaison La-Romaine was only 10kms approx. further afield so we set the GPS for there, found a park and walked into the centre. Even though it was “siesta time” unlike other villages the touristy shops were open which gave it a bit of a vibe.

As the name would suggest there are some old Roman structures in the village but after the theatre at Orange and the amphitheatre at Nîmes that didn’t hold much pulling power.

We stopped at a cafe and ordered 2 Americano coffees with milk - the staff acknowledged our order (Language wasn’t an issue) but brought them to our table without milk. When I went back to her and asked for some milk she said “Americanos don’t have milk”.

She was lucky I didn’t tell her that “our bloody ones do” but instead ask politely for some milk and returned to our table - when she brought over a very small jug of milk she also presented us with an extra bill for €1.50 for “service”.

Yesterday at Gordes in a cafe we went in for a cold drink, the person (not sure of the gender here) told us to take the table out on the terrace when we would rather have sat inside in the air conditioned area and then proceeded to charge us an extra €1 for being served on the terrace.

Ah the French, you got to love them!

Our time in this area is up and tomorrow we head around 200 kms north to Saint Etienne for 7 nights.

Kms driven today: 120