Leaving Paris in sunshine...waking up to snow!

Just as the day we arrived in Paris, on the day we left, the skies were blue and the sun was shining.  We picked up the rental car, managed to find our way back to the apartment (with Helen’s help!).  We parked the car in a no parking zone, turned the flashers on, and went up to the apartment to get our luggage.  We had picked up the clutter, wiped everything down, and the apartment looked almost as good as when we moved in a week ago.  Bernard came by to pick up the keys.  We were on the sidewalk with our last load for the car, so he said we did not have to go back up.  We told him that Leon had left half a cup of coffee on the table that he had planned to go back and drink, but Bernard said not to worry, that he would drink it, and we could just take off.

We stood on the sidewalk and chatted with him about the next part of our adventure and in the conversation found out that he had grown up and still owned property just 7 km from Caunes Minervois where we had stayed last summer.  Bernard is an interesting character.  He had on a purple scarf with yellow paisley decorations on it.  He is such a snappy dresser, always has a big smile, and acts like we are his best friends.  He told us that Mary Higgins Clark has been a friend of his for 30 years and always rents houses or apartments from him when she is in France.

Helen routed us right around the big roundabout at the Arc de Triomphe.  Leon has those roundabouts down pat now.  We didn’t even have to go around twice!  Another little piece of trivia is that there are no lane markings on Paris streets…a center line, but no lane markings…so there are just as many lanes as people can get cars…if they are all Smart Cars, you might get 6 lanes! 

A few miles south of Paris, we saw a sign for Sens.  We remembered that there was a big Gothic cathedral there that we had never seen.  In fact, we had never even heard of it except that it is mentioned in the Great Courses DVDs on Cathedrals that we have been watching back home.  We decided to confuse Helen and head to Sens.  She complained so much that we just unplugged her and followed the signs.  It was about 25 km off the main road.  We just loved Sens when we drove through.  The houses lining the main streets were wonderful, and we could see the spire of the cathedral…with a French flag on top…from quite a distance away.   

We just aimed for the cathedral.  We found a parking lot and walked a couple of blocks to a town square, and, oh, my gosh!  What a cathedral!  It is so huge that I could never get all of it in the same picture.  I walked to the very back of the town square, and still could not get the whole thing in.

 The sculptures on the outside of the cathedral are almost all  headless.  I don't know about this church, but during the French Revolution, mobs often targeted churches and cathedrals for their wrath against the nobility and church leaders, and the heads to statues were one of the first things that got destroyed. Sometimes the whole statue is missing.

This cathedral is supposedly one of the first “Gothic” cathedrals and was started in 1140.  It was supposed to have matching towers on the front, but somehow only one of them got built.

 The treasury has some of the greatest relics of any church…supposedly there is a piece of the true cross presented by Charlemagne as well as the vestments of Thomas Becket.  This is also where King Louis (later St. Louis) was married and five years later deposited the crown of thorns.  

It was really an amazing place.  The interior has massive columns…here I am standing by one of them.

The stained glass was fabulous.  There were two huge rose windows and many more windows around the church.

I love the ceiling.  The vaulting is dramatic..  It is really high up there, too.  I think it is unbelievable that churches like this were built so long ago with no modern engineering techniques.

At the other end of the cathedral square was this market building.  The market ended at noon, and the workers were taking all the leftovers out and loading up their trucks.

We headed on southeast toward Beaune, and I kept saying that it looked like the mountains in the distance had snow on them.  The closer we got, the more convinced that it was indeed snow, and then we started seeing it on the sides of the road.  Pretty soon we could see piles of snow on the side of the road where the snow had been plowed.  We were on one of the big toll roads that are heavily traveled.  We would up paying about 50 Euros in tolls between Paris and Lourmarin.

It was really interesting because there was probably 3-4 inches of snow on the ground.  Leon and I had been saying that we couldn’t believe how green everything was and most of the trees still had leaves on them, then suddenly everything was covered with snow.

When we drove over the top of the mountain and headed down to Beaune, the snow disappeared.  That is the southeast side of the mountain.  Suddenly everything was covered with vineyards and there was no snow at all.

We had no trouble finding our little village of Puligny-Montrachet.  It is just south of Beaune and has 450 people who live there.  It is really a darling little village with vineyards all around it and several wineries that produce wine that is exported to the USA.  We were staying at a B&B run by a couple of Brits named John and Lady Celine Nicholls.  We were told to arrive at 5:00 sharp, and we would be served tea.  We got there just a few minutes before 5:00, and John came out to welcome us.  They bought this B&B 7 years ago.  He told us that they had owned a house in the Dordogne region since the 1960s and when they realized that they never heard French spoken there because so many Brits and Dutch had bought homes there, they decided to look for someplace else.  We got a kick out of that!  Anyway, he said they drove 30,000 miles over 3-4 years all around France looking for someplace, and when they drove into Puligny-Montrachet, they just felt at home.  There were no houses for sale, though, so they rented a place nearby and came to town 3-4 times a week looking to see if something was available.  When they saw the for-sale sign go up on this house/compound, they bought it within half an hour of the sign going up.

Celine fixed scones, clotted cream, homemade apricot jam, and tea for us.  Wow!  How delicious!  Then we sat in the living room and visited for a while.  They are really friendly and had lots of tales to tell us about living in France.  John told us about options for dinner in the village, and suggested a tasting place over in the next square.  He walked us over and introduced us to the owner.  There is a set menu and then wine pairings are made to go along with that.  We started off with a white wine and little cheese puffs.  Our plate had all the wines of Burgundy listed on it.

Then we got a ham/parsley terrine with beet carpaccio (little shaved pieces of beets) and got two more white wines.  I had almost eaten all of it when I remembered to take a photo.

 The main course was roulade of chicken with spinach, a wine sauce, and gratin Dauphinois (duchess potatoes, we would call it), and we got 3 more white wines.

Next we had a selection of two goats cheeses and two cow cheeses and were served 2 red wines.

Dessert was brought out to have with the red wines, too.  It was crème brulee, but of course, we ate it before I got a photo.  

 The owner was an older man who just went from table to table asking where everyone was from and telling about his wines.  He said that he brought wines to the USA and had tastings in New York, Washington, Boston, and Chicago.  He has an American distributor who handles his wines, but he can ship them to individuals who want to order it…just not to Arkansas (among a few other states).

I was wondering if we were going to make it back to the B&B after 8 glasses of wine!  It was about 11:00 when we got back.  John had told us before we left that the forecast was for snow for Thursday.  We poured ourselves into bed, and this morning when we woke up, we looked out on a town square that was a winter wonderland.  

 We had been invited to take a walking tour of the Leflaive vineyards today and had thought that would be fun, but decided we didn’t want to slog through the snow and since more snow was forecast that we should just get on the road.

Celine is famous for her breakfasts, so we were not disappointed.  There were two kinds of ham, 3 kinds of cheeses, two kinds of yogurt (with granola or fruit), 3 kinds of bread, soft boiled eggs, 4 kinds of homemade jams, juice, tea, and coffee.  There were even fresh roses on the table. 

 We visited with John and Celine while we ate, then decided we ought to get on the road.  John went out and brushed most of the snow off our car in the courtyard while we were getting our suitcases ready.  

Helen routed us on a tiny little road through snow covered vineyards to get us out of town and back on the toll road.  We just loved all the snow.

We got on the highway and headed south and drove into more snow as we got toward Lyon.  We drove through rain, and then rain snow mix, and snow until we passed Lyon and were almost to Avignon when everything cleared up and the sun began to shine.  It was just beautiful all the rest of the way. Some spectacular ruins and scenery along the way.

We arrived in Lourmarin about 4:30.  The owners of our apartment are actually in the USA now, so a friend of theirs, Walter, met us and showed us the apartment.  He sat down with some maps and gave us enough wonderful places to visit in the area that it would take a month to see everything.    This is one of the Beaux Villages of France, so the old part of town has narrow streets and a ton of boutiques.  In the summer, this town is packed with tourists, but in November, many of the shops and restaurants are closed, and even the baker at the boulangerie is on vacation until the first of December.  Our apartment is behind the two tall windows above the shop in the middle photo.

Our cupboard was about empty, so we programmed Helen with the closest market and headed there about 6:00.  We stocked up on essentials, and even bought some salmon to cook for dinner tomorrow.  The fish were interesting.

Tomorrow is market day in Lourmarin, so we want to go check it out.  All the local villages have market day on different days.

Leon has the coffee pot all washed and ready to turn on tomorrow.  Bacon and eggs are in the fridge and so it looks like Friday will be a good day.