Dinner – May 28, 2015
Bonjour!
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| Aperitif Kir Royal |
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Robert LOVES the menu cover!
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Balloon in the distance!
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We had not planned to eat at L’Esplanade last night, preferring to wait until tonight, but we
were feeling a bit peckish about 7, so headed downstairs. We found that our hotel had a menu posted on
the terrasse, which I figured was what they served there – so we asked if we
could eat there, and of course, it turns out, they weren’t going to use the
dining room at all last night as it was so lovely outside! So, suddenly we find ourselves yet again with
the interesting and very complex French menu.
The menu we had spotted was only for lunch … oh well! So, we started with Kir Royal Framboise (raspberry liquor rather than cassis with
champagne), and then moved to our table on the terrasse, overlooking the
Dordogne.
The
amuse bouche
this time was a small cylinder of cucumber gazpacho with raspberry puree and a
whole raspberry on top.
It was very
good.
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| Amuse bouche! |
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White asparagus in orange and butter sauce
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R's trout
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Then, for appetizers, we both
selected the white asparagus in a butter sauce.
(Although R, having had the green asparagus plate on Tuesday night,
thought the green was better.)
For main
course, Robert ordered their roasted trout with zucchini and mixed vegetables
(zucchini, carrot, potato, and asparagus).
He said it was really amazing, and asked one of the wait staff how it
had been made.
She said that it was
slowly roasted for something like an hour and 20 minutes at a very low heat; he
loved it, and plans to try and make it when we get home.
I again ordered from the truffle menu – this
time, what I was told was “scrambled eggs” with truffles…
They weren’t exactly cooked – at least now
how we look at scrambled eggs – but they were definitely cooked.
Possibly something like the eggs being all
mixed up with the truffles, and then cooked without stirring under very low
heat for a while.
The consistency was
wonderful (and I actually like raw egg with sukiyaki, which R thinks is
gross!).
It was just such a surprise
from what I was expecting!
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R's vegetables
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My truffles in "scrambled eggs!"
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Well, I waited for
some fluffy yellow eggs to come out, but what appeared instead was a very
unusual bowl of egg with truffles mixed in and a large slice on top.
Then for dessert, R had a repeat of his raspberries with
white and dark chocolate with raspberry sorbet with almond cookie and caramel
wafers. I ordered something that sounded very interesting – and turned out to
be a small (about the size of a tennis ball) hollow, round chocolate globe with
vanilla ice cream inside. This was then perched on a layer of yellow cake, with
a base of dark chocolate.
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My dessert - globe of chocolate with vanilla ice cream
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Globe collapsed with hot chocolate poured over it
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And if that
wasn’t enough, after it was set down in front of me, there was a small pitcher
of hot milk chocolate that was poured over the top, which collapsed the
chocolate globe.
Very unusual, and
absolutely delicious!
We again didn’t
get back upstairs until almost 10:30 p.m. and I was just about able to make it
to bed!
We were up this morning about 6, to a day a bit more
overcast than yesterday, and our last day in the area.
We are both going to miss both
Domme and
Hotel L’Esplanade and the beautiful countryside all around
here.
We got breakfast – croissants,
bread and hot drinks at the little boulangerie where we went yesterday; very
good, although we ate inside today.
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Good breakfast!
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It
is an interesting place – it seems that they serve everything from croissants
and coffee to wine and sandwiches, as well as having candy and other things for
sale.
Rather a store of all sorts!
We then headed down the hill and out towards
Gourdon, about 25 km away and the
Grotte de Cougnac, our last (for this
trip!) decorated cave.
Once again, Robert managed to put us on roads with no
traffic whatsoever, which was wonderful – and every road in this area should be
designed as a route scenic which I
hope I don’t need to translate! As we
were running a bit early for their 10 a.m. opening, we stopped at the Carrefour
(big supermarket) on the outskirts of town.
Robert is still looking to find an extra European electrical adapter or
two, as we are down to two and that makes him nervous (especially as the
computer needs one!). We weren’t able to
find what we needed, but it is always fun to walk around grocery stores in
other countries. You’d be surprised at
what we’ve found over the years!
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Lovely cave!
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Beautiful ceiling!
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More ceiling detail; lots of stalactites!
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At any rate, we arrived just a few minutes after 10 a.m. at Courgnac (the spelling is correct; not
to be confused with Cognac), and
walked up the hill to the ticket office.
I think, and Robert agrees with me, that we were here quite a few years
ago – but that they have built a new Visitors Center/Reception area. As it turned out, the next (first!) tour of
the day was set to go at 10:30 a.m., and just a few minutes before then,
another couple showed up, making four of us in total, plus the guide. Promptly at 10:30 we set off, with the guide
explaining things in French. It turned
out that the couple actually said they didn’t mind if she gave the tour in
English, which was surprising but very, very kind of them. It worked out, though, that our guide did the
tour in both English and French; her English was excellent.
Cougnac is, in
fact, two caves; one, discovered in 1949, has no prehistoric cave paintings or
engravings, but is really a lovely cave in and of itself.
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Cute little salamander in cave!
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The second cave, discovered in 1951, has the
paintings.
We entered the cave with
natural features first, and it was nice because photography is allowed there
(but of course not the decorated cave…)
And, they have a small bat colony (about 15 bats), and we surprised some
of the bats who were still flying around before settling down for the day to
sleep.
We do love bats, and were able to
watch one, clinging to the end of a stalactite, try to settle (upside) down and
make himself comfortable.
He was so
cute, stretching this way and that (reminded me of the super huge fruit bats in
Australia, except that they are 50 times larger than these little guys!)
The cave itself was quite lovely – truly an
uncountable number of stalactites, as well as cave bacon (or “curtains” as they’re
called in French).
We saw flowstone,
cave popcorn and some interesting columns.
All in all, a great caving experience.
Then we walked outside and up stairs and down a long winding
lane to get to the decorated cave. This
cave is really, really wet – still living, as water was dripping from all the
stalactites, and we both got “cave kisses” (drops of water from above) on our
walk. The entry to the cave was used by
the prior owner (before 1949) as his wine cellar, and now, as the conditions
are constant – 55 degrees F and, as there is no local museum, the town is
actually storing some of the Roman remains that have turned up over the years
in there! How funny! The walls of the cave are totally covered
with concretions from thousands of years of water and dripping; really
impossible to try and draw anything there!
But, about 100 meters from the opening, there are some cleared spaces –
and how the prehistoric artists were able even find the place is anybody’s
guess! They really had to crawl through
some very narrow openings – and a long way, to get there! So then we arrived! (I am including the link in case you want to
see what we saw this morning!)
In looking at the images, I noticed that there are some from
Pech-Merle included as well. (Pech
Merle is a cave in the area that we have visited several times, just not
this time.) So, if you notice anything
with spots, it’s from Peche Merle. I think you can also double click on the
images, and they’ll tell you were they’re from.
Cougnac includes an absolutely
stunning drawing of a HUGE (Megaloceros
giganteus, now extinct) deer (that’s what the Europeans call it but
to us, it looks like a very large moose – the antlers were amazing, and among
the only ones we’ve seen. And, as Robert
pointed out, this cave had drawings in “color” – the red ocher from the nearby
area; such a change from looking at all the paintings done in charcoal. The red ocher paintings are dated from 25,000
years ago, and there are some over which black charcoal has been added – which dates
to about 15,000 years ago. All in all,
an amazing site, and I had forgotten how impressive it was!
By the time we finished with our tour, it was close on noon,
and we decided to head to Sarlat to see what was there now. We had stayed there for a week a few years
ago and very much enjoyed the city. As
we were heading in toward town, I of course decided that I needed to find a
bathroom – and voila, right around the corner was a HUGE new Carrefour center,
including a McDonald’s! I can only say
that the outskirts of Sarlat have
changed a great deal. There are stores
and small industrial areas everywhere, along with a huge French equivalent of a
Home Depot. We spotted some things that
we remember, but wow, this area is definitely growing. As a bathroom in the hand, so to speak…was
available, we parked and went into the McDonald’s. It is very modern, and we ended up ordering
lunch – via their computerized system!
At this particular one (no idea if it is happening elsewhere in France
or Europe) there were about 10 do-it-yourself-computer/kiosks to take your
order, and we were encouraged to try it by one of the employees. So…up to the machine, and entered “English.” You then enter your credit card (with chip,
of course, and it doesn’t take cash!) and work your way through the screens and
finally place your order. They have the restaurant
area divided into dining areas – 1, 2, 3 and 4, and you tell them where you’ll
be sitting, and then, when your order is ready, it is delivered by an employee
to your table! Then, you retrieve your
credit card and get a receipt labeled (no kidding!): ORDER PAYED. We had some trouble identifying which area we
were going to sit in, but even that is labeled in color if you know where to
look. (Who knew?) All in all, a fairly ingenious system. Wonder if it will ever make its way to the
U.S.?
One thing I didn’t mention earlier is that I hadn’t done any
laundry since Sunday – and that’s FIVE whole days! I knew we had enough to make it to Paris on
Saturday, but also knew we wouldn’t be able to make it to the Laundromat until
Sunday at the earliest. So…this morning,
before we went out, I piled everything into our handy duffle bag “just in case.” It turned out that there was a place in Sarlat’s Carrefour center, but nobody
was there, and we were a bit leery of trying to figure things out
ourselves. So, decided to head back
toward Cenac, at the bottom of the hill
from Domme, where we had also spied a
washing sign. Found the place along the
road, and went in. Well … bagged laundry
everywhere! It turned out that this is NOT a do-it-yourself kind of place, but
rather a they-do-it-for-you kind of
place. And, they promised to get our
laundry done in 2 hours! So! Left it there and headed back up the hill to
our usual parking lot.
Lovely sunny afternoon, and Robert was able to get some
Caltech work done, and I went for a stroll around
Domme.
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Crossing the Dordogne, R's favorite French river!
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Entrance to our lovely hotel
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View from public garden overlook in Domme
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I found a lovely
public park that is next to a really big parking area that nobody but residents
seems to know about!
Enjoyed taking
photos of some of the beautiful stone walls and buildings – and of course,
admiring the view.
R taking a nap now
and I hope to join him soon, so that we will both be rested for dinner.
We need to settle the bill tonight, as we are
planning on getting on the road about 6 a.m. tomorrow for our drive to
Paris.
We both will miss our lovely
Hotel L’Esplanade and this region of
France!
(Editor’s Note:
As we ate here last night, honestly, I just
can’t get through another huge meal, so we are not eating here tonight; not
sure what we’ll be up to, but I will definitely let you know! m) We have had
such a wonderful stay!
Robert has added
a few words about the area, which I agree with completely!
As we get ready to leave the Dordogne area for Paris, we realize just how much we love this
area. Paris, to be sure, is a lovely
city with much to see and do and one of our favorite places of all those we
have ever visited. But this part of
France has a special quality that is hard to describe but that is very irresistible.
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More Dordogne
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Tower in Domme
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Yet another Domme tower!
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First, many of the walls and buildings, new and old, are
built using local stone (limestone?) that has a golden hue that seems to glow
of its own inner light. Most of the
houses are so beautiful that we actually can imagine living here. The area is a mixture of lovely forests (many
oak trees) and fields – some under cultivation, others in grass. Add to this, the wild flowers (especially the
blood-red poppies) and it looks like one enormous garden. We have already mentioned the rivers – the Dordogne, the Vezere, and others – looking as they must have for the past
hundreds of years.
We do wonder, though, what it is like in the winter. Wouldn’t it be fun to find out?!
Finally, the atmosphere.
Life here seems to be throttled down to a sensible pace; narrow back
roads with no traffic; friendly people; long, delicious dinners – nothing in
haste.
We will miss this place.
Our plan for tomorrow is to get on the road about 6 a.m.
with the object of making it to Orly by
noon, where we will drop the car. (Once
we hit the freeway, it is basically that all the way north.) We will then schlep all the luggage (thankfully
MUCH lighter thanks to the BIG box we
shipped the other day…) onto the Orly
connection to Paris, and then the RER to Luxembourg Garden and the metro stop
nearest our next place. We meet our
landlord (we’re only there for a few days, but we really prefer a bit more
space to hotel rooms!) between 1:30 – 2 p.m. and then Alain Lery, our long-time
friend from St. Leu-le-Foret (Paris
suburb) will pick us up for dinner between 3:30 and 4 p.m. SO looking forward to seeing him and Graciela
again! Whew! So, more from Paris!
Lots of love,
m
xxx
