Une nuit à la gîte

At Saulxures, which is a teeny tiny town somewhere near Contrexéville, Sally and I stopped for a night of total luxury and decadence at le château with Danièle and her maman. And my word were we sorry we couldn't stay for a week...


Le Château


View from the bedroom window

A gîte is similar to a B&B but instead of a quaint old home, you might actually be lucky enough to stay in a really ancient building with some serious history to it.


...and from the salon


...and from le jardin

Even the shed was a work of art.


The workshop

But what we didn't expect at all was the completely and uttertly exquisite breakfast that Danièle prepared for us, with all the locally sourced delicacies available.


Breakfast?


Ali finds her happy place


... and Sal can't quite believe it!

And of course you all know that Contrexéville is the village next door to ...


Vittel, of course

We spent an afternoon luxuriating in the (cool) health-giving waters of the Vittel thermal spring, of Vittel water fame, yes indeed - just the ticket in the middle of autumn.


Les feuilles d'Automne

Au revoir Paris, et bonjour la France!

Sally and I left Paris armed with the Michelin map, a bag full of grignotages, and not much of anything else ... so when we parked the car in Fontainebleau, and headed for the château we were full of adventurous spirit and 'let's see how we go' vibes.


Château de Fontainebleau


Could things be more perfect?

Fontainebleau is very close to Paris and very beautiful and we enjoyed it so much that we decided to stay the night - the night that France won their final in the rugby world cup - woohoo! The surprise for us was that everyone left the bars the minute the final goal was scored and headed home - after a wee bit of tearing around the streets in their cars honking wildly.

The next day we headed out to get on the road proper and started enjoying the countryside.


A roman ruin on the road to Nancy

What we soon discovered was - given that we needed to stop often for a snack, make our way around each rond-point a few times, check out the little villages, and generally avoid the motorway - was that the trip was going to take a little longer to reach our expected destination each day. So, on our second night on the road we rolled in to Nancy tired, cranky and hungry, without any accomodation and without a map of the city - interesting ...

Thank goodness that when we went for an explore the next morning, and got away from the area around la gare, Nancy opened up some spectacular scenes for us. As a fan of the art nouveau architecture, I was pretty happy and inspired (but I am going to have to visit again so that I can see all the Emile Gallé glass ware at the museum, which we ran out of time to see).


Art nouveau awning in Nancy


Cupola au jardin

Not to mention the grandeur of Place Stanislas in the vieille centre ville...where we sat for an hour or so in the gentle warmth of the autumn sunshine.


How European are we - café?


18th century architecture

We hit the road again and headed for Strasbourg, stopping just outside of Saverne to climb the hill and check out the view from and the construction of this amazing abbey, built into a cliff-top (beautiful fluviatile sedimentary rocks with superb cross-beds and scour marks - for the geologically inclined amongst you).


Abbey hidden amongst the rocks

We stayed for several days, spent our time wandering the quaint, very German-feeling streets, and shopping! Yes, both Sal and I needed to update our summer wardrobes with more appropriate clothing suitable for the weather, so we found shoes, hats scarves and gloves in abundance, in between visiting the sights ...


Strasbourg cathedrale

... and discovering some of the luxurious food opportunities to be had in town.


C'est avec quoi?

We visited France's first (yes, first!) gourmet chocolate bar. Their hot chocolates are fashioned made by scooping a large ball of flavoured chocolate ganache - I chose the gingimbre, Sal had the congac I think - into the glass, adding steamed milk on top and stirring the ganache slowly through until it melts and mixes thoroughly. Hmmmm.... delicious!


Chocolat chaude

And then we discovered the nougat shop - I cannot describe how sublime this stuff was - we bought a large tranche each on the first day and went back for as much as we could fit into the car for the rest of the trip - and according to the ladies inside, we Australians are their best customers, absolutely divine!


Nougat

After we'd had our fill of lardons, andouilettes and spaetles it was time to say farewell to the quaintness of old Strasbourg and head out for new environs.


Le toit


...and this is France?

Paris Pitstop

So from New York to ... Paris, of course! Where I met up with Sally to begin our education in French food, wine, culture - the lot.


Sally and Ali in Paris!

So what did we do? As any one of my good friends can guess, we started with lunch ...


Marais lunch at my new local

... and Sal showed me her new Parisienne look!


Je suis trés à la mode

So these two Parisienne chiques, (I just made that word up, by the way - don't go using it around your French friends) thought it might be nice to share some of our favourite sights and scenes with some other Aussie girls (didn't think I'd be using that phrase too often either).


Clare and Bella with Ali

Can you believe it? After all that idle talk in our cubicles at the College of Surgeons, we finally managed to meet up in Paris - where I shared my new-found pleasure in the traditional apéritif with Clare!


A kir and a catch-up

Then it was time for a quick round at the Pompidou Centre, to get our fill of modern art.


André Pevsner


Red is sooooooooooo passé, Ali

We followed up our exhausting afternoon in the museums with a fabulous morning tea at Angelina - the extremely charming tearoom that Monsieur Roissybus (famously of my Paris visit '05) told me I must go to, and where I discovered that my French table etiquette was sadly lacking. No such embarrassing problems this visit however!


Getting excited about hot chocolate at Angelina

And no visit to Paris is complete without stepping out onto the streets to see that magic structure, la tour Eiffel.


Au dessous


...et juste à côté de...!

Apologies for the poor image - I wanted you to see it sparkle too! Tellement belle!

New York Story

So what do you do when you have five days in New York City with one of your best friends? First thing is to take a trip up to see one of the world's most exciting views! Can you see the Chrysler Building behind me - wow!


On top of the world


Moody view

That's right nothing quite beats a ride up Broadway in a cab after a day spent catching up with city life, browsing bookshops, boutiques, specialty providores, and being pampered by over-enthusiastic hair professionals AND having just eaten a fantastic meal at one of Greenwich Village's hottest new 18-seat restaurants, Degustation, for a taste of what New York's finest can do tapas-wise. For me the standout dish was the Berkshire pork belly with watermelon gazpacho and pickled tomatillos, Andrew's choice was the Eckerton Farm heirloom tomatoes with seared squid and ricotta chive emulsion. What a way to start my break!

And of course New York turned on some beautiful weather, it was in fact, quite hot (yes, 30 degrees and humid!) and the locals were apologising profusely. So I got my fill of the skyscapers and crowded cityscapes.


Empire State!


Art deco windows

Andrew is in New York for 3 months as a visiting researcher at the Lamont-Doherty Centre which is part of Columbia University, he'd only been in town for a couple of weeks when I arrived so we were both excited about being tourists again.


King of Columbia

And in an excellent stroke of timing, I arrived just before his birthday so took him to The Modern for a luxurious treat. What a great night! After a peak around the collection at MoMA beforehand (aaahhh what an AWESOME collection), we were served the most devine meal, although I have to say my tastebuds were a wee bit overstimulated after 9 weeks of Syama dining, and I found it a bit difficult to process all the flavours. It seems that the chorizo crusted turbot that Andrew chose (and I even tried!) is quite the fashion these days - it kept popping up on menus everywhere I went on my holiday!


Matisse at MoMO


Happy Birthday Andrew!

(Thankyou to Marcia for introducing me to the delights of The Modern in 2005). We spent the rest of the weekend wandering around Manhattan, bumping into the odd street market, sampling bagels, pretzels, cupcakes and other fine fare -participating in a spot of shopping in Soho, and meeting the locals.

And on Sunday morning we thought it might be nice to venture further afield and head off the island into one of the other boroughs - so we jumped on the D train and headed for DUMBO (Down Under Manhattan Bridge Overpass).

We'd had good tips that the breakfasting was good down there and in one of those moments you have in like-minded company, we passed a little foodstore, turned around and looked at each other - turned back and headed in to consult their menu - no discussion required!


Choosing breakfast

... and my word was I happy with my gargantuan ...


Huevos rancheros

We continued on our tourist trail and had beautiful sunshine and interesting skies for viewing the city from afar ...


Manhattan Bridge

... but the native New Yorker and I had to share the experience with just about every cause in the city! I have never seen so many matching t-shirts or determined people!


Native New Yorker

Alas there is never enough time to do everything either. I managed to see family friends Marcia and Ted again and caught up on their news. I also wandered along 125th Street which is the heart of Harlem and very close to Andrew's uber-chic apartment, so took in the sights and sounds of a part of New York that was completely new to me, and I even fitted in a stroll through Central Park - not a bad break, however brief, I reckon.


Houston Street Station