from l’Ile de Re: the ride

Whatever made me do this*?? Insane. I should act my age and bake cookies in my free time. Or in the alternative, sip a nice noisette and watch people go by all day long.

I’m thinking this as I push myself to go up the bridge that will put me back on the mainland. I hate precipitous drops (it doesn’t help that it’s into the ocean) and I dislike uphill pedaling, but there is no other way to return except to cross that bridge once again.





It was a clever idea, I thought: rent un velo and bike over to l’Ile de Re. The island is maybe a dozen kilometers up north from La Rochelle and it is connected to the mainland by a bridge. (I hadn’t quite realized that it’s a three-kilometer bridge.) Once you survive the crossing, you are in a beautiful setting – a 35 kilometer long stretch of land, with fishing villages, beaches, oyster beds and small vineyards – all that prettiness for me to enjoy on a beautiful, sunny day.

I thought: what’s 80 kilometers of biking in a day… Tough Polish peasant stock here. I can keep up with the French bikers. Surely.

There was an issue though. The bike had to be back at the shop by 4:30. They close then and by the time they reopen, I’ll be back in Madison teaching a class.

But so what. I will watch the hours and tell myself, halfway through: time is up! Now turn around and go back.

In the meantime, it feels tremendously wonderful out there on l’Ile de Re. A dazzling little place.









…and because it’s near lunchtime, I pass many happy people eating at the countless brasseries and bistros that line village harbors.



how many French people does it take to fill a café table? (ten here)


And so I am tempted. And I sit down. And I order a wonderful, best ever salad, with some shrimp on the side…



with endive!


…and I lose track of time. Monsieur and madame at the table next to mine engage me in a conversation and I listen with a smile to their recounting of when they visited America.

I have family there, you know. It’s a fascinating place! I love California! (Predictable. All French people love California, especially the vineyards.) Are you on vacation?
Sort of. I took my work along, but I am on a week long spring break now.
We here in France get two weeks off for Easter, two weeks for Christmas and six weeks in the summer. And then some other holidays as well. (I know, I know. That's what the French think of us: we are crazy workaholics over in the States.)
So you are also on spring break?
Yes, we like to travel in France in the winter and spring. Too crowded everywhere during the summer. We’re from Toulouse. You know Toulouse?
Foie gras land.
Yes! But the food is good here as well. (They are eating heaping plates of seafood.)
When we were in the States, it was for a family reunion with our cousins who moved there a long time ago. We all say “let’s have lunch,” and the Americans open the refrigerator and take out some things to eat! You eat a quick lunch, no? Here, we make a big deal of it. We sit down and take our time.

Yes, and while in France, I take my time as well. So much so that I neglect to count back the time that I need to bike to La Rochelle.

Madness. It’s madness. The wind is in my face, the hills which seemed insignificant before seem monstrous now. I ache, but I cannot stop.

Okay, I do sometimes stop. A photo opportunity! How can I resist? I’ll pedal harder when I am done, surely that’ll put me back on track.

It is not inconsequential that I take photos of men fishing. I like to take photos of people fishing. Here, they do it variously. But they all have this in common: they are not in a rush. I should learn from them.













Through absolutely hellish maneuvers and a hair-raising sprint through the crowded downtown, I do in fact make it back to the shop at 4:29. I promise, you, it was that close.



seconds before closing


And afterwards? Do I collapse in my pretty little room with the crisp white everything? Hell no. I go for my blow out meal at Richard Coutanceau – one that defies a recount. If you are within a thousand miles of the place, you should make a point of going there. (I do not know where people on a budget would be without French fixed price menus. They are what allows the likes of me to occasionally enter the great culinary halls like this one.)

Let me just show you the dessert: tomatoes, leeks, some orange peel, cardamom ice cream. And yes, the combination works! Mildly sweet, but with a delicious zest to it. Beautiful.




I have previously admitted to my absolute bedazzlement when I meet a renowned chef. It’s very adolescent, really. Richard, with his Michelin rosettes may be the highest in the French hierarchy to ever shake my hand and chat me up. I am certain I mumbled something totally incoherent. I blame it on still being in a trance after the velo madness.

* One reason for the velo challenge now is to test my skills in anticipation of a two-week bike ride. Coming up in May. Check in then!

from La Rochelle, France: alone again, naturally

The trick is to be enchanted by what you see, even if you are somewhat removed from it. So that even when you’re out alone for the evening, you are still touched, for example, by seeing before you the affection people feel for one another.

Walking to dinner, I am just so taken with the dusk colors. The harbor is spinning with the exuberance of people facing a warm season ahead. Love, everywhere I see people in love.




As a solo traveler (more often than not), I especially like being around people. Take this evening. I am by the ocean and so I go to a seafood place, Les Flots, reputed to be one of the freshest, most honest places on this coast of the Atlantic.

[Amazingly, there are four restaurants in town and Les Flots is one of these -- all with stellar reputations -- all run by various sibling; the one that has captured the greatest praise from French food critics is run by the dad and mom -- I'll be trying it Saturday.]

As usual, I am given an exquisite table, perfect for people watching. It’s as if they know that solo travelers need to look out onto others.

The waiters speak rapid fire French here. They have a lot to say about the foods and wines (if you ask). At the table next to mine, a waiter is describing a certain wine and the customer asks, yes, but at what temperature will you serve it to me? The waiter doesn’t even hesitate with the answer. It seems to be the way it should be served. The customer nods in agreement.

At one point, I’m a little lost in what the waiter is telling me about the two lobster preparations on the menu. Yes, the lobster is from Brittany. Yes, it has a special butter-based sauce, infused with lobster broth. Yes it has julienned vegetables. The rest I just am not following. A customer shouts over from a distant table to my waiter: talk slower, Jacques. You need to talk slower. She is a foreigner. She’ll get it if you talk slower.

Watching is a two-way thing.

The food here is absolutely fantastic. This is what you want from a coastal seafood place: a basket of fresh nibbles from the ocean to start with:





Followed by the best of the best:





Finally, capped with an original take on a traditional dessert (poire Helene, which my mother used to serve for guests by opening a can of pears, doing a jello brand vanilla pudding around it, and, for that special touch, sprinkling it with slivered almonds. My mother did not like to spend much time in the kitchen.):





I walk back to my wonderful little hotel (hint: it’ going to take first prize as the reasonably priced hotel of the year on Ocean View. Watch for details in a few days.) and I am just so enchanted by this little curved bay with its boats and cafes.




Madame is enjoying the warm air - a fisherman says this to me. His buddy corrects him. La jeune fille (the young girl) is enjoying the warm air. Alright, gentlemen, at some point, that line is just ridiculous. But the thing is, in this little port on a warm evening, it’s not. It’s intended to make you smile and it does just that.

Or maybe the smile comes from an entire evening of people watching. Maybe.

...do as the French do

in two chapters:


1. stay in the village

Last night my landlady, Anne, stopped by. A young woman, as French as they come (meaning a million times more well kempt than me). Born just six kilometers up the road. And her husband is from this village. They were away for the week, or they would have surely run into me on Sunday at lunch at Le Croquant. They heard all about the American who dined alone and took a lot of pictures.

How is it to know your soil so well? To connect to it through the houses you build and the people who are forever your neighbors?

I asked Anne’s mother-in-law when I first arrived what restaurants she liked to eat at around here. I like Anne’s, she told me.

At the vineyard where I spent the harvest week-end last September, the vintner married the girl from the village next door. In the Savoie, in my favorite fromlast spring restaurant with rooms, the award-winning chef married the girl next door. Here, in Plazac, the carpenter married the girl next door.

Village life. So, you’re born there, you go to school elsewhere (by necessity), you come back and marry the boy/girl next door. And you build houses and plant gardens and buy foods at the market and kiss greetings left and right, because you know these people as well as you know your own driveway.

I’m drawn to it, even as I know that I would be the one who moved away. Nina? She left after college. Even before she finished actually. Village life was not for her.

You think? Maybe. But when I come to France, I always want to witness it, study it, contemplate the way it might be.

From the cottage, one last look at Plazac:




2. get away from the village

It would benot a whole lot of fun for me to spend the holiday weekend in places like Plazac, Rouffignac, Fanzac, Montignac or any of the other Perigord clusters. On Easter, families eat meals at home. Much of village life – that part that an outsider can participate in – is closed down.

How else to be among the French on a French holiday? The obvious answer is to head for the coast.

I am (happily) letting go of the car this morning and returning to train travel. Sure, it’s harder this way. For example, I was way late for my train and had to wait a very long time for another. Moreover, my suitcase, the one now containing five spectacular bottles of wine (because obviously you cannot buy wine in the States) decided to break at the handle. And the connection between one train and another left me with only two minutes to run from one platform to the other (up the stairs, down the stairs) – yes, all that.

And still, trains are for me calming devices. For all that can go wrong, you still come out smiling.

And so when I got off at La Rochelle, with hundreds pouring out with me into the spectacular sunshine, giving an almost Mediterranean feel to the place, I was exuberant!

It could not be more different here, on the Atlantic coast, than what I experienced in the Perigord Noir. There is absolutely nothing noir about where I am now.

La Rochelle has got all the things we all love in a holiday get-away. It’s got a little of the history, a little of the harbor and beachfront, a healthy dose of the markets, a lot of fantastic restaurants, many stores, and a mile long (or so it seems) harbor-front lined with outdoor cafes. And happy people, in-love people, eating ice cream and sipping wine people. It defines escape.



La Rochelle



full of ice cream...



...just picked flowers



...and love.


So, I'll eat big today and tomorrow... oh, check in, why don’t you. I have an idea for tomorrow. We’ll see what comes of it.

from the Perigord Noir, France: April sun and forgiveness

Wake up, check the sky. Looking for signs of blue.

Stumble to the deck. Low-lying fog has settled over the Perigord Noir.



A bright sun would burn that off in no time. Move slowly. Should I make another attempt at a long hike? I should.

But not just yet. A subtext to my days here has been the never-ending negotiation on my condo. It’s interesting to make deals at a seven hour delay. After much thought (oh, about five minutes’ worth) and no deliberation (who would I deliberate with? The Perigord goose? I don’t think she is on my side after the foie gras sampling), I gave an ultimatum: it’s my way or no way.

So I may indeed lose the condo. So what.

True, I have now given over the lease to the loft, but life belongs to the adventurous.

Being away from it all is very empowering.

Oh, but the weather today… Back I am at Montignac, only this time I take my noisette and my chocolatine outside. This moment, at an outdoor café, in the April sun, with my noisette and chocolatine, makes me want to forgive everything and everyone. I do think that when the people of Perigord Noir agreed to pair their villages with sister towns in Germany to show their willingness to move beyond a dark history, they did so in a moment of April sun, at a café, over a noisette.





People watching. Taking pleasure in noticing the movements of another.










But is it really noon already?

I hike.

And immediately I get lost. The very second turn – I lose it on the very second turn! Who knew that when they wrote “turn at the Carrefour,” they did not mean the grocery chain.

After that I can never really pick up the trail again. I try, but the book never seems quite on the same planet. I make corrections by checking with the rare passing car. When it seems hopeless I sing very very loudly.

And it all really does not matter. It’s all about the countryside. Let me sit back quietly for a minute and remember.



spring blooms and rooftops



a plowed field and a fixer-upper



white flowers of Perigord Noir



instead of a Weber grill?



run to me!


I walked such a bucolic route, that I could easily forget that I am in the Noir (black) part of the Perigord. Some say the color designation comes from its black truffle fame, but others would say it’s all about the forests here.

And yes, they are always before you: the wooded hills of the Perigord




It is, to me, always unsettling to enter a forest alone.





I can do most everything in travel without companionship, but forests are another matter. The sounds are different. The animals have one up on you: they can hide. You’re exposed. No bears here, I know that. Hogs – do they have wild hogs? Wild boar?

In Poland, as a kid, I loved the forests after a rainy spell. Mushrooms appeared and I picked them. The smell of earth and bark was terrific. My grandmother, always the protector, warned of evil drunken men lurking in the woods, ready to hurt me. I never worried then, but I am now closer to her age and perhaps closer to her sensibilities, at least in the matter of forests.

But today I encountered no one. If there is a dark side to the Perigord Noir, I saw none of it. (No truffles either, but it isn’t the season).

In the hours of the afternoon, the sun shifted. So that, back at my café of choice, I now faced the other direction.

It’s my farewell meal – I leave early tomorrow morning. In truth, I still haven’t gotten over Sunday’s lunch and so I stay with something regional, seasonal and not too overwhelming, described as a salade du notre terroir (yes, of course, there's the canard slices and the walnut chunks, all extraordinarily delicious). With a Bergerac rosé.




…and a noisette.

the wind and the willows (in the Perigord Noir, France)

In a moment of foolish hope, I purchased the other day a book of balades (walks) in the area. Balades for the timid, the moderates and the boisterous.

This morning I picked, ambitiously, a boisterous balade. Four hours of boisterous walking, how good is that! And I am so full of foresight that I am even checking directions to make sure I understand all the French. What the hell is goudron?

I set out. First, a brief pop into the town of the starting point – Montignac.




Need that café-bar jumpstart of a noisette and chocolatine.

Okay, now out I go.

And then in I return. My, it’s blustery. Sure, the Net said it would be on and off showers and a rather cool high of 50, but that’s what they’re told to say. Who believes these dudes anyway.

Still, I don’t think this is the perfect weather for balading, especially boisterously.

I sit in the car and contemplate at which point in life I became a weather wimp. Alright, no boisterous hike. But that doesn’t mean no hike at all.

I drive to the village of St Leon-sur-Vezere, the starting point of a timid one hour jaunt. St. Leon-sur-Vezere is one of the thousand or so villages in France with the designation of “prettiest village in France” and so I take time to stroll through it.

And I find it nice. Really, quite nice.


a trio: the shed, the chateau and the church


Oh, people are eating at the local Restaurant de la Poste (or is it a bar? or a tabac? or all three?)! I can vaguely see them through the window!




But is it lunchtime already? I just finished my chocolatine in Montignac! Well now, maybe a small lunch would warm me up so that I would be raring to go balading.

I enter. Oh, such hot and yummy looking soup! What is it? Onion? I see egg in it as well.



And a cepe omelet, yes, perfect. I have such fondness for eggs here (happy chickens, happy eggs). And cepes – who can reject a cepe in an egg dish? With a French salad. Can’t get enough of the omelet and the salad. Think how much we would accomplish in this world if we served French salads at every important occasion. Yes, sure, a glass of red wine de Bergereac would also be great.





Hold on, let me take stock: the intent was to eat a light breakfast and hike for four hours. It is already 2 p.m. and thus far I have eaten a delicious chocolate croissant, a fantastic farm lunch and hiked not at all. And I am contemplating whether to break down and order the one dessert on the menu – a tarte tatin (a version of an apple up-side-down cake), wouldn’t you know it, a real favorite of mine!



I order the tarte tatin. Everyone does. And I am certain as apple pie and taxes that no one else in the restaurant is contemplating a boisterous balade for the afternoon. We all sink in the juices of French food. What a way to go.


Five minutes later, the heavy hand of guilt pushes me up from the chair, out the door and points me to the wind and the willows. A timid balade for timid me.

And it is a lovely little walk. Along river banks and past 12th century churches with interiors that have no distractions. Stark interiors. Beautiful in their simplicity, so long as you’re not the one who has to find physical comfort in it on a regular basis.



stark within



...not so outside


I walk the river bank, past weeping willows and stone huts, past meadows and orchards.





…into the woods and up a hill and -- what’s this, rain? Really? Not even just a wee shower?

A shame. But it’s not as if you can escape a balade once you have begun a balade. I walk through tall grasses with lovely dandelion flowers, I wrap my arms around my camera to protect it from the wetness and I forge ahead. Dripping, I reach my wee little car and I exhale.

A good day.

life, in three chapter (from southwest France)

1. From the Gardens of Marqueyssac, walking the cliff ridge that overlooks the Dordogne River valley in the Perigord

Bring out the sun, the smell of boxwood, the sound of bees in rosemary bushes and tractors plowing the fields below, back and forth, back and forth. Point me to the view of the river with rows of poplars at its side. Steer me to a warm rock. I’ll sit and not move for hours.



boxwood, trees, castle



bee in rosemary




tractor work



on the banks - poplars



around the river bend, cliffs, with a village at the base



Still, by the time the small cloudburst comes, I am at the café at the park’s entrance, finishing off a salad and a glass of rosé de Bergerac.




I move my plates under the umbrella and wait for the dessert of Perigoord honey and Perigord walnut ice cream, along with a noisette. The good view stays with me.





Back when I entered the gardens, I was handed a folder with descriptions of plantings, birds and minerals, with a few poems thrown in.




Somehow it felt more English than French to be hiking with a folder of poems. Though the growth of boxwood is pretty limited to Mediterranean climates, so England is out one there.

Always, a whiff of boxwood will remind me of the summer I spent (as a teenager) with my parents in Sochi, by the Black Sea. Decisive summer. I concluded then that life cam be less fretful outside my childhood home.

2. From Sarlat, a small medieval city in reaction to which one writer exclaimed: is everyone here engaged in the production or sale of foie gras?!





The answer is no, not everyone. Consider my purchases today:

black truffles [see insert below]
walnuts

chocolate covered walnuts
chocolate croissant
baguette
smoked salmon
home made nougat

mustard
a painting [see chapter 3 below]


Note the absence of foie gras. Imagine me bringing foie gras as a gift for friends back home. I may as well wrap a fur around my shoulders and drive out in an SUV.

In any event, let me assure you that this place is not all about geese and duck livers. Much goes into the Perigord pot.





So alright. In the high and lofty pursuit of honesty here, on Ocean, I must admit that yesterday I set foot in a foie gras store and let the sales person smear some free samples for me on a fresh slice of baguette. Moreover, today at dinner, I was served an entire appetizer portion of foie gras de canard.

And I have to say that foie gras de canard is a great improvement over the liver I was asked to eat as a kid so that I would be less anemic. I am, most likely, still anemic having neither eaten much liver in my life nor downed spoonfuls of cod liver oil once I left Poland (for the first time). So, count this dish as medicinal.

Besides, I looked in on the geese and ducks yesterday at one reputable foie gras producing farm and they looked about as happy as any French farm animal. Make of that what you will.

[insert: the purchase of a truffle was a big deal. Like caviar, it belongs to a food group that is not part of my usual shopping orbit. Indeed, I have never purchased beluga caviar nor Perigord truffles before. But isn’t it time?



Madame at the store was trying to talk me into duck pate and I was resisting, for reasons stated above, but not resisting so much as to decline her samples of the stuff. Having chomped down her foods, I felt compelled to shake out a few Euros for something.

So I purchased my first truffle. It’s good until 2010, so I have three years to decide what to do with it.]


3. From a tiny gallery in a back street of Sarlat, love springs eternal

I ask Madame the painter this: why is it that every French artist (I'm thinking of the moderately prominent rather than someone who already commands a city audience, say in Paris) I have ever met or bought art from is a woman? I don’t especially seek out women artists, but I have a wall of painting back at the loft and they are all French and they are all done by women. Why is that?

She smiles. Yes, I know! But this is only recent. In music, too. Suddenly you see women musicians everywhere! We have exploded with our talents!

At least this is what I think she is saying. She is too southern -- bah this and bah that and I lose it after a while. Besides, I am distracted.

I'm looking at her paintings and I'm thinking of my new condo back home, which has yet to be mine in any sense of the word and I do what I usually do under the circumstances: I fall in love.

It is easy to love in France. The country has strived for centuries to perfect the art of stimulating our senses, or hormones, or something, so that love flows. I am in France most often alone. Short of pouncing on guides, waiters and whomever else I encounter in my ramblings, I have no choice but to love the wares that people place under my nose.

Last June I purchased a painting that I loved passionately in the Languedoc, though now I think it was a foolish one-night stand.

But this night I am in love. Without doubt. Here, she is holding the object of my affection:





Love, enduring love. Damp cave walls, new condo dry walls, display it as you will. April in France. Buzz of bees, roll of tractors, paintings on walls. The many shades of love.