Accommodation, Food, Restaurants, Sightseeing, Spain, Travelling

Granada – Final Impressions and Suggestions – and maybe Cordoba

February 10, 2015 Rosemary Kneipp 13 Comments

I somehow feel that Granada escaped me. I think there are two reasons: the fact that I was still recovering from a bad bout of flu and the unexpectedly cold weather. It seems to me that Spain is an outdoor country and that is the only real way to enjoy it. With temperatures around freezing, it was difficult to find enough to do outside and the indoor venues were practically never heated.

We did not expect to see a snowman in Granada!

When to go – not winter!

So my first suggestion would be to avoid January and February, despite the oranges on the trees and the possibility of snow.

How to get there

I also think we were there too long, but surprisingly, the cheapest flights were Saturday to Saturday! There are no direct flights to Granada (you need to change in Madrid), so the cheapest way to go is via Malaga which has flights arriving from all over the world.

You can then either stay overnight in Malaga or take a bus directly to Granada. Because we were arriving at night, we pre-booked our transport from the airport to our hotel in the centre via airportshuttles.com. It wasn’t that much more expensive than public transport and much cheaper than a taxi. Our friendly driver was waiting for us and we arrived at our hotel in next to no time.

Bus from Malaga to Granada

We didn’t stay long in Malaga as there is nothing to see but new buildings. I seriously don’t see the attraction but Black Cat was there during fiesta time one year with local friends and loved it.

The bus station is within easy walking distance of the centre of Malaga. There are machines to buy your ticket (in English) and you get to choose your seat. The buses are modern and efficient and leave on time. We even had a bag of goodies on the ride back from Granada to the airport!

However, the bus station in Granada is very far from the centre so it’s better to take a taxi (less than 10 euro) to your accommodation. We literally walked outside and jumped in a cab. On another occasion, however, we walked there and bused back and it was long and complicated.

A café at the bottom of our hill with great tostadas

How long to stay – and make a side trip to Cordoba

I think that 3 or 4 nights is a maximum to spend in Granada. I regret that we did not get our act together in time to rent a car (50 euro for 24 hours), drive the 2 ½ hours to Cordoba, visit the famous mosque, stay the night, visit the rest of the town the next morning then drive the 2 ¾ hours directly to Malaga airport.

Eating in Granada

When we visit another country, we prefer to eat in fairly basic local restaurants rather than go for an often disappointing gourmet experience. Spain is known for its tapas. Sometimes, they are served free with drinks in the evening and other times you pay a small amount (1.60 to 2 euros a time) per serve. Some are very filling. Larger serves that you can share are called raciones.

We found the menu del dia (menu of the day) at 8 to 9.50 euros excellent value for money. It includes a starter, main course, dessert, bread and a glass of wine. There is sometimes a tapa as well. There isn’t a very wide choice but the food is often prepared on the premises and copious.

Breakfast with tostadas and fresh orange juice

Eating hours are very different from France. Breakfast seems to take place at about 10 am, with people having a break from the office. Tea or coffee, freshly-squeezed orange juice and a tostada (toasted bread) spread with tomato pulp and olive oil, butter or just olive oil are always offered. On the last day, we went to a very small café and watched the lady put some tomatoes into a blender to make the pulp. Delicioius! It seems you can grate the tomatoes as well. The total price for this type of breakfast is about 3.50 to 4 euros per person.

The wonderful breakfast café at Plaza Larga in the Albaicin we found on the last day!

Churros are another speciality of Spain. We loved them in Madrid but found that even in the most popular churro place in Granada (Futbol Café), they were salty and too chewy. You dip them in hot chocolate that is made with some kind of thickening. I don’t really think they are worth the calories to be honest!

The Futbol Café famous for its churros and where every game of futbol is celebrated with great gusto

Where to stay

With regard to accommodation, we chose a self-catering flat as that is what we prefer if we go somewhere for more than a few days. I’m still not sure about the location. We were halfway up Cuesta Alhacaba in the Albaicin, which is the oldest neighbourhood of Granada and definitely the most interesting. If we went down the (very steep) hill, we were in the main modern part of the town and if we went up the (slightly less steep) hill and wandered around the other side, we were in the older part. The two best vantage points, Mirador Nicolas and Mirador San Cristobal, are at the top of the Albaicin. However, at least in winter, there isn’t much open there at night.

Our self-catering flat from the outside, halfway up Cuesta Alcahaba — Our self-catering flat from the outside, halfway up Cuesta Alhacaba

The Alhambra, of course, is the star attraction, but it’s up on a hill and isn’t really close to anything else. A view of the Alhambra is much sought after apparently, but you can drink in the view from a lot of places in the city. To book ahead, you can use the official website and pick up your tickets in a ServiCaixa machine with your credit card.

One of the many views of the Alhambra from the Albaicin quarter

My perference still goes to Seville which we visited at about the same time several years ago and loved and Barcelona which we really enjoyed as well, especially anything to do with Gaudi. We also enjoyed San Sebastian, despite the weather!

Spain, Travelling

My Spanish Past

February 7, 2015 Rosemary Kneipp 13 Comments

The first time I went to Granada was in the spring of 1976 when I was young and naive. I was living and working in Pau in the French Pyrenees and had befriended a woman called Anne Marie who ran a hikers’ refuge in the mountains in the summer months. She suggested we go on a hitchhiking holiday to Spain. After the repressive era of the dictator Franco, young women – and foreigners in particular – were easy prey so Anne Marie insisted we wear obstentious signs of religion so that the men would leave us alone. I had a large coloured ceramic cross! It worked. We were never bothered.

It was a whirlwind trip. Anne Marie had omitted to inform me of two major details: she had no money and she had a rendezvous with her Spanish lover in Sarragossa at the end of the trip, which was a surprise to me because first, she was married and I knew her husband, and second, she was not my idea of a femme fatale.

When she came to collect me, she proceeded to empty half my backpack, which meant that I had only the barest of creature comforts. It was not until a year or so later that someone pointed out to me that my superduper backpack contained a small rubber mattress.

Anne Marie was used to sleeping on the ground when mountain-hiking but it was a rude shock when I had to sleep on hard concrete in a sleeping bag for the first time in my life. I know that we went to Seville, Granada and Cordoba but since I left my camera behind in the train to Madrid, I have nothing to jog my memory and my subsequent visits to Seville and Granada have contained no familiar places.

I don't remember our tapas being this sophisticated in 1976 — I don’t remember our tapas being this sophisticated in 1976

We mainly ate bread and tapas which, at that time, were free. You just had to buy a drink to eat any of the little « lids » of olives, ham and cheese set out on the counter. I can remember being hungry. I would have been happy to buy food for both of us but Anne-Marie wouldn’t be any part of it and I had to eat what she ate.

From Cordoba, we were supposed to hitch-hike up the Sierra Nevada to Madrid but rides were scarce so we ended up taking the train on the last stretch, then another train in the direction of Saragossa. By the time we arrived in some little town I can’t remember it was close to midnight and Anne-Marie managed to find a double bed in someone’s home that sank badly in the middle. Only mildly better than hard concrete.

The next morning we hitch-hiked the rest of the way to Saragossa and arrived late for the rendezvous with the Spanish lover on the steps of the Cathedral. We waited about an hour before we finally left with Anne-Marie in tears. About ten minutes later, she decided to go back to the cathedral steps and there he was, waiting for her!

We drove out of town to a forest in his Mini and I waited in the car and dosed while they went off into the forest. How I/we got back to Pau I don’t remember. It’s a long time ago, but I didn’t ever go on holiday with her again!

My next trip to Spain was a couple of years later when I did a two-week language course in Salamanca while studying translation at ESIT. This time, I hitch-hiked by myself down to San Sebastian just over the French border then took the train the rest of the way. I boarded with a family in their small apartment. I was still not used to people with children actually living in anything other than a house and my day-to-day Spanish was virtually non-existent. It was a strange experience. I also only knew the third person of verbs so would have to say things like “she’s going out now – me”.

One day the landlady asked if I had any ropa. When I couldn’t work out what she meant, she called in the other boarder, a German girl to explain that she wanted to wash my clothes. After that, everyone assumed that I didn’t speak a word of Spanish and they wouldn’t actually believe that I had understood a whole conversation about the stock exchange (la bolsa). I knew a lot of financial and technical vocabulary from ESIT but we had never done any texts on washing clothes.

It was the same occasion on which I went to visit Avila, home of Saint Teresa of Avila and saw her little finger. It put me off relics for a lifetime! Don’t worry – I don’t have a photo of that either!

I have retained a surprising amount of vocabulary but have never actually learnt to speak or understand the language with any ease. But when we travel, I get by especially if I practise what I want to say beforehand but I’m often discouraged. I have less formal learning in Italian and can understand (and speak) a lot better.

I’m not sure I’ll ever need Spanish again though, because I think we have exhausted our possibilities here. Next time, we’ll go back to Italy for the sun!

Architecture, Art, Food, Restaurants, Sightseeing, Spain

Sun and Snow in the Albaicin in Granada

February 5, 2015 Rosemary Kneipp 11 Comments

Snow has been predicted but when we wake up, there is no sign of it. We walk up Cuesta Alhacaba, our double hill road, to Casa Pasteles on Plaza Larga for breakfast. There’s a market today – one clothes stand and a fruit and vegetable stand! We go for the tostado medio and have trouble understanding how much we have to pay : 7.70 euro, which somehow seems a very strange amount.

We walk down the other side of the Albaicin quarter through tiny winding streets, the sky dramatic with its bright sun, deep blue and menacing clouds. I’m starting to get the feel of Granada which has escaped me up until now. A word we keep seeing is Carmen, derived from the Arabic for a garden planted with vines. In Granada, it means a villa. I’d love to see behind the high iron gates.

Our first destination is the 11th century Bañuelo, one of the oldest surviving and best-conserved baths in Andalucia and the oldest public building in Granada. It was not destroyed during the Christian era because it is underneath a private dwelling. We have the place to ourselves and are impressed by the sheer size of the baths although their tiles have long disappeared.

Banuelo, Granada's oldest public building — Banuelo, Granada’s oldest public building

As we walk past Plaza Nueva, I connect it up with the touristy place at the bottom of the Alhambra from the day before. Granada seems to have no centre.

Having coffee in the sun - at last! — Having coffee in the sun – at last!

After having our only outdoor coffee since the beginning of our stay in Granada, we visit the Royal Chapel and I’m astonished to see how terrible some of the wall paintings are although the faces of the sculptures on the ornate altar are finely carved.

We walk quickly through the modern souk in Alcaiceria, that replaced the original medina after it burnt down in 1843, and is now a craft market with lots of souvenir shops. We cross over Gran Via de Colon and start walking up the little streets to the Albaicin.

By the time we get to Plaza Aliatar, I’m more than ready for lunch – well, a rest in any case. We choose Bañeao with its 3-course menu at 9.50 euro and hope for the best. We are served a tapa consisting of a small fried egg surrounded by some sort of dried peas or beans, followed by what look like eggplant French fries, then grilled squid with salad. I have the somewhat liquid rice custard. People keep running outside to see the whispy little bits of snow that are falling.

It’s late afternoon and the snow has finally started, light at first, then gradually heavier. By the time we venture out to buy food for dinner, it’s snowing quite heavily and wetly. The paving stones are a little slippery as well.

When we look out the window next morning, we see there is still snow on the ground, especially on our terrace, but the sky is bright blue so we head over to our favourite Mirador San Nicolas.

It hasn’t snowed enough to turn the Alhambra white but the glinting rooftops and snow-covered orange trees are lovely. It’s biting cold though.

We make our way down the hill towards the university quarter where we’re going to visit the Carthusian Monastery and are delighted by the views of the city spread out before us.

From the outside, the Cartuja reminds me of the Cartosa near Milan, one of the most beautiful churches I’ve ever seen. The inside is very ornate with multi-coloured marble and polychrome wood drapery. Unfortunately photos are not allowed.

Former royal hospital, now Granada university

On the way back, we discover a new area we haven’t been to before and visit the former royal hospital, now the University of Granada. It consists of a series of beautiful white patios but no students. Maybe it’s holiday time.

We debate whether or not to eat downtown or up in the Albaicin and decide on the latter. As before, the views from the tiny winding streets are stunning but exhausting and it’s still very cold with little pockets of snow on the ground in some places.

We end up again on Plaza Aliatar and try the other restaurant, Horno de Paquito (horno = oven) which ostensibly has the same menu but turns out to have a lot more deep-fried dishes. We order a vino tinto followed by a vino roja, although we’re not sure what the difference is!

After our well-earned siesta, we suddenly look outside and see there’s a magnificent sunset. We quickly get dressed, but by the time we are rugged up and ready to leave, the sunset’s nearly over. I nearly burst my chest getting up another of those hills but we are five minutes late. Maybe we’ll do better tomorrow.

Architecture, Art, Restaurants, Sightseeing, Spain

Sunny Spain and the Alhambra

February 3, 2015 Rosemary Kneipp 17 Comments

We’ve booked our tickets for the Alhambra ahead of time on ticketmaster.es and collected them in a Servi Caixa terminal to avoid the queues. We know this from Barcelona. This is a great idea when there are lots of tourists but unfortunately it means you can’t choose the weather. Today it’s overcast and sometimes drizzly although we have a fleeting patch of blue sky mid-morning. The next sun is predicted for Thursday.

At about ten, after eating a boiled egg and a yoghurt at home, we walk down our double hill and left onto Gran Via de Colon, the main street of Granada. The first place we choose for coffee doesn’t have any tables left. This is a common occurrence during peak breakfast hour in Granada. Fortunately there is another place across the road with lots of tables.

We order our espresso and freshly squeezed orange juice, then tostados and tomate which are even bigger than yesterday. We pour over olive oil as we’ve seen the other other patrons do. Jean Michel finishes off my second one. It’s costs us a whopping 3.50 euro each.

Then we set off for the Alhambra which is on top of another hill. This world heritage site consists of a palace and fortress mainly rebuilt in the 11th century by a Moorish emir called Mohammed ben Al-Ahmar and converted into a royal palace in 1333 by Yusuf I, Sultan of Granada. After falling into disrepair it was rediscovered in the 19th century by European scholars and travellers.

By the time we get to the top of the steep hill at 11.30 and discover we’re at the wrong entrance for our tickets I need a very long rest as I am still tired from my flu. We find a restaurant where we can just have coffee because even by French standards it’s way too early for lunch and we can’t get into the Nasrid Palace until 2 pm. There is a welcome fire blazing in a brick fireplace. So much for sunny Spain!

I slowly recuperate while Jean Michel reads the guide book and we eventually ask for the menu. I order an eggplant salad and Jean Michel a Caesar salad and we both have our customary dry white wine (though I did have a red with my baby lamb cutlets yesterday which also went will with Jean Michel’s ox tail).

I’ll just make a slight digression here about the ox-tail which is a typical Andalusian dish during bull-fight season which obviously results in large amounts of bull’s meat.

The eggplant salad turns out to be slices of eggplant cooked in filo pastry – it’s very hard to get away from deep fried food here – on a bed of lettuce, hard tomatoes and capers with a sprinkling of parmesanand a large amount of mayonnaise.

We walk back down to the correct entrance and wander around the gardens waiting for 2 pm. We can see the Mirador San Nicolas opposite where we took our photos of the Alhambra the day before. It’s at the top of our double hill road. We can also see the troglodyte houses in the side of the hill.

One of the many beautifully carved archways

We begin our visit of the Alhambra. It’s full of people taking photos of each other in front of every single visible arch which somehow detracts from the atmosphere. There is no furniture, but mainly intricately carved Arabic inscriptions in the form of geometrical patterns, with painted tiles on the walls. I have to confess it’s all a bit repetitive for me and it is absolutely freezing cold as well.

Opposite windows looking over an inside garden

I do like the different patios with their fountains and greenery which are no doubt a welcome break from the steamy hot weather that most people experience in Grenada.

One of the many keyhole views overlooking the surrounding countryside

The path out of the palace takes us through more gardens and past stunning views of Grenada to the Palace of the Generalife and the Upper Gardens which we also try to imagine in the warmer weather.

We finally emerge an hour and a half later (the visit is supposed to take 3 hours). It’s spitting and we’re cold. Let’s find somewhere to have hot chocolate and churros we both decided of a common accord.

In the gardens walking towards the Generalife

We ignore the touristy places at the bottom of the hill and head for Gran Via de Colon. On the left we see a promising-looking place appropriately called Via Colon. We order our chocolate and churros and sit back in eager expectation. We have very fond memoires of eating the same thing in a very famous place in Madrid called Chocolateria San Giné.

The hot chocolat, which arrives first, is OK but the churros are very disappointing. They are large and a bit tough and SALTY. We coat them with sugar and dip them in our hot chocolate but it doesn’t improve them much. Jean Michel orders a chocolate cake with a strange spice in it to get rid of the salty taste. I reckon we might have done better in one of those touristy places after all!

Restaurants, Sightseeing, Spain, Uncategorized

Getting to Granada and First Impressions

February 2, 2015 Rosemary Kneipp 17 Comments

We leave Blois at 10 am on Saturday to drive to Orly Airport where we’re leaving the car in a somewhat suspicious-looking long-term parking lot near for the airport for 70 euros. If the car’s still there on our return, it’s a hassle-free way of get to the airport. Otherwise, we would have had to catch a train to Gare d’Austerlitz in Paris and taken a train out to the airport.

After my week of flu I seem to be having a relapse and the first thing I do on the Transavia flight to Malaga leaving at 4.35 pm is to nearly faint on the way back from the ladies. The hostess lies me down on a double seat and I sleep until our arrival at 7 pm. We collect our baggage and are relieved to see that the shuttle we booked at airportshuttles.com for 21 euro is waiting for us.

It’s quite balmy at 13°C. Malaga looks very clean and modern. The driver takes us to our boutique hotel . The rooms are small but very trendy. The sign behind the door says 200 euro but we are paying 72 euro per night, I guess because it’s winter. We leave our things and go to find a restaurant. Jean Michel says we’re near the sea so have to have fish.

At Bodeguita de Carlos that we find by accident, I order a grilled John Dory to share and Jean Michel eats about ¾ of it. I certainly can’t manage any more. All I really want to do is go to bed.

Next morning I am not feeling brilliant at all. We get dressed and go down for breakfast but the breakfast café is very busy and there are no tables. I start feeling really ill and we go back upstairs. Jean Michel goes down to secure a table and order coffee because I seem to be having orthostatic hypotension again and need to get the adrenaline pumping. We finally get served and Jean Michel has a buffet breakfast. I pull off a few bits of bread.

Olives and the Sierra Nevada from the bus on the way to Grenada

We decide to go straight to the coach station to take the 1 pm bus to Granada and I manage to eat a tortilla frances while Jean Michel has some sort of fish. The bus is new and takes 1 ¾ hour to get to Granada. It costs about 23 euro for both of us. From there we take a taxi to our rental accommodation. The sky is bright blue.

A very unwelcoming Spanish woman with minimal English shows us the flat which is arranged on two stories. The two bedrooms (one about the size of a monk’s room) are on the first floor with a patio outside and a bathroom up three and down two steps. Great in the middle of the night! A narrow tiled staircase leads up to a living room and rudimentary kitchen with a large patio outside with a lovely view of the city walls.

None of it feels very warm with a current outside temperature of 10°C predicted to fall below zero during the week.

We unpack our belongings and see that apart from oil and vinegar, the kitchen has nothing else, not even a teapot. The bed doesn’t look wonderful and there is a large round window without a shutter that turns out to be lit by a street light. Sigh.

Our street is called Cuesta Alhacaba which means double hill. All is said. We walk up to the top of the old Albaicin quarter by which time I am completely exhausted of course but I love the houses and Moorish decoration along the way.

We get our first sighting of the famous Alhambra and wander through the gardens of the Palacio de los Cordova. At the bottom of the hill on the other side, we walk along the Darro River until we reach the main thoroughfare.

I’m suddenly hungry so we go into a bar called Minotoro where we order freshly squeezed orange drinks, some slices of goats cheese and what turns out to be French fries with mayonnaise and tomato ketchup on them! Not exactly what I feel like …

Mayonnaise and tomato ketchup French fries

We decide to make our way home so we can have a siesta despite the fact that it’s near 6 pm but I’m feeling pretty exhausted at this point and we still have to climb our double hill to get back.

Church in Albaicin — Colegiata de San Salvador in Albaicin

The house is gradually warming up but I’m still quite cold. It probably hasn’t been heated for a while even though we’ve turned the electric heaters up to maximum. We sleep for an hour or so.

The courtyard of Le Ladrillo where we have dinner — The courtyard of El Ladrillo (the brick?) where we have dinner

Since there are no shops open on Sunday afternoon we still have no food so at about 8 pm (early by Spanish standards) we go looking for dinner. All those great tapas bars that we open during the afternoon are now closed but we eventually find a place called El Ladrillo selling grilled fish. Jean Michel misreads the menu and the waiter’s English is very basic so we end up with a large platter of fried seafood and a mixed salad. I eat the battered octopus pieces and half the salad but am not tempted by the rest.

Before we’re even finished, they’ve closed the kitchen, we’ve already paid and the waiter is whisking away our plates as soon as he can! We walk all the way down the hill for a decaff coffee (I must be crazy) and halfway back again to our cold house. I’m too tired by then to do anything else except go to bed!

Lifestyle

Fighting the Flu

January 27, 2015 Rosemary Kneipp 23 Comments

Very short and sweet, just to say that I am been in the grips of the flu (grippe = flu!) since Saturday afternoon and am desperately hoping I’m going to be better by Saturday when we are leaving for Granada! Fortunately, Jean Michel has only caught a very mild version so has been holding the fort. I finally saw the doctor yesterday (no home visit on offer) but he only told me what I knew – a bad case of flu.

French customs, French language

Friday’s French – service civil, service civique, civil service, fonction publique

January 23, 2015 Rosemary Kneipp 4 Comments

France Info is by far my favourite radio station. I like it because it keeps repeating the news all day so that if you tune off at any time, the same information will soon come round again. I usually listen when I’m cooking or eating by myself. They don’t just do news. They also have regular features such as the meaning of words.

Yesterday, they were talking about the difference between service civil and service civique.

Until it was absolished by Jacques Chirac in 1996, 10 months’ service militaire was compulsory in France for all men over the age of 18 if considered fit. Call-up could be delayed if the conscript was a full-time student in higher education. Conscientious objectors were required to do two years of service civil as opposed to militaire. Nothing to do with our civil service.

Service civil was then replaced by service civique which is voluntary community work open to all young people from 16 to 25. They are paid 573 euros per month for a minimum of 24 hours a week for 6 to 12 months. So service civil no longer exists.

What we call the civil service in Great Britain or the public service in Australia is known as la fonction publique in French. Civil servants are fonctionnaires. Un haut fonctionnaire is a top-ranking civil servant or senior official while un petit fonctionnaire is a minor official.

La fonction publique covers a much broader range of activities than our civil service. There are about three million fonctionnaires (also known as agents de l’Etat). They include teachers, social services staff, post office workers, police officers and employees of the French rail services.

They are recruited by competitive examination and successful candidates are known as titulaires. Because of their almost total job security, they are often stereotyped as having unfair advantages compared to employees in the private sector. It’s certainly easier to get a mortgage or rent an apartment if you’re a fonctionnaire.

Whence expressions such as il a une mentalité de fonctionnaire – he has the mentality of a petty bureaucrat. C’est un vrai fonctionnaire means he’s a petty bureaucrat. Petty of course is a deterioration of the French word “petit”.

Bureaucrate also exists, and is both masculine and feminine. Paperasserie (administrative) is red tape and dates back to the 1500s. Paperasse is paperwork. Which reminds me. I have more forms to fill out. I’m still trying to get my address changed everywhere.

French language, Italy, Loire Valley châteaux, Weekly Blogger Round-Up, Wine

Weekly Blogger Round-Up: Blois Castle – Marsala in Sicily – French Slang for Money

January 21, 2015 Rosemary Kneipp 5 Comments

I have three totally different subjects for this week’s blogger round-up. Susan from Days on the Claise gives us a lively and interesting history of Blois Castle, while Mary Kay from Out and About in Paris takes us to Sicily where she spent New Year in the snow, starting with Marsala. To finish off, Phoebe from Lou Messugo talks about French slang for money. Enjoy!

Things we never said: the château of Blois

by Susan from Days on the Claise, an Australian living in the south of the Loire Valley, writing about restoring an old house and the area and its history and running Loire Valley Time Travel.

Blois is somewhere we drove through many times before we moved to France, as it’s on the road to the Paris airports.

However, until March ’14 we had never visited the chateau, despite knowing that it is somewhere that really repays a visit with many treasures and some good renaissance architecture, both things of which we are particularly fond. So here are some highlights:

The chateau sits in the middle of town. It was purchased by Louis d’Orléans, brother of mad Charles VI, at the end of the 14th century under somewhat scandalous circumstances when he seduced the young wife of the previous owner. His son Charles inherited, but taken prisoner at the battle of Agincourt, he was held in captivity for 25 years. Finally in 1440 he was able to return to Blois, which became his favourite residence. He spent the next 30 years writing poetry and rebuilding the chateau, a reaction to the end of the Hundred Years War that was not untypical of his class. Then to everyone’s amazement, he fathered a son and heir at the age of 71. Read more

Marsala: Pantone’s 2015 Color of the Year, a fortified wine and a town in Sicily

by Mary Kay from Out and About in Paris, an American by birth, Swiss by marriage, resident of Paris with a Navigo Pass for the metro that she feels compelled to use

Marsala. It’s THE current buzz word among fashion and interior designers, make-up artists and graphic designers. Some love it and some hate it. Yet, chances are that you’ll see a lot of this terracotta red shade in 2015. It’s going to be on the catwalks of Paris, the wall of your trendy friend’s apartment and on fashionistas’ lips. Marsala is Pantone’s Color of the Year.

To kick off my series of posts about our recent vacation in Sicily, I thought I would start with a short one about Marsala. This charming town located on the island’s windswept western coast is famous for its glistening white marble streets, stately baroque buildings and fortified wine. Read more

Money, slang, synonyms and all that …

by Phoebe from Lou Messugo, a traveller, francophile, expat, mum and foodie now living in Roquefort les Pins where she runs a gîte after many years of travelling and living in Asia, Eastern Europe and Australia

Something my son said a few days ago got me thinking. He said the word “argent” (money) has the most synonyms in the French language. I can’t vouch that this is an absolute fact as it’s an incredibly hard thing to verify but it would appear to be highly likely from the research I’ve done. Using several dictionaries, Wikipedia and talking to my sons and French friends I’ve come up with a list of 102 words! So even if that’s not the most differences for one little word, it’s certainly a hellava lot. Read more

Lifestyle, Loire Valley, Restaurants, tours

Shopping in the Sales in Tours

January 19, 2015 Rosemary Kneipp 19 Comments

It’s the winter sales in France, which start in mid-January. I’m not a keen shopper at the best of times, nor am I a fashionista, so I prefer to wait for the second week of the sales and hope that prices have dropped have dropped a little further and my size hasn’t disappeared. Jean Michel and I always make a day of it, with a lunch break in the middle.

This is the first year we haven’t been in Paris for the sales. I need several things because my Parisian wardrobe doesn’t correspond to my new life in the country. We usually start with the outlet stores in the north of Paris because that’s where I buy Sym trousers. This year, we’re heading for the neighbouring city of Tours which has a population of about 135,000, as opposed to 50,000 in Blois.

When we start out, it’s quite sunny, but as we drive along the Loire, rain clouds appear and by the time we have parked, we need our umbrellas. Our first destination is the Sym store in rue des Halles. It’s quite small with very little choice. The sales woman tries to insist that the stretch jeans are fine despite my age and it doesn’t matter if the waist gapes – it’s easy to fix. I’m not convinced. In the end, I buy two pairs of jeans that are not on sale. She looks askance when I hand over my outlet store fidelity card by mistake. I’m amused.

Tram n in the main street of Tours, looking very bleak

We continue on our way with little success. I google Aigle and we discover there is a store just next to the car park. We are so used to shopping in outlet stores that we are somewhat surprised by the prices. I find a smart-looking polar/wool cardigan that will be perfect for keeping me warm when I’m translating (there is a big difference between 23°C in our Parisian flat and 19.5°C in our 400 year old house when you’re sitting for long hours at a computer).

Jean Michel also finds a shirt there, by which time we’re ready for a lunch break. The rain is still pouring down so we make our way towards rue Colbert which we noticed on a previous occasion as having lots of restaurants. Quite a few are closed, however, for January, the slowest month for tourism, and we are beginning to despair when we reach the end of the street and I see a place serving mussels called La Pêche aux Moules

The mussel restaurant from the inside — La Pêche aux Moules fom the inside

On the whole, I like to order food in restaurants that I don’t make myself, so moules marinières and French fries seem perfect. The gaily striped tablecloths are inviting and we decide on snails for starters. I can’t remember the last time I ordered them. They are disappointing however and no doubt deep-frozen. The mussels and chips are good though and having fasted the day before, we can indulge ourselves without guilt.

After coffee, we head for a men’s store recommended to us last time as Jean Michel needs two pairs of fine corduroy trousers. On the way we walk into an arcade and to my amazement I see a Mary Kimberly store. This is where I have been buying all my blouses, both summer and winter, for the last 15 years. I had looked on the web but only found one in Orleans.

I’m delighted because I also find a zip-up cardigan for half the price of the one at Aigle and a boiled wool jacket to go with jeans. I only discovered boiled wool last year and I’m hooked. It’s soft and stretchy but keeps its shape and is washable.

In my boiled wool jacket in La Cigale in Nantes

We traipse round Galeries Lafayette for Jean Michel’s cords, to no avail. I dislike department stores immensely. They never have what I want and they’re always overheated. They don’t even have any decent socks …

We go past the town hall, which has a sign up saying “I prefer to die standing up rather than live on my knees” in honour of Stéphane Charbonnier, alias Charb, French satirical cartoonist and journalist who was one of the victims of the terrorist shootings that took place in the office of the newspaper Charlie Hebdo on 7th January 2015. We notice a lot of Je suis Charlie signs in shop windows as well.

Town hall in Tours with its Charlie Hebdo banner

Jean Michel eventually finds one pair of cords, but not in the recommended store. By then, it’s time for a cup of tea. As we’re leaving we pass a kitchen store and Jean Michel picks up a very large Le Creuset cast iron pot surprisingly on sale. He’s been looking for one for some time, he tells me.

We’re still missing one pair of cords, socks for me and an anorak for Jean Michel. I google outlet stores in Tours and find an address in Chambray-les-Tours, on the outskirts of the city. We then go on a wild-goose chase through the pouring rain. I don’t know where they have disappeared, but the outlet stores are nowhere to be found. We see a Décathlon and I pick up some rubber tips for my Nordic walking sticks.

By the time we get home, which is an hour’s drive, we’ve had enough shopping! I put some of Jean Michel’s deep-frozen veal stew in the micro-wave, spread some goose rillettes on Tuc biscuits, slice some wild boar sausage and we are soon in front of the fire with a glass of our favourite gewürtztraminer from Alsace. Who wants socks anyway?

French language

Friday’s French – Retraite, retrait, pension

January 16, 2015 Rosemary Kneipp 7 Comments

I thought that it might be appropriate at the moment to deal with the term retraite in French which means retirement. A similar word is retrait meaning withdrawal as in un retrait d’argent – a cash withdrawal.

So retraite sort of means withdrawing from one’s working life and, from what I gather, suffering from withdrawal symptoms … Now having withdrawal symptoms in a drug or alcohol situation is expressed in French as être en état de manque where manque literally means something missing.

And that is definitely what Jean Michel is experiencing – something vital is missing from his life – the recognition and power of a managerial position and I’m not much of a substitute!

Retraite doesn’t only mean the act of retirement, but also the money you receive when you retire. Il a une bonne retraite : he has a good pension, as opposed to une petite retraite. You can also say une pension de retraite. Otherwise pension is used in French in the same way as in English e.g. une pension de guerre (a war pension), une pension d’invalidité (a disablement pension), une pension réversible or de réversion (a survivor’s pension).

A retiree or pensioner is un retraité ou un travailleur en retraite. Compulsory retirement is mise à la retraite (which sort of sounds like putting out to pasture) and to retire is prendre sa retraite. If you go into early retirement, it’s prendre une retraite anticipée.

But we’re not finished with retraite yet. It also means a retreat as in a retreating army : une armée en retraite. To beat a retreat is battre en retraite.

It can also be a wolf’s lair or a thieves’ hideout and a chemin de retraite is a path of escape. I like that one. I feel like I need one sometimes.

A retreat in the religious sense is also une retraite, in which case we say faire or suivre une retraite.

And just to go back to retrait, there are a couple of other meanings such as ebb and retreat as in retreating waters.

Not to mention the shrinkage of cement and fabric.

Do you have any other examples of retraite, retrait or pension?

Aussie in France