Corinne LaBalme left the high-end northern real estate of the Loire Valley far behind when she trained down from Paris to the rust-belt town of Saint-Etienne, Loire’s capital. She then started an off-track journey to a château that hosts a family-friendly classical music and dance festival and discovered some of the region’s rural and natural delights along the way.

The Château: La Bâtie d’Urfé

King François I, the patron of Leonardo da Vinci, appointed his close friend Charles d’Urfé, Bailiff of the Forez region, to represent the crown at the Council of Trent in 1545. Quite like his king, Charles came down with a severe case of Renaissance Fever while in Italy. On his return to the Loire region, he embarked on an enthusiastic makeover of the family estate that channeled the intellectual, humanist ethos of the age into stone and stucco.

Creating this unique Franco-Italian Renaissance château, which included a 4,600-book library protected by a benevolent sphinx statue, effectively bankrupted his family. His descendants sold off everything that wasn’t nailed down and certainly did not have the cash for extensive remodeling.

That’s why the Bâtie d’Urfé in Saint-Etienne-le-Molard has the only surviving 16th century grotto in France (detail at top of article). These rustic stone structures, decorated with rocaille (seashell-and-gravel mosaics) were trendy décor musts in the era. Given that they are so sturdy, it’s rather surprising that more of them haven’t stood the test of time. But trends being what they are, the noble grotto faded from fashion as the French garden took shape.

This one, renovated in 2008, would have been remarkable in any case. Charles d’Urfé was a staunch Catholic who was nevertheless imbued with the ecumenical, open-minded spirit of the age. His grotto, which leads to the family chapel, is decorated with pre-Christian iconography. Neptune, for instance, is treated with the greatest of esteem.

The chapel’s theme is the Holy Communion. As the point is made with Old Testament scenes, the golden captions to the artwork are respectfully written in Hebrew. The elegant chapel bore the brunt of the family’s garage sales, but an enterprising local historical/archeological society, La Diana, tracked down many of the chapel’s missing parts and restored/replaced them as needed. (More about La Diana below.) Don’t forget to look up at the ceiling vaults, daringly decorated with exotic New World vegetables like corn.

Speaking of food, there’s a delightful locovore restaurant (with outdoor and indoor tables) on the premises, offering a budget friendly prix-fixe meal to which you might add a bottle of the easy-drinking local chardonnay Clos de Chozieux.

The Festival: Estival de la Bâtie

“We don’t want people to feel afraid of classical music,” says pianist/composer Pascal Amoyal, one of the two guardian angels of this low-key, eight-year-old festival. The festival will be held on the grounds of the château from July 5 to 22 this year. The engagingly ambitious program includes an updated concert version of The Enchanted Flute (sung in French), pioneering Flamenco artist Rocio Marquez, Algerian composer/guitarist Souad Massi, and the opening night Berlioz/Ravel/Dvorak concert by the OSE ! Symphonic Orchestra.

Circus acts, puppet shows and games aimed at children and their parents are scheduled for weekend afternoons in the castle’s gardens throughout the festival.

As a side-note, the austerely symmetrical Renaissance gardens inspired Claude’s grandson, Honoré d’Urfé (1568-1625) to write the 5,000-page love story, Astrée, a best-seller of the day that’s arguably credited as the first French novel.

The Historical Society: La Diana

The Bâtie d’Urfé would have fallen into ruin if not for the dedication of the local historical society, La Diana, based in the nearby medieval town of Montbrison. Montbrison, population 17,000, boasts 18 listed monuments, and fittingly the rarest and most unusual of these, an early 14th-century vaulted heraldic ceiling, is located in La Diana’s headquarters.

Roughly 1,700 emblems of the local nobility are painted on separate wooden panels. These served as the who’s who of the time and no fortified town in the Middle Ages would have been complete without its salle héraldique presenting the coat of arms of feudal families.

Fires, floods, termites and fashion often decimated these once-ubiquitous wooden tributes to the status quo. (Viollet-le-Duc’s heavily-restored version at the Château de Pierrefonds north of Paris is the closest that most architecture fans have ever come to seeing one.) Miraculously, the Montbrison ceiling at La Diana survived intact with its original paintwork, despite the room’s post-revolutionary incarnation as a livery stable. It’s open to the public on Wednesday and Saturday.

Ever the historical detectives, La Diana has traced a few precious, missing elements of the Bâtie d’Urfé chapel to the Metropolitan Museum in New York. They would very much like them back. If you have any Met connections…

And if you’re stopping in a bistro for a snack, don’t forget to order some fourme de Montbrison, the local blue-veined cow cheese.

Nature Walks

While it’s not necessary to go all Dr. Livingston and track the Loire to its source (unless you’d like to visit a 1950s hydro-electric dam along the way), the southern Loire offers spectacular scenery thanks to an 877-acre nature reserve with plentiful hiking trails.

The park is noted for its birds of prey, playful otters and rare dragonflies. Several of the prettiest, two- and three-hour hikes start out at the Maison de la Réserve Naturelle Régionale des gorges de la Loire in Saint-Victor-sur-Loire, a fortified medieval village located ten kilometers from Saint-Etienne. An alternate way to view these unspoiled river canyons and wooded Forez hills is on a lunchtime cruise. https://croisieres-gorges-loire.fr

Saint-Victor also has a man-made surprise: a charming granite chapel. The chapel boasts a 17th-century altar made of gilded wood and Cordoba leather, possibly the only surviving altar of this type north of the Pyrenees.

Lodging and Food

The Romans came to Saint-Galmier for the thermal baths, and the sparkling water that still gushes from the earth here is marketed across the world in forest-green Badoit bottles. Today it makes a fine home-base for exploring the area.

The 4-star Hôtel La Charpinière proves how reasonably priced a fine stay in the French countryside can be. With double rooms under 150€, guests profit from a swimming pool, a beauty spa, a well-equipped gym with personal trainers, and two restaurants. The “gourmet” dining room features foie gras with rhubarb and fish with wasabi sauce but given that this is cow-country, the aged steaks and country fries in the brasserie may be even more tempting. Specify one of the spacious “Privilège” rooms (e.g. room 215) with walk-in Italian showers and king-size beds when booking.

It’s only a short hike to the center of town where, across from a small white stucco casino, Xavier Thély runs the Amphitryon restaurant. Try the surprisingly delicate foie gras/lentil appetizer and don’t miss the strawberry tart with pistachio cream and a bright hint of lime.

Hôtel La Charpinière, 8 allée de la Charpinière, 42330 Saint-Galmier. Tel: 04 77 52 75 00.

L’Amphitryon, 9 blvd Gabriel Cousin, 42330 Saint-Galmier. Tel: 04 77 56 33 39. Closed Sunday and Monday.

See the official tourist site of Loire for further information about this region.

© Corinne LaBalme, 2018.

The post The Deep South of the Loire appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

Case in point, Paris-Basque, a weekend festival—this year June 16, 17, 18—that brings Basque cuisine, sports, music and good cheer to Paris. Think of it as a Basque village on the bank of the Seine (8 Quai Saint-Exupéry, 16th arrondissement)… and a great occasion to wear a beret and a red bandana.

The Basque festival’s music of choice is that of the banda, an ambulatory brass band. Sporting competitions and demonstrations include rugby, Basque pelota (jai alai, a racket sport played in Florida, is a variation of this), an espadrille throwing (kicking off the foot) competition and various strong-arm activities such as a good ol’ tug-o-war.

Meanwhile, the Basque culinary experience has place of honor at the festival, with Basque chefs from Paris, Basque Country and elsewhere participating, bringing with them the culinary essentials of the southwest corner of France where the Pyrenees fall into the Atlantic: the cheeses, hams, peppers, octopus, plancha, Izarra, Egiaski and “apple wine.”

The chefs present over the weekend may go all-Basque for their festival fare, but in their restaurants, they cook well beyond regional folklore.

I recently met with two of the participating chefs at their restaurants in Paris to discuss the Basque influence in their cuisine and their participation in this year’s Paris-Basque festival: Thierry Dufroux of Bistrot Belhara in the 7th arrondissement and Mathieu Moity of Iratze in the 11th arrondissement. Both men grew up in Bayonne. Dufroux’s family moved there when he was 10; Moity was born there.

Neither Bistrot Belhara nor Iratze serves “regional” cuisine. In fact, these are distinctly Parisian restaurants, the former a modern bistro, the latter home to knowingly instinctive gastronomy. Yet both chefs pride themselves on their use of Basque products and on the influence of their home regio. Their Basqueness, whether subtle or more pronounced in a dish, is precisely what distinguishes them from more ordinary attempts within their respective restaurant categories.

Both chefs deemed it important to present their attachment to their Basque roots in the names of their restaurants. Bistrot Belhara is named for the tremendous waves that sometimes surge towards the Basque Coast near Saint Jean de Luz, recalling Dufroux’s own affection for surfing and echoing the rush that you will hear in his voice in the video interview below. Iratze is the Basque word for a type of fern, a plant Moity encountered frequently when exploring the forest with his grandfather. He speaks of the fern as a constant plant, secure in its roots as it spreads out. “It’s a beautiful image of what I can be and what my restaurant can be,” he said.

Thierry Dufroux at Bistrot Belhara

It seems that every visitor to Paris seeks out “a little neighborhood bistro, not too expensive, just nice and friendly.” Bistrot Belhara fully fits the bill. It is a modern bistro in that Thierry Dufroux does not work within a circumscribed traditional bistro menu yet maintains a sense of quality, freshness, reasonable pricing (under 40€ for a 3-course meal) and urban heartiness (including a gluten-free dish). Generous of spirit, the cuisine strikes a delicious a balance between rustic and refined. Situated in a well-heeled quarter near the Invalides, this 40-seat restaurant combines the tiled floor and wooden furnishing of a traditional bistro with elegant grey walls and an Art Deco ceiling. A string of red peppers hangs from a pillar at the center of the restaurant. The oak bistro tabletop, visible at lunchtime, is covered with a white tablecloth for dinner service. Two frontmen, Frédéric Clemence and Christian Bignaux, work the room like a polite vaudeville team.

In this interview with Thierry Dufroux, in French, you can hear the rush of his passion about his work and about Paris-Basque.

Mathieu Moity at Iratze

Mathieu Moity’s cuisine is dynamic, personal and shifting. He jumps on occasions to use Basque products without closing himself into the region. Located a side street between Bastille and République, Iratze is an ambitious eatery that Moity, along with partners Yann and Afrae Brasseur, who work the front of the house, and Didier Feuillet, opened at the end of 2016. Open only in the evening, the atmosphere depends on the combined spirit of its three spaces: the little tapas bar to the front, the restaurant per se in the middle, the chef’s table in the back. While friends on stools share tapas (4-17€ per plate) and sip Charles’s cocktails, comfortably seated diner enjoy a 3-course meal (44€) and guests at the 10-seat chef’s table (any number up to 10 can reserve) partake in a 9-step tasting (68€). Moity’s restless yet rooted sense of gastronomy is fronted by the upbeat and resolutely 30-something room staff (Yann and Afrae, Charles at the bar, Australian sommelier Jess).

Mathieu Moity explains Iratze, his cuisine, his Basque roots and the atmosphere at Paris-Basque in this interview, in English.

Don’t expect either Thierry Dufroux or Mathieu Moity to be walking around their restaurants with a Basque beret and a rugby ball. But when it comes time for the Paris-Basque festival tradition is de rigueur.

Other Basque chefs

Other Paris-based chefs present at Paris-Basque this year include Sébastien Gravé (Pottoka), Yves Camdeborde (Le Comptoir du Relais Saint-Germain), William Pradeleix (Will, Raw), Olivier Amestoy (Axuria) and Philippe Tredgue (Auberge Etchegorry), along with chefs working in Basque Country (Lionel Elissalde, Jean-Bernard Hourçouigaray, Ramuntxo Courdé, Cédric Béchade, Pascale Etcheverria, Christophe Grosjean) and elsewhere in France (Stéphane Carrade, Steven Ramon)

Bistrot Belhara, 23 rue Duvivier, 7th arr. Metro Latour Maubourg or Ecole Militaire. Tel. 01 45 51 41 77.

Iratze, 73 rue Amelot, 11th arr. Metro Chemin Vert or Bréguet Sabin. Tel. 01 55 28 53 31

Paris-Basque, 8 quai Saint-Exupéry, 16th arr. Metro Porte de St. Cloud or RER Boulevard Victor. Entrance is free.

© 2017, Gary Lee Kraut

If planning visit to Basque Country consider these articles about Biarritz on France Revisited.

Information about the Basque region can be found on the region’s official tourist office website.

The post Paris-Basque: Bistrot Belhara, Iratze and Paris’s Basque Festival appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

As travelers we enjoy the surprise of coming upon local festivals. But attending major festivals in towns and small cities requires planning: hotels fill, tickets sell out, well-known restaurants require more advance reservations than usual.

To help with the planning and to whet your appetite for the summer festival season, Corinne LaBalme has selected for France Revisited some of the best and brightest events of the season.

Aix-en-Provence. The world première of Pinocchio by Belgian composer Philippe Boesman headlines a strong and diverse opera line-up for the Festival Lyrique featuring Carmen, The Rake’s Progress, Don Giovanni, Erismena and Eugene Onegin. Locations include the stunning 21st century Grand Théâtre in the city’s new arts quarter and the moonlit courtyard of the former Archbishop’s Palace. July 3 to 21.

Avignon. All-new productions of Antigone (Sophocles) and La Princesse Maleine (Maeterlinck) are two theatrical highlights of the Festival d’Avignon from July 6 to 26.

Beaune. The International Baroque & Romantic Opera Festival presents works by Monteverdi, Handel, Lully and Scarlatti this season from July 7 to 30. William Christie makes a star appearance too.

Cannes. The annual Festival d’Art Pyrotechnique (fireworks) competition provides extra sparkle to the Riviera waterfront on summer nights. The 2017 fireworks begin on July 13th with a Canadian light-show and wrap up on August 24th with Italy’s tribute to movie music.

Carcassonne. There’s something for everyone in this medieval fortress town during the July 1 to 30 Carcassonne Festival: Musical comedy (The Ten Commandments); Opera (The Marriage of Figaro); Dance (Ballet Béjart Lausanne) and rock (French legends Johnny Hallyday, Jacques Dutronc and Eddie Mitchell team up for a tour de force trio) plus Christophe Maé and a Mali music rave.

Clisson. Every kind of head-banging music – Doom, Death Metal, Grind, Pagan Metal, Thrash, Stoner – blasts this (normally quiet) town near Nantes for Hellfest from June 16 to 18. Book soon: the three-day passes sold out in early March.

Colmar. The National Philharmonic Orchestra of Russia is the guest of honor at the 29th Festival International de Colmar so expect some Russian romance along with the Ravel (and chilled Riesling) in this scenic Alsace burg from July 5 to 14.

Juan-les-Pins. Macy Gray, Tom Jones, Sting, Anoushka Shankar and Wayne Shorter are just some stars playing in the moonlit Riviera pine-grove at Jazz à Juan from July 14 to 23.

La Rochelle. This year, July 12-16, all the best-dressed French boys are showing for the 2017 Francofolies rock festival in this sea-side Atlantic town: Christophe Maé, MHD, Benjamin Biolay, Julien Doré and the ageless Professor of Perfecto, Renaud.

Lorient. Brush up on your Breizh, but pronounce it with a highland brogue since Scotland is the guest of honor at the 2017 Festival Interceltique in Brittany, the best fête in France to commune with your Inner Druid.

Lyon. Jazz (Norah Jones, Pink Martini), Opera (Don Givanni), Circus acts (Santa Madera, Cirque Plume) and theater (Isabelle Huppert!) headline at the eclectic Nuits de Fourvière from June 1 to July 29.

Mougins. Stand aside theater, dance and music, from June 23 to 25 Les Etoiles de Mougins celebrates the stars of gastronomy, with Daniel Boulud as this year’s guest of honor.

Nice. The 2016 edition of the Nice Jazz Festival was cancelled after the Bastille night attack but there’s a great line-up this summer — including Herbie Hancock, Mary J. Blige, and Kadhja Bonet — from July 17 to 21.

Orange. High drama and melodrama take to the stage of the stunning theater from antiquity when Chorégies, a world-class opera festival, comes to this town in Provence from June 19 to August 5. Bring cushions for the stone seat and don’t mind the occasional stereophonic bat screeching. This year’s festival is very Verdi (Rigoletto and Aïda) while the 2017 party opens up to a new movie public with a screening of Lon Chaney’s Phantom of the Opera.

Paris. The itinerant Lollapalooza Rock Festival makes its Paris debut at the Longchamps Hippodrome July 22-23. The American headliners are Lana Del Rey and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Think two-tier Woodstock: the basic two-day pass is 149€, but the Saturday Platinum VIP pass (with champagne, spa and chauffeur service) is 779€.

Paris. Bring a picnic for these free afternoon concerts in the Vincennes gardens (June 17 to July 30) but check the website for exact times and events before packing the pickles. As we go to press, the Paris Jazz Festival site is still playing two beats slower than the music.

Reims. The Flâneries Musicales festival, June 22 to July 12, bubbles extra brightly this season with classical concerts in sites like the elegant Krug Champagne courtyard. The season wraps up with an encore picnic concert on July 22.

Vienne. The 37th annual Jazz à Vienne brings Becca Stevens, De La Soul, Kezia Jones, Herbie Hancock and Zuccero (among others) to the city’s Gallo-Roman arena from June 29 to July 13.

Versailles. Versailles is a party all year long but the Louis XIV-inspired fireworks in the Orangerie Park – July 6, 7, 12 and 14 – are worth a special mention.

The post Festivals in France, the 2017 Summer Selection appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

This little Loire loop—three days, two nights, including two days of biking—is of the latter kind. Beginning and ending in Blois, itself easily reached by train from Paris in 1½-2 hours, this itinerary provides an excellent introduction to the Loire Valley, its castles, its wines and its biking routes. All that with little preparation. Your most difficult decision may well be what to pack in order to keep your biking load light.

Chaumont, Cheverny and Chambord, the three chateaux on this route, are different enough that castle-fatigue won’t set in. The distances covered, about 30 miles per day for each of the two cycling days, is moderate enough to appeal to occasional cyclists while significant enough to attract frequent cyclists who might add a few zigzagging miles to make for a more challenging ride.

While the route is flat, with only a few slight slopes, the distances are great enough that they may be a bit much for children and for those unaccustomed to athletic activity given that you’ll also be doing a lot of walking while visiting the chateaux and their parks and gardens.

This loop covers just a small part of the 500 miles of cycle trails that are covered by Loire à Vélo (Cycling Loire), the Loire Valley system trails going from the outer edge of Burgundy to the east to the outer edge of Brittany to the west, by way of chateaux, vineyards and the towns and cities of Orléans, Blois, Tours, Saumur, Angers and Nantes.

Here’s a 3-day, 15-step itinerary for little Loire Valley loop that begins with a touring day on foot in Blois, reached by train from Paris.

Day 1. Blois.

1. Pack lightly—whatever you can carry on your back and/or in a saddle pack when biking. Take the morning train to Blois from Paris.

2. The castle, tourist office and center of Blois are a 15-minute walk from the station. The Blois Tourist Office is next to the castle entrance. You can pick up a town map there along with maps and information about the chateaux in the surrounding area covered by this loop.

3. Check into hotel or B&B. (Or, since you’ll have packed lightly, carry your bag with you until you’re ready to check in in the afternoon.)

I stayed at the B&B La Maison de Thomas, a friendly little place in the very center of town. The ground floor of the B&B serves as a wine bar in the evening, one of a several places in town to get familiar with Loire Valley wines, particularly the Cheverny and Cour-Cheverny vineyards you’ll be biking past. For other lodging possibilities as well as dining options see the bottom of the article Blois Castle: The Key to the Loire Valley.

4. Visit Blois Castle (read that same article for an overview of its historical and architectural significance) and, if it’s up your alley, La Maison de la Magie, The House of Magic, across the square from the castle. Don’t miss the dragons that emerge periodically from the window of the House of Magic. A bit of wandering between the castle, the river and the cathedral can complete the afternoon.

5. After tasting two or three wines at La Maison de Thomas, you might enjoy, as I did, the relaxed gastronomy at Christophe Cosme’s Le Rendez-vous des Pêcheurs. (Closed Sun. and Mon.). The Blois article mentioned above also lists other dining options.

6. See the sound-and-light show in the courtyard of the castle beginning at 10pm in April, May and September, 10:30pm in June, July and August. An overview of a day in Blois as outlined above appears in the photolog Great Encounters: Blois.

Day 2. Chaumont and Cheverny.

7. Rent bikes from the friendly folks at Traineurs de Loire, 12, rue Saint-Lubin. It opens at 9:30am. You’ll likely walk by the shop during your wanderings on Day 1 since it’s just below the cathedral. If you’d like to picnic you might pack it in Blois before setting off. Otherwise you would have lunch at Chaumont.

8. Ride to the castle at Chaumont-sur-Loire, 20k (12.4 miles) from Blois.

9. There are two entrances to Chaumont: one on the ride near the river, the other upon on the hill behind the castle property. If you want the challenge of a biking up a hill (and the thrill of wheeling down) then take the back entrance. (I took the challenge.)

Give yourself plenty of time to visit Chaumont: the castle (1465-1510), which Queen Catherine de Medicis purchased in 1550 to use in the famous Chambord-for-Chenonceau housing exchange with her husband’s mistress Diane de Poitiers after King Henri II was no longer alive to protect and spoil the latter; the view of the Loire from the castle terrace; the lush castle grounds; the 5-star stables (still displaying its original saddler by Hermès) created during the tenure of Marie Say, Chaumont’s extravagant owner from 1875 to 1938; the animal cemetery for her beloved dogs and monkeys. From late-April to mid-October, Chaumont hosts the International Garden Festival from late-April to mid-October, with two dozen gardens restored or created each year. For garden lovers the festival alone can seduce a visitor a few hours with a lunch and café pause, so you’ll have to remind yourself that you’ve got biking to do.

10a. If you leave Chaumont while the afternoon is still young you might ride to the Chateau de Beauregard. Beauregard is 18.2k (11.3 miles) from Chaumont. Cheverny is then 8.3k (5.1 miles) from Beauregard.

10b. I spent so much time at Chaumont that I rode on directly to Cheverny, a ride of about 22.9k (14.2 miles), give or take a vineyard. Cheverny is described in this article. In addition to the harmony and elegance of the château and its park, a major draw of Cheverny is its kennel for 100 Anglo-French hunting hounds. Since you’ll be arriving here in the mid to late afternoon, you can watch the hounds, tail in the air, devour mass quantities of raw meat during feeding time. The feeding takes place at 5pm daily (with exceptions) from April 1 to September 14. The remainder of the year the feeding takes place at 3pm on Mon., Wed., Thurs. and Fri. (except holidays). It isn’t that they don’t eat on other days but they’re probably out working during the hunting season.

11. Either before or after entering the chateau grounds, you might taste-test some Cheverny and Cour-Cheverny wines right by the entrance at the Maison des Vins de Cheverny, the official tasting table/wine shop of the association of winegrowers from the two appellations. These are the wines from the vineyards that you’ll be riding through on this 2-day loop.

Cheverny is a young, fruity wine largely using sauvignon and some chardonnay for the whites and pinot noir and gamay for the reds and roses. Cour-Cheverny, far less well known and with more cache because of its more limited production (one-tenth that of Cheverny), is made from grape varietal called Romorantin, a grape now specific to this area, cousin to chardonnay, introduced by king Francoise I, and so proprietary that it’s typically written with a capital R.

The tasting table/wine shop It isn’t a cozy setting but it’s the opportunity to learn something about these wines if you haven’t yet had the time or inclination to visit a vineyard between chateaux. The Maison des Vins de Cheverny is open daily from Easter to the beginning of November, 11am-1:15pm and 2:15-6pm. Since the tasting room may be closing before you finish visiting the chateau grounds at that time, so I suggest stopping here before going in—furthermore, that’ll give you time to digest the alcohol before getting back into the saddle. The chateau itself is open until 6:30pm April-October, until 5pm the rest of the year, though the grounds stay open later.

12. There are two good options for a fine meal and a good night’s sleep: the 3-star Auberge du Centre in Chitenay, 7.4k (4.6 miles) from Cheverny, where I enjoyed a most pleasant evening during this loop, and the 4-star Château du Breuil, on the edge of Cheverny, 4.4k (2.7 miles) from the chateau. Both have restaurants. Breuil also has a swimming pool.

Day 3. Chambord and return to Blois.

13. The ride from either of the hotels noted above to the Chateau de Chambord is just over 21k or 13 miles, making for a leisurely morning ride. Here’s an article about Chambord, the Loire Valley’s XXL castle.

14. There’s plenty to keep you busy at Chambord and extra cycling trails to be taken in the area, so in visiting the area you’ll have to make sure that you leave yourself plenty of time to get your bike back to the rental place in Blois, which closes at 6pm.

The most direct route to Blois through the countryside is 16.4k (10.2 miles), but for the more scenic route you’d head directly to the Loire at Saint-Dyé-sur-Loire then ride downstream to Blois, staying on the left (southern) bank of the river until you cross over the old bridge at Blois. That route adds a few miles, plus there are some great riverside photo ops along the way. And on my own trip I encountered such a strong headwind along the river that the last 7 miles felt like three times that, but it was well worth it for the beauty of the ride.

I therefore suggest allowing yourself a good two hours to make it back to Blois.

15. Once you’ve dropped off the bike give yourself 30 minutes to get to the train station—make that an hour so as to relax in a café near the rental shop before taking the train. Back to Paris? Or further down the river to, say, Saumur, for the start of another little loop in the Loire?

Text and photos © 2015, Gary Lee Kraut

The post A Little Loop in the Loire Valley: A 2-day Cycling Route from Blois appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

I’m glad then that I’d made it my destination — rather, part of my destination as I set out to explore the Ardennes area of France for a taste of local beer, local cuisine, local characters and local history — because entering the ducal square on a bright May day immediately opened my sense of the rewards of visiting this far-flung corner of France.

I also felt quite connected with the history of Paris, the city I’d left to rail this way, since the Place Ducale, begun in 1612, was designed by Clément Métezeau, brother of Louis Métezeau, who is attributed with the design of the Place des Vosges, begun in 1605, in the capital’s Marais district. With their regular repetition of brick and stone, with slate roofs and sidewalk arcades, the two squares have much common, though Charleville’s is more open and cosmopolitan. It was designed as the hub on a new town created by decree of Duke Charles de Gonzague, count of Rethel, whose family (the Gonzagas) came from Lombardy. Charles had a palace in Mézières, a strategic site of ancient origin nearby along the Meuse River. His was a border town, a small economic center between the Kingdom of France and the Holy Roman (Germanic) Empire, and Charles dreamt of creating within the nearby loop of the river an ideal city nearby, centered around a great square from which the town would radiate in straight lines, which were generally absent from earlier, medieval towns.

The “new and incomparable city,” as Charleville was soon called, would soon eclipse Mézières and neighboring towns as an economic powerhouse in the region. Three hundred fifty years later, in 1966, Charleville merged with four neighboring administrative districts, including Mézières, creating Charleville-Mézières.

The tourist office is on the Place Ducale. With one’s hands full of maps and brochures, one naturally follows the sun when selecting a seat in a cafe or restaurant beneath or in front of the arcades of the square, whether to study the map or to watch the Carlomacériens, as local inhabitants are called, go by.

The French Ardennes may be beer country due to its lack of vineyards and its affinity with Belgium, but a traveler can feel guilty traveling in France and ignoring wine. We’re in a region called Champagne-Ardenne, a rather schizophrenic name that, brandwise, now sounds to me like Wine-Beer. One of the town’s main call of ports for wine is Eric Arnaud’s wine bar Le Concept, in the southeast corner of the square.

Arnaud is originally from Reims, meaning from champagne country. He worked as a chef while refining his wine knowledge and is now the only master sommelier in Ardennes as well as president of Champagne-Ardenne’s regional division of a French national sommelier association called the Union de la Sommellerie Française. In 2011 he opened Le Concept, an easy-going lunch- and dinner-serving wine bar, on the Place Ducale. Though removed from the setting and stature of the kitchen that he once oversaw in Reims, the food is fine that Arnaud prepares in a narrow kitchen space behind the bar counter, but the wine’s the thing.

At aperitif time a plate of Ardennais cheese and/or cold cuts must be nice, but I’d come for lunch. Curious about cacasse, a traditional Ardennais potato-and-onion casserole with a roux of flour and lard, that’s what I ordered. The dish comes in two main versions, the cascasse à cul-nu, literally the “bare-ass” version, and cacasse culottée, literally the “knickered” version. There’s a veritable cult to cacasse à cul-nu in the Ardennes, in part, I found, because people simple enjoy saying the term, which sounds both slightly childish and slightly offensive (cul=ass, nu=naked, caca=caca). But above all, in a region relatively poor in culinary offerings (some cheese, some cold cuts, some sausages, lots of potatoes) it’s roots go deep. As with many local dishes in France, cacasse has peasant origins and has earned over time a strong cultural power on all lines of the economic spectrum. With enough means on a given day a family might have been able to add sausage or bacon to their cacasse, thereby dressing it with meat. The version I relished for lunch was clothed with thickly sliced bacon (lardons).

It was hearty, tasty and might have been well accompanied by beer, but here I was in a wine bar. Since the Ardennes is without vineyards, one is obliged to travel for a wine choice, and leaving my fate in Mr. Arnaud’s hand he returned with a caramel-colored red from the Jura, near Switzerland, an Arbois Poulsard “Grande Réserve” 2005, a fruity wine of lesser-known terroir that’s fine to share with a friend. And as I was sitting there, one showed up.

A new friend, that is: Bernard Giraud, journalist with the regional paper L’Ardennais and great “defender of the products and recipes of terrior and conviviality,” to quote the man. Giraud lives in Sedan, just to the north (see Part 3 of this article). In 1991, he told me, following his own admission to a fraternal order of Belgian beer lovers, Giraud began to see the interest and pleasure of defending local gastronomic heritage wherever its homeland may be. He is now a member or brother or knight in 16 different fraternal orders.

In 2004 Giraud created Ch-M’s Festival des Confréries, an annual celebration of such brotherhoods (sisters welcome). This joyful, convivial event takes places over a weekend in early May, which happened to be when I was visiting. At first glance it might appear that you have to be fond of tripe and lard and rabbit cooked in beer to appreciate the festival, but the true pleasure of the event is taking part in the human hokiness of meeting French, Belgian and Ardennais ambassadors of traditional gastronomy who are so passionate about such dishes that they’re willing to travel to Charleville-Mézières and don colorful velvet robes and floppy hats to prove it.

Giraud is also the vice president of the French Counsel of such Fraternal Orders (Conseil Français des Confréries), an organization created in 2006 in Orléans, in the Loire Valley. According to Giraud, there are about 700 confréries in France, about half of which belong to the Counsel. Confréries were corporations in the Middle Ages, and again that corporative (meaning business) spirit is still clearly visible in the large wine confréries (one of the most famous is the Conférie des Chevaliers du Tastevin in Burgundy). Though some confréries have strong ties with producers, particularly in the wine sector, and thus actively promote their products beyond the locality, most of the gastronomic brotherhoods simply maintain the tradition of local cuisine against changing eating habits. In any case, where there’s a confrérie there is hearty, well-fed, well-imbibed fun, and Charleville-Mézières’s Festival des Confréries honors the concept with good humor, simplicity and lots of cacasse.

It’s rare to see someone under 50 years old wearing one of these robes. It’s the type of local tradition in France that Arthur Rimbaud would have fled, but one man’s flight is another man’s arrival. I saw it as a fun, family event, with each association manning a booth where one can learn about, taste and purchase their products, from rabbit in beer to rabbit pate, from tripe to black pudding, from nougat to dandelion dishes. There’s quite naturally a brotherhood of cacasse à cul-nu lovers. Under the food tent on the square for the celebration there was a monster-size party dish of that naked local favorite, with knickers available on the side.

Charleville-Mézières has a more joyful, magical and renowned festival, one that celebrates marionette theater. Marionettes, rather than gastronomic brotherhoods, are actually the city’s great contemporary call to fame. Every two years in September (next time: Sept. 18-27, 2015), the World Festival of Marionette Theaters draws 150,000 spectators to venues both inside and outside. The National School of the Marionette Arts is here as well as the headquarters of the International Marionette Union, a resource center for marionette practitioners. Around the corner from the Place Ducale, an automat called The Great Marionettist marks the hour daily from 10am to 9pm with a dozen tableaux.

In a moment of nostalgia during the day I had bought a post card, an object as old fashion as cacasse and rabbit pate, to mail across the ocean. The post office, I saw on the map, was a few blocks away, a slight detour on my way back to the hotel for a pre-Mawhot rest. Across the street from the post office was a café and beer bar, Le Vert Bock. I could have used the café more than the beer, but I wanted to end the afternoon on a headier note in keeping with my quest. So I went in, ordered a glass from a tap with a name I didn’t know, and voilà, another bar, if not beer, that I can now recommend on the beer trails of the Ardennes.

© 2014, Gary Lee Kraut

Continue to The French Ardennes, Part 3: The Meuse, Sedan, More Beer and the Big Boar
Return to The French Ardennes, Part 1: Charleville-Mézières: The Runaway Poet, Great Beer Bars and the Giant Lizard

Addresses and other information, in order of appearance in this article

Charleville-Mézières Tourist Office
4 Place Ducale
08102 Charleville-Mézières
Tel. 03 24 55 69 90
Open Mon.-Sat. 9:30am-12:00pm and 1:30-6:00pm, until 7pm in summer. Also open Sunday in summer.
www.charleville-mezieres.org/indexpc.php

Le Concept (Eric Arnaud)
37, place Ducale
08000 Charleville-Mézières
Tel.: 03 24 22 57 03
Open Wed.-Sat. noon-2pm and 6:30pm on through the evening, also Tues. evening.

Festival des Confréries, held annually in early May.

World Festival of Marionette Theaters, held in Charleville-Mézières every two years in September. Next time: Sept. 18-27, 2015.

Le Vert Bock
20 rue du Théâtre
08000 Charleville-Mézières
Tel. 03 24 35 06 64
Open Tues.-Fri. 8am-9pm, Sat. 9 :30am-9pm

Hôtel Le Dormeur du Val (Best Western)
32 bis rue de la Gravière 08000 Charleville Mézières Tél. : 03 24 420 430
www.hotel-dormeur-du-val.com
My hotel during this 2-night, 3-day visit to the Ardennes was the Hôtel Le Dormeur du Val, 150 yards up the tracks from the train station. It’s a friendly place with a playful semi-industrial design, sometimes successful (the bathroom), sometimes not (the reading light poking you in the head). The street itself is quite though occasionally you can hear the SNCF rail company’s 3-tone intro and an announcement from the train station: Le train en provenance de Sedan et en destination de Champagne-Ardenne rentre en gare, voie une. The hotel, 4-star by category and 3-star by spirit, is convenient for those arriving by train and remaining for a night or two, as I did. I enjoyed the quirkiness and convenience of the hotel. From here, as from the train station, it’s a 10-minute walk to the Place Ducale, which is the heart of the town.

The post The French Ardennes, Part 2. Charleville-Mézières: Place Ducale and the Bare-Ass Casserole appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

Over the weekend of April 25-27, 2014 Vichy parties like it’s 1865 as the town celebrates its annual Napoleon III festival in honor of the emperor who raised Vichy to the rank of “Queen of Spa Towns.” Throughout the week from April 20 to 27 a group of chefs is proposing a taste of 150 years of gastronomic tradition by revisiting and reinterpreting some of culinary achievements of the Second Empire. In particular, these chefs will be taking as inspiration the culinary know-how transmitted by Jules Gouffé (1807-1877), one of the great names of French cuisine.

On the tree of culinary genealogy, Gouffé represents a hearty branch between Antonin Carème (1784-1833) and Auguste Escoffier (1846-1935). The recipe’s of Gouffé’s 1867 Livre de cuisine (translated into English as “The Royal Cookery Book” by his brother Alphonse, culinary officer for the English Court) inspired chefs for generations. A master of decorative cuisine—all those pièces montées—Jules Gouffé largely worked in Paris: his father had a shop near what is now the Pompidou Center, and Gouffé opened his own on rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, later cooking for Napoleon III and leading the charge at the Jockey Club.

His cookbook, editions of which are still available in French and in English, gives precise instructions in preparing, on the one hand, rather simple dishes for the cook at home and, on the one hand, creations for emperors, kings and their financiers, la grande cuisine. Gouffé also penned cookbook about pastries, preserves and soups and potages.

Those chefs specifically honoring Gouffé during the festival weekend and the days leading up to it are: Olivier Tajetti at La Brasserie du Casino, Jérôme Piombini and David Vendemond at Le Lutèce, Emmanuel Basset at Les Caudalies, Gilbert Beurrier at Le Napoléon (Hôtel Les Nations), Marlène Chaussemy at La Table de Marlène (La Rotonde du Lac), Antoine Souillat at La Table d’Antoine, Pierre-Yves Lorgeoux at Le PYL-PYL, Daniel Vincent at Le Piquenchagne (in Saint-Yorre), Albert Caille at La Véranda (Aletti Palace), and Gilles Bettiol (otherwise director-chef of the caterer Le Montognon ) conducting the festival’s grand Napoleon III historical dinner “A la table d’hôte de l’Empereur” (49€) in the Convention Center-Opera complex.

The Napoleon III festival also celebrates the golden age of the Second Empire with music (Offenbach, naturally), costumed parades, balls, an absinthe tasting, carriage rides, a Viennese cocktail hour in honor of this year’s imperial guest The Austro-Hungarian Empire, and a reconstruction of a Second Empire military camp.

Also echoing Vichy’s chic of yesterday is an exhibition this spring of fans (éventails) from Napoleon III’s time, “The Fan during the Second Empire, between art object and fashion accessory” at Vichy’s Opera/Convention Center. The exhibition presents exquisite examples from private collections as well as from the Palais Galliera Fashion Museum in Paris and the Fan Museum of London.

For complete details on how to party like it’s 1865 see the site of the Vichy Tourist Office, 19 rue du Parc, 03206 Vichy. Tel. 04 70 98 71 94.

By train Vichy is 2:50 from Paris, 1:45 from Lyon. Vichy is a 4-hour drive from Paris and just under an hour’s drive from the Clermont-Ferrand Airport.

For an article on France Revisited about Vichy’s architectural history, including an accompanying audio slide-show, see Vichy: Not That Vichy, This Vichy.

The post Party Like It’s 1865: A Taste of Imperial Splendor in Vichy appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

Advance tickets are advisable at the top classical music and opera festivals, though it’s even more important to secure accommodations if you wish to stay nearby a concert venue. But don’t let a lack of tickets or advance planning or even lodging keep you from venturing into these villages, towns and cities during festival time. There’s often room for one more visitor, and a room in the region to spare.

Alsace: Musica. Strasbourg holds a major European festival devoted to the contemporary repertoire featuring the work of 20th-century composers and 21st-century creations, two weeks from late September to early October.

Aquitaine: Festival du Perigord Noir. The angels sing, are sung and are played to at this festival with venues at various locations throughout Black Perigord, between Périgueux and Souillac, from early August to mid-October.

Auvergne: Festival Europavox,  late May, during which a square in Clermont-Ferrand gives itself over for three days to European rock. Festival de Craponne-sur-Arzon, a 3-day celebration of country music (mostly American) in the heart of the country of France at the end of July.  Near Craponne, the village of La Chaise-Dieu is consumed by classical music for 10 days at the end of August during the Festival de la Chaise-Dieu.

Burgundy: Les Francos Gourmandes. French music and French gastronomy go hand in hand—ear and mouth—during a weekend in early June in the town of Tournus (Soane-et-Loire).

Centre-Val de Loire: Le Printemps de Bourges is a rock ’n roll rite of spring that draws hoards to this town at the very center of France for six days in late April. Musicalies en Sologne transforms the village of Pierrefitte-sur-Sauldre (Sologne) into the happy home of traditional music and folk dance over the first weekend of May.

Champagne-Ardenne: Le Cabaret Vert, a 4-day ecologically conscious rock festival held toward the end of August near the Belgian border in Charlesville-Mézières. The Reims Jazz Festival, runs for ten days in November and provides another good reason to visit the city’s champagne cellars off season.

Languedoc-Roussillon: Festival Radio France brings a rich and dense program of classical music (in its broadest sense) to Montpellier for two weeks in mid-July. During more or less the same period, jazz fans from the region and from well beyond flock to Jazz à Junas, held within the remarkable setting of the old quarries at Junas (Gard), between Nimes and Montpellier.

Limousin: Festival des Nuits de Nacre. The accordion, now there’s a beloved instrument in France, but there’s only one accordion factory left in the country, in Tulle (Corrèze), which explains the reason for Tulle’s mid-September festival celebrating the accordion in all its glory.

Nord-Pas de Calais: Nuits Secrètes. The secret is out: if you want to discover lesser-known and up-and-coming French and European band, come to Aulnoye-Aymeries, near the Belgian border, over the first weekend of August for three musical marathon nights devoted to all kinds of rock and contemporary sounds. More well-known names fill the posters for the Mainsquare Festival within the vast confines of the citadel at Arras over the first weekend of July. In 2013: Green Day, Sting, Indochine.

Normandy: Festival Beauregard. A rock festival in the park of the Chateau de Beauregard, just outside Caen over the first weekend of July. Further proof that there’s more than war tourism in the area of the 1944 Battle of Normandy.

Pays de la Loire (Western Loire): La Folle Journée de Nantes, when the city of Nantes goes crazy for classical music for five days late January to early February.

Poitou-Charentes: Les Francofolies de La Rochelle. A joyful 5-day French rock festival in the Atlantic coastal town of La Rochelle, mid-July.

Provence-Riviera (PACA): French and foreigners alike swell the villages and towns of southeast France, making it fertile ground for music and theater festivals to bloom. Among the best of them is Les Chorégies d’Orange, mid-July to early August, when opera (mostly and most impressively) takes to the great and dramatic stage of the Roman Theater of Orange (Vaucluse). Through the month of July, Aix-en-Provence also stretches the vocal limits of performers during its Festival International d’Art Lyrique.

Rhones-Alpes: Jazz à Vienne. A major jazz festival devoted mostly to classical jazz with some blues, is held in Vienne, 20 miles south of Lyon, from late June to mid-July.

Continue to Festivals in France, Part II: Exceptional and Unique Celebrations.

The post Festivals in France, Part I: Major Musical Events appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

Travelers passionate about a given festival theme may want to plan their stay in advance, but one of the delights of taking to the regional routes of France is lucking upon a festival. Even if you aren’t initially passionate about a given subject, there’s an infective pleasure to taking part in such festivals, heightened by the sense that you’ve ventured off the beaten track to attend a unique event of local pride.

Alsace: Carrefour Européen du Patchwork. On the strength of its reputation as “birthplace of the Amish movement,” Sainte Marie-aux-Mines’ European Patchwork Meeting in mid-September draws patchwork, textile art and visitors from throughout Europe as well as from the United States.

Aquitaine: Mimos. Why let foreign words get in the way of appreciating a theater festival?  Périgueux holds one of Europe’s top mime festivals over six days, late July to early August. Also wordlessly beautiful, flamenco takes to the stage in the Landes in the town of Mont-de-Marsan the first week in July during Arte Flamenco.

Auvergne: Festival de Cerf Volant, a weekend kite festival and accompanying air show on the Gergovie Plateau in October. From the grace of kites to the pageantry of costumes as Vichy fete’s Napoleon III over the last weekend of April.

Centre-Val de Loire: The International Garden Festival in the park of the château of Chaumont-sur-Loire is simply a very nice place to enjoy strolling through creative gardens during a Loire Valley castle tour anytime from April to October.

Champagne-Ardennes: World Festival of Puppet Theater, the world’s largest gathering of puppeteers, is held late September in Charlesville-Mezières. There are lots of film festivals in France, most notably the Cannes Film Festival, but for a close-up view of stars of cinema and television, the town of Saint Dizier hosts the European Meeting of the the Car Stars of Cinema and Television the third weekend of July, the opportunity to get up close and personal with the likes of Starsky & Hutch’s Ford Gran Torino, Columbo’s Peugeot 403, the Scooby Doo van, an AMC Pacer from Wayne’s World and maybe even a batmobile.

Limousin: La Route du Cirque. Nexon may sound like a high-tech company circa 1986 but it’s a small town near Limoges and one of the training grounds for French circus performers, hence this mid-August circus festival. The region is probably better known for its strawberries, hence the mid-May strawberry festival, Fête de la Fraise, at Beaulieu-sur-Dordogne, featuring a giant tart with 1700 pounds of strawberries and much else, no artificial flavor added.

Nord-Pas de Calais (North): Les Turbulents de Vieux Condé. Of many street festivals around France, this is one of the most surprising, weather permitting, when creativity and creations of all kinds take over the public spaces of Vieux Condé, a small town along the Belgian border a few miles from Valenciennes during the first weekend in May.

Pays de la Loire (Western Loire): Europ’Amazones features the riding prowess and elegance of side-saddling horsewomen over a weekend in early May in Lion d’Angers, as described here. Trade horses and old riding costumes for vintage bicycles and cyclewear at Anjou Vélo Vintage, late June in and around Saumur and Angers.

Rhone-Alpes: Equiblues, Europe’s largest rodeo, naturally accompanies by country music concerts, over five days in August in Saint Agrève (Ardèche). (See this article on France Revisited.) Across the Rhone in Drome Provençale Les Fêtes Nocturnes de Grignan invites a different director and troupe each summer to use the courtyard of the Château de Grignan as the setting for a unique production presented late June through late August. Other theater festivals (e.g. Avignon) have been left off this list because of the probably language barrier of attending French theater, but I note Grignan since in 2013, Tennessee Williams’ Chatte sur un toit brûlant (Cat on a Hot Tin Roof) takes to this beautiful makeshift stage.

See Festivals in France, Part I: Major Musical Events

The post Festivals in France, Part II: Exceptional and Unique Celebrations appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

* * *

I’d received a letter written in a strange hand inviting me to taste some baked pineapple at one of the tents of the Christmas market near the bottom of the Champs-Elysées. Odd! I went to see what it was all about.

While walking through Place de la Concorde, I came across Phileas Fogg, Miss Mimosa, and Jean Passepartout.

I asked if I could take their picture. Mr. Fogg said that he and Passepartout were in a hurry but they kindly allowed me to do so. Miss Mimosa gave me a little wink, I thought, before I realized that it was just the pleasant November sun in her eyes.

Miss Mimosa handed me a few sprigs of her namesake flower and off they went.

I turned to go up the Champs-Elysées where I saw coming towards me 16 Brazilian dancers. I could tell they were Brazilian because, well, you could just tell. They’d apparently come out of the tent where I’d been invited to taste the baked pineapple. There were eight female dancers in monokinis and feather headdress. The headdress rested on their shoulders and was covered at its base with a glittery fabric that draped down to partly cover their breasts. There were also eight male dancers in tight white bellbottoms and bronze naked torsos. I lifted my camera to their picture of the troop as they sambaed by but the hip of one of the Brazilians hit my elbow and my shot went up into the air, where it captured the copy of one of the Horses of Marly rearing by the entrance to the Champs-Elysées.

Following right behind the Brazilian dancer were six men playing kettle drums on wheels, three elephants, a tiger, a dozen dwarves carrying mimosas, the large head of a king, a dragon led on a chain by a mad, wiry trainer, three men and three women carrying baskets of lemons, and a cast of characters the likes of which I’d never seen on the streets of Paris.

A chimpanzee rode the lead elephant and waved at me to follow. He pointed to the big wheel on the opposite side of the Obelisk, by the entrance to the Tuileries Garden. That’s where they were headed.

Traffic stopped as the parade crossed over to the Obelisk. As I watched them cross I realized that I was witnessing a preview of winter festivities on the Riviera. The three festival towns had apparently coordinated their efforts and their schedules for their February Mardi Gras-time festivals.

Mandelieu-La Napoule, nestled near Europe’s largest mimosa forest, had brought along its flowers and its chosen beauty for its Mimosa Festival, Feb 15-24, 2013.

Nice had brought along some of its dancers and its King of the 5 Continents, sovereign of the next Carnaval, Feb. 15-March 6, 2013.

Menton had brought along Phileas Fogg and Jean Passepartout, who planned to make a detour for the “Around the World in 80 Days”-themed Lemon Festival, Feb. 16-March 6, 2013.

I lifted my camera to take a picture of the long train of this mixed parade, but just then the chimp took my elbow and my camera veered off toward one of the fountains on the square.

The chimp pulled me over to the Ferris wheel, threw me into a gondola along with one of the Brazilian dancers and jumped in beside me. Then up we went for some a remarkable view.

We all squealed in delight. Well, the monkey squealed in delight. The Brazilian dancer squealed with vertigo. And I squeal with surprise when the dancer, unable to look out and burying her face in her breasts, lowered her headdress into my face, where the feathers tickled my nose.

I asked the chimp if he would take a picture of me and the Brazilian dancer but he wouldn’t hold still.

I asked her if he would take a picture of me and the chimp but she wouldn’t look up.

I spread her feathers and looked down at the Tuileries Garden and the Louvre.

After we returned to earth, my Brazilian companion lifted her head and sambaed off the gondola. Phileas Fogg and Jean Passepartout rushed off to catch a train for Geneva. And the rest of us said teary good-byes promising to all get together on the coast in February. All but the chimp, who hung around with no place to go.

I was in such a fine mood that I invited him home to help me make a pumpkin pie, for American Thanksgiving was two days later.

When I got home I realized that I’d forgotten to buy the ground ginger called for in the recipe. The chimp didn’t want to go back out for it and I didn’t want to leave him alone in the apartment. I thought about what I could replace the ginger with and remembered the Viagra pill that a doctor friend had given me when I was feeling a bit down after my cat died a few years ago, so I ground that up.

The recipe also called for ground cardamon. I didn’t know what that was so the chimp looked it up on the google machine. Looking over his hairy shoulder I saw that cardamon resembled another pill that someone once gave me in a Latino nightclub when I’d suggested at 3 a.m. that it was getting late, so I crushed that up too.

The chimp licked the bowl. While the pie was yet in the oven he started bouncing off the walls and humping the couch, so I kicked him out and haven’t heard from him since.

On Thanksgiving I took my pumpkin pie to the apartment of the friend who was hosting the meal. I set on the table the sprigs that Miss Mimosa had given.

The pie was a hit The French guests wanted to know what spices I’d use.

“Mostly cinnamon and nutmeg,” I said. “A few cloves.”

“And where’d you get the mimosas? Where you just on the coast?”

“Sort of,” I said, momentarily missing the chimp.

© 2012, Gary Lee Kraut

Mimosa Festival in Mandelieu-La Napoule, Feb 15-24, 2013.
Carnaval in Nice, Feb. 15-March 6, 2013.
Lemon Festival in Menton, Feb. 16-March 6, 2013.

The post Miss Mimosa and the Big Wheel Over Paris appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

The festival, which takes places through the month of April, reveals a diversity of approaches to travel and place—poetic, harsh, intimate, imaginary, mysterious, playful—by French photographers who collectively present far-flung “itineraries” from Bordeaux to Tokyo to Africa to South America.

Their work is shown in thirteen venues spread throughout Bordeaux (museums, galleries, garden gates, public spaces), with most of the venues being devoted to the work of individual photographers. Entrance to all venues is free.

Among the photographers for the festival’s 2012 edition are:

Sophie Chausse, who returns to her native Gabon 20 years after leaving the country:

Cyrus Cornet, who takes an “antivoyage” into the French suburbs:

Damien Guillaume, who brought back still-life images from travels in South America:

Christopher Héry, who photographed individuals encountered in Nigeria:

Pascal Ken, who presents images of seven days in Tokyo:

Julien Lombardi, who examines a city’s potential for drift, whether natural, uncontrolled or dangerous:

Thibault de Puyfontaine, whose “Late Colors,” images from Egypt and Mozambique, were shown in Paris in 2011, as described at the time on France Revisited:

Kristine Thiemann, who presents a playful vision of Bordeaux’s Benauge quarter:

Itinéraires des Photographes Voyageurs, Bordeaux, an annual festival of travel photography taking place in April. For more information see www.itiphoto.com.

The post Travel Photography Festival in Bordeaux appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.