Anniversary Weekend - Champagne France

We had a WONDERFUL anniversary weekend in the Champagne region of France. We went to a champagne tasting at Françoise Bedel et Fils on Saturday which was incredible - we discovered a complexity level in champagne that I didn't even know existed. (We also heard all about bio-dynamic agriculture which seems partly interesting but mainly strange!).

We had a lot of wonderful meals, most especially at the wonderful Chateau Les Crayères where we came for our wedding night a year ago. Like last year, we were blown away by the excellence of the cuisine (and this year I was really able to appreciate it). I am still re-living the various lobster dishes, the incredible stuffed vegetables from last night, an amazing raspberry dessert, and at least 4 types of champagne, of which the Cristal from Roederer will probably forever sing in my heart. Pure perfection.

Fontainebleu

We went to Fontainebleu forest this weekend to do a little light hiking. The weather was beautiful despite the threat of rain, and we had a nice time.

It was a quick trip, as it's not that far from Paris, and we spent the night in a hotel in nearby Barbizon.

Next time I'd like the time to do some longer hikes.

Weekend in Brittany

We were away for a long weekend since Friday. We spent one night near Dinan, France and visited Saint Malo and Dinan, and then moved further West on the coast.

Dinan is one of the prettiest and most charming towns I've visited - right up there with Avignon and Les Baux de Provence. Really lovely, not so touristy, a world apart in time. I was less impressed with Saint Malo (although there were some charming areas), largely due to the overrun of the international shopping brands and cheap tourist fare as you walk in. Ugh.

The first gite was much nicer and it was a shame we only spent one night there. The second was bigger and better suited to having all the friends and kids with us for the end of our stay, but further from fun things to explore, and not as charming inside.

It was a nice weekend and left me hungry to explore this part of France some more...

London

We were in London for the long holiday weekend. For a terribly expensive city it wasn't terribly expensive, as I'd won a travel voucher at work for the train tickets, and we have a friend who lent us his apartment on Great James Street in Holborn. We spent plenty of money on shopping and eating out however...

The highlights of our trip were probably the New Globe Theatre show of King Lear, shopping at Fortnum and Mason, and my quick expedition to see Peter Doig at the Tate Britain.

We walked all over the place, and that was fabulous. We had some rain the first few days, but it was still nice to walk around. I don't know how many miles I walked in total, but it was a lot, most days I was on my feet from morning til night only sitting down for lunch and dinner... It felt good.

We found a great coffee place just near the apartment - Caffe Nero (which has outposts all over London). One of the best coffees I've had in my life, though - it stands out along with a memory from a cafe in Madrid... Yum.

On our first evening we walked around in need of a late-closing grocery store and ended up buying a bunch of stuff at Sainsbury. We then wandered around until we found a pub not too far from home, and E enjoyed a beer there.

On Tuesday we walked across town to get to Nahm for our lunch reservation. Nahm was the Thai restaurant recommended to us, and we really liked it even if we were one of 2 sets of customers... it was a rainy Thursday and apparently most of the lunch crowd had canceled.

From there we walked around in an arc and circled over to Harrods, which was fun and expensive, not just for the food halls, but also for the stops at the perfume counters and at Molton Brown... A quick cab ride home to drop off the packages and then we headed to see Shakespeare at the Globe. We walked home which was fun, but were so surprised to find no restaurants or pubs still serving - we ended up eating hot dogs on the street as we walked by Covent Garden.

Friday we had lunch reservations at St John, which we'd been really looking forward to, especially as E likes offal (I do NOT, but to each his own) and it was supposed to be great both according to our friend and also everything we'd seen in books and online. But we were really disappointed, nothing was that good and what I ordered was actually pretty bland. Friday afternoon I went walking around hitting some old favorite stores of housewares before losing myself for a while in an English-language bookstore with a great selection, something I can't do in Paris and I seem to have little time for on my trips to America. I'd spent the morning shoe shopping, picking up a few pairs of Clark's as they are comfortable and not terrible-looking...

Saturday we walked again all over town and had lunch at Fortnum and Mason, having shopped our way there and then shopped all over the store. E took a cab home loaded down with our purchases and I was torn between going to the Tate Modern for a quick tour (I didn't have much time before closing) or trying to get another shopping errand done - unfortunately I chose the shopping, which was a mistake as the area of Oxford Circus is ugly and unpleasant in the best of times, but on a Saturday afternoon was a huge zoo and in addition I didn't even find what I was looking for. I did not make the good choice - I definitely should have gone for the Tate Modern.

I raced home to meet E and head out again for dinner, this time we'd reserved at what was supposed to be one of London's top Indian restaurants, the Red Fort, but unfortunately we again were disappointed. I actually was pretty happy with it - it's better Indian food than we find in Paris, and although it was expensive and not Fabulous I was happy with it - but E was not, and it put a damper on the evening.

This morning I ran around like a crazy woman crossing London in 45 minutes to spend 45 minutes at Peter Doig and then run back to the apartment for another 45 minutes before racing to the train -- but it was such a great exhibit that it was worth it.

I left as I came - Loving London. Next trip there - more time in museums, much less time shopping.

Weekend in Amsterdam

We left for a weekend in Naples (to visit Pompeii ) only to get stuck on the highway near the airport for over an hour and a half. We missed our flight, and while I was actually looking forward to a relaxing unscheduled weekend at home, my DH was bound and determined to get out of town.

At the airport we debated between Madrid, Venice, Rome and Amsterdam, and settled on the latter. Amsterdam is a city where my DH spent a nice vacation with his ex-wife, and he felt weird planning a weekend for us there, so a last-minute pick was a good solution. It's also a good size city for a weekend.

It was nice because we did a ton of walking around - and even though it was rainy, it wasn't too cold, so it was pleasant.

We visited two museums - the Anne Frank house, and then on Saturday I went to the Van Gogh museum alone while my DH & DSS went wandering about. Both were interesting, but the Van Gogh was really nice in that it showed the artist's evolution over time. Like the Picasso museum, the evolution context was more powerful than any single painting - none of his best works were present. It's always good for my spirit to spend a few hours seeing art, and I need to make sure to do it more often.

We also had some good food (and some bad). We went to a nice "traditional Dutch, updated" restaurant which was more to my DH's tastes than mine (lots of game, pork, etc). I had a split pea soup w a pork and sauerkraut square in it. Followed by scallops with lobster. We didn't take dessert because it was late and my DSS was getting difficult.

On Saturday night we went to an Indonesian restaurant, what had filled my mind as soon as we'd settled on Amsterdam, as I had good memories of this from prior trips to Amsterdam. My DH, however, was skeptical, telling me he hadn't liked the food in Indonesia when he'd traveled there, etc. He was game to try (and I was clearly really wanting it) and the hotel told us they'd booked one of the better ones in town. It was really good and pretty much how I remembered it - lots of little dishes on a warmer w some rice, rather spicy and clearly Asian but different than Chinese, Japanese or Indian.