France 9

Well, we have been home a month this week, and I am well aware that I never produced the final post in the France series, our last week or so back down at Arne & Dominique’s, a fabulous end to a mind blowing time living in France for 2 months!

Our first adventure of the closing days was driving South to Valence, a city we had wanted to visit and just hadnt go there, but finally we made it, had a wander round another lovely French city, bought some noughat from Montélimar, the town famous for its noughat which is about another hour further south – our friend Frank, who lives on his yacht in Gove Harbour, left his homeland, France, 55 years ago. He has never been back! We asked him what he would like from France and after thinking for a while he said, “some soft noughat from my hometown, Montélimar.” So we were finally able to fulfill his wish!

We also managed to get back to our favourite French-Lebanese restaurant, Auberge du Pas-Sage, just down the road, in Serre-Nepol, a couple more times, Sal & I for lunch and we took Arne & Dominique for a last dinner before we left. We enjoyed some very nice Lebanese wines and they gave me a couple of Ricard glasses and a water jug after Sal mentioned I had been trying to buy some to take home – an extremely generous gesture!

Our last trip into the French countryside was a drive to the North East, a direction we had not explored and lunch in a town called La Côte-Saint-Ande, we once again discovered a great little restaurant, a workers style brassiere which was filled with the old machinery from a mill or something.

We discovered a beautiful old hotel that had been converted to the Marie (civic centre) and the most amazing gardens in the courtyard. There were also many interesting buildings using a style of small stone work we had not seen elsewhere.

We then stumbled on the most amazing huge hall which was obviously very old and filled with incredible timber. Its still in use today for the weekly market in La Côte-Saint-Ande. We found a plaque with some information and translated it –

The market hall A “market house” is mentioned as early as 1309 in La Côte-Saint-André. This name designates the market hall of the town, which has come down to us in its 15th century form. The building has five bays, separated by rows of wooden posts supporting a four-sided frame. The stone blocks on which the posts rest replaced the original sideboard walls at the beginning of the 19th century, similar to those of the Crémieu market hall. The house which occupies a corner of the building retains parts of the 16th and 17th centuries (fireplace, staircase and ceilings). In the Middle Ages it housed the seat of the court and the Savoyard and then Delphine count’s administration. Its proximity to the market hall testifies to the central role of this multi-purpose space in the center of the city. With a length of 76 meters and a width of 29 meters, this medieval hall is one of the largest that has come down to us. A document from 1548 specifies that the five bays corresponded to the location of five trades: weavers, mercers, regrattlers (retail merchants), shoemakers and butchers. Classified as a Historic Monument, the hall still hosts a weekly market today.

 

We had a final dinner at Le Sabot, Dominique prepared a French classic, Pot au Feu, and we dined with a few of our new, close friends! It was a lovely night, tinged with sadness at the imminent departure of the “Aussies at Sabot” for their home! Dominique also gave me a lovely old Ricard bottle to go with the glasses and water jug that our friends at Auberge du Pas-Sage had given me, I felt very blessed!

And so our time in France ended, an unbelievably amazing 2 months that exceeded any possible expectations we had. Just wonderful in everyway. The trip home was uneventful, no jetlag for some reason, we spent a few days in Darwin and then finally arrived home on the 10th October. We hope you have all enjoyed the vicarious adventure with us, its not a time of our life we will forget anytime soon!

I will leave you with a little video of us driving home to La Sabot, up the winding narrow road that leads up past Rene Claudes house and up to Dominique & Arnes. Enjoy! (turn up the sound!)