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?