Author: Susan

Thursday: Alba

Posted on by Susan

Wow, Alba is a nice little city! Today we walked around to get acclimated to the area. Its population of 30,000 will balloon to 100,000 with the big white truffle festival this weekend. Already there are signs the stores and restaurants are getting ready, with canopies out on the sidewalk on some streets.

I mentioned in my post yesterday that we mistakenly drove into a piazza area that is restricted from most car traffic. The sign, in Italian of course, says that a camera will photograph the license plates of vehicles that enter, and a fine issued. Our host translated that for us last night.

So we stopped in at the tourism office this morning and asked for their guidance so we could pay the ticket before it got to our car rental company. The tourism agent made some calls, then had us follow her upstairs to the police department. They checked their records and couldn’t see our car’s data on file, so maybe we are in the clear. Occasionally the camera isn’t on or a car is blocking its view. Regardless, we were grateful for their help and it sounds like we probably saved 80 Euro.

We have a decent-sized kitchen here, so made porcini mushroom pasta for dinner.

All is well in Alba, Italy.


photos: a surprisingly realistic sand sculpture

bottom: white truffles under glass with their individual prices, which range from about $10-$30 each. Crazy and weird.

street performer

Wednesday: Alba

Posted on by Susan

Despite falling in love with Lyon, we left the city this morning. We would love to come back. For now, we are enjoying Alba, Italy.

Alba is about a four-and-a-half hour drive from Lyon and we stopped a few times along the way. We arrived in the city close to 4pm and initially had some trouble figuring our where our Airbnb actually was. The google directions put us in a busy piazza area. We finally figured it out and were delighted to check in to our Alba apartment.

Our host was kind and spent some time getting us situated. He told us that the white truffle festival is going on this weekend, so we are looking forward to crowds of people and some delicious food. He also let us know about the farmers markets going on three times a week and other cities in the area we may want to visit.

We walked around this evening to check out what’s around and bought some local salami from a butcher nearby, who also got us to try some hot peppers in olive oil. We ended the evening with some gelato, which cannot become a habit despite the shop being next door to where we are staying.

photos: the Italian Alps looking beautiful on a fall day

below: trying some hot red peppers

Alba this evening, the banner is for the Truffle Festival on Sunday

Tuesday: Lyon

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It poured all last night and a good part of today – the best reason to take a tour of the city via the hop-on, hop-off tour bus. We enjoyed seeing and hearing about an overview of many parts of Lyon and never hopped off the bus until the last stop.

It was a good day to check out Pralus Lyon, a bakery known for its praline and chocolate breads and it is mainly what they sell. I walked there in a downpour (why not) and was happy to leave the store with a small loaf of praline. It is delicious.

We finished the day meeting our daughter’s friend for dinner. She lives in Lyon and had lots of interesting insights about life there. It sounds grand.


photos: top – praline loaves

bottom – short, squat variety of zucchini that seems common to this area

L’epicerie, a nice place for dinner tonight

Monday: Lyon

Posted on by Susan

Today was a beautiful Monday, close to 80 degrees and sunny. We took advantage of the nice weather (it is supposed to rain all of tomorrow) and walked around Lyon for most of the day, checking out some shops and enjoying the architecture and the old city.

It is remarkable how many restaurants, coffee shops, and bakeries are here – one right next to another – and they seem to be thriving. It is a beautiful old city.

photos: 222 steps going up ( and down)

below: peanut butter, apple, walnut toast for breakfast

beautiful old buildings are throughost the city.

Sunday: Lyon

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We left Clermont-Ferrand this morning and drove to Lyon. The city was just over two hours away, but we had to take our time because check-in for our Airbnb was not until 4pm.

We stopped a few times along the way, most notably about an hour outside the city of Roanne, which was described online as having some delicious restaurants. Not on Sunday though. We drove through the town and nothing at all was open on Dimanche.

I found an open restaurant in a town about twenty minutes away. Yes, it was open but no, they couldn’t serve us. They were packed. I asked the woman who turned us away if there was anything at all open. “Not on Sunday,” she told me in French. Okay, we would wait until Lyon.

So we drove into the big, busy city, located the parking garage suggested by our host, and found dozens of restaurants open along the river and beyond. We ate, then found our rental apartment, then went back to the car to get our luggage. All the walking helped us get our bearings.

The tiny apartment is great: centrally located so we can walk everywhere, and super-cute in a very old building.

We will have fun discovering Lyon this week.

photos: A small part of our pretty drive to Lyon

below: used books for sale along the Rhone

The River Rhone

Saturday: Clermont-Ferrand

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After breakfast in our hotel, we walked into the city, about a half-hour from where we are staying. There’s a bus and tram service close by, but it was a nice morning with temperatures in the sixties so traveling on foot seemed to be the best option.

It was an interesting walk – we passed very old buildings and narrow, pretty streets. We spent some time checking out the “Notre Dame de Clermont,” a replica of the famous cathedral built mainly in the 1300s. It’s black from volcanic ash outside, but inside it’s beautiful and used regularly, it seems.

We continued walking around and checked out some store, and stopped for coffee when a rain shower caught us off guard (without umbrellas). The sun eventually came out and we found a nice restaurant for lunch. We left a few hours later after eating too much delicious food and we started the walk back to our hotel and a comfortable reading spot.

Tomorrow: Lyon

photos- a narrow old city street

below – Notre-Dame in Clermont

from fromage at the farmers market this morning

Friday: Clermont-Ferrand

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We drove from Saint Emilion to Clermont-Ferrand today, about a four-hour trip. We had such a nice stay in Saint-Emilion and now have bottles of wine to enjoy for the rremainder of our trip.

We stopped at about 12:30 for lunch at a place I discovered online: Chez Juju. It was the only restaurant around and we had to drive along narrow roads to get there.

When we finally arrived we saw it was a very cute place, but just eight tables, all full. The owner said we could wait, which we decided to do since we had no alternative. There was nothing at all around.

We soon got a table and enjoyed a delicious lunch. The owner serves everyone the same lunch fare and changes it each day. Today: pate and salad; chicken, rice, cauliflower; cheese; walnut cake. plus house wine. It was a nice treat.

We continued on to our destination, an old city with breathtaking views, inactive volcanoes, a university, and lots to see. We will do all that tomorrow.


photos: all beautiful cows, all we saw today while driving.

Wednesday/Thursday: Saint-Emilion

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Our castle room is fantastic! What a lucky find on Airbnb.

Our hosts, Annick and Pierre, run the vineyard here and it has been in the family for four generations – five now that their son is out of college and actively working in the business.

We enjoyed a tour of their impressive wine-making operation where wine is still made traditionally – quite a tedious process from what we observed. Some of their equipment, like the numbered vats where the wine ferments – were made in the late 1800s. They produce about 45,000 bottles of wine annually. We tried some from 2016, 15, and 14, and liked it a lot. Yes, of course we got a few bottles to take with us.

Our small room in the castle is almost unbelievable, with ancient stone walls and very old solid wood furniture. It is much warmer here than in Ireland but the castle is probably naturally cool all the time. (It does not have wifi or television, and electrical outlets are scarce.)

Annick dropped off a fresh baguette and her own jam this morning and I met up with her after my run into town. (I thought I had woken up just before 7am, but with the time change it was actually an hour later. I guess I was tired after our long drive yesterday.) She is a schoolteacher and told me kids have school from 8-5 just four days a week, off on Wednesday.

We explored Saint-Emilion, full of many wine shops, cheese shops, and plenty of restaurants. The streets are very narrow and ancient, and sometimes tricky to walk on with their sharp, jutting rocks. It is beautiful and charming to walk around and very interesting to drive around. Grapes are harvested this time of year and workers are in the vineyards getting the job done.

photos: above – the door to our castle room.

below – wine vats from the 1800s, still used

bottles of wine produced by the vineyard

Tuesday: Bordeaux

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We had an early flight to Paris this morning, so were on the hotel shuttle to the airport at 4:30. The shuttle runs 24/7, about every 25 minutes. I was glad we just had a five- minute wait.

The Dublin airport was wide awake even if we weren’t, and we got to our flight and on to Charles de Gaulle airport quickly (or maybe it seemed that way since we mostly slept for the 90-minutes).

Once through French immigration, customs and baggage claim, we figured out how to get the leased car from Citroen we will use to drive around France and beyond. We set off for Bordeaux, six hours from the airport, during a rainstorm.

We finally made it to our destination. After our hosts greeted us, I took a quick picture of our castle lodging before we set off for dinner. Long day and we are very hungry.

photos: dinner in Bordeaux

the castle where we are staying.

vineyards as we drove

Monday: Athlone

Posted on by Susan

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Today was partially a travel day. We left Galway in mid-morning to drive to Dublin airport and drop off our rental car.

(I haven’t mentioned how handy it is to have brought an older phone with us to which we added a EuroSIM card. We can easily figure out where we are going when we are walking around towns.)

We stopped in Athlone – a nice little city – and got some laundry done and (yippee) I got my hair cut a few doors away while we were waiting. Those bits of housekeeping accomplished, we continued on to the airport. We dropped off the car (We wouldn’t rent a car in the UK again. Driving is too stressful) walked to the hotel shuttle (no easy feat with bags of clean clothing to carry, until we rearrange suitcases) and made it to our hotel where we are now in its restaurant.

Tomorrow we fly to France.

photos: Athlone, a pretty city on the east bank of the River Shannon.

A busy Monday at the laundry. Still, we got squeezed in. ” I don’t want you leaving Ireland with dirty clothes,”  said the kind woman in Suds. 

 

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