I am not sure what you know about France, but the terrain is much more interesting than most people think. My friends and I drove up into the Cévennes and had a wonderful drive into some hilly, dare I say mountainous areas. Within 2 hours, I can find beaches, mountains, snow, wind, sun, forests... You name it, it is here. I'd have to say that the south of France is different from any place I've ever known.We headed north into the National Park called the Cévennes and thought we were headed to see some great things. We did: snow, hills, curvy roads, and interesting plants and architecture. Thanks to my friend JJ who took all the pictures, because I had to sleep through it so I wouldn't get sick. Thank God I wasn't driving...) We stopped in a town called Florac for lunch where there wasn't much of anything except for a restaurant offering two menus. There were no menus in our hands-- we either took A or B as a first course and A or B as a second course. Wine comes with the meal.
So, the first course was a giblet salad or a paté de campagne (a mix of all sorts of things that I love because I don't translate them...)
The main dish was pasta with duck in a wine sauce or a pork chop in a mustard/pickle sauce.
After lunch we headed south again and crossed the Viaduc de Millau and went to a Roquefort cheese cave. I couldn't take photos in the cheese cave, but it was memorable. I think it is because the French are very angry that former President Bush raised the import taxes on this cheese by (or to) 300% as he was leaving office. The French see it as a "take that for not joining us in the war in Iraq" vengeance moment. When we were visiting, I said we were Canadian.
Here are some photos of the coolest bridge ever though. We loved it so much we crossed it 3 times!
This is my must-see when I come next month. Don't ask me why! Does this mean you won't be up for another crossing, or two or three?
ReplyDeleteI love this! A wonderful response to anyone who exhibits dislike/distain--dis--whatever!--for Americans. It's from my idol's, Rita Golden Gelman's, website:
ReplyDeleteDear World:
We, the United States of America , your top supplier of the ideals of liberty and democracy, would like to apologize for our 2001-2008 interruption in service. The technical fault that led to this eight-year service outage has been located, and the software responsible was replaced November 4. Early tests of the newly installed program indicate that we are now operating correctly, and we expect it to be fully functional on January 20. We apologize for any inconvenience caused by the outage. We look forward to resuming full service and hope to improve in years to come. We thank you for your patience and understanding.
Sincerely,
The United States of America