D is for Design: half-timbered houses of Normandy

Our early walk for baguettes this morning took us past the old wooden and stucco houses of Orbec, a Calvados County village.

The style of half-timbered houses in Normandy dates back to the middle ages from the late 15th century to the early 19th century.

The design, colour and texture of the walls makes me want to design and make a  quilt - maybe one day my quilt group back home will help me!

V is for Vaches: 'a lunettes' in Normandy

Famous Normandy cows - vache a lunettes 

Ratisfaite, the statue in Vimoutiers, celebrating the Norman breed of cows whose rich milk makes the famous Camembert cheese.

There was no question I had to find one of these fabulous brown and white Normandy cows milked for Camembert!

So Sally spent an hour driving up and down little rural roads to find the perfect 'vaches a lunettes' for Fred to photograph.
Cows with glasses! Yay!

The real thing in a field near Friardel.

C is for Camembert: a Normandy village with a story

Visiting Camembert, a village, cheese legends and the museum "Maison du Camembert"

The tiny village of Camembert is not far from John and Sally so we spent an afternoon learning all about this iconic French cheese.
According to legend, Marie Harel, a farmer in the village developed the definitive recipe in 1791! Such an interesting story linking a priest from the region of Brie who she sheltered and from whom she learnt about cheese, to the role of Napoleon III in making camembert famous and then during WWI, a million boxes a month sent to the French soldiers. And now the most famous of all French cheeses.
We tasted, bought gold award 'lait cru' camenbert for dinner, so yummy.

M is for Memories; time with John and Sally.

"Excepts from Memory by David Whyte:

Memory is not just a then, recalled in a now, the past is never just the past, memory is a pulse passing through all created life, a waveform, a then continually becoming other thens, all the while creating a continual but almost untouchable now. 

Memory is an invitation to the source of our life, to a fuller participation in the now, to a future about to happen, but ultimately to a frontier identity that holds them all at once. Memory makes the now fully inhabitable.

The genius of human memory is firstly its very creation through experience, and then the way it is laid down in the mind according to the identity we inhabited when we first decided to remember, then its outward radiating effect and then all its possible future outcomes, occurring all at the same time...how we live the story we have inherited. 

We can be equal to the story we have inherited, no matter its difficulty, by stepping into its very centre."

One of my letters from France written to my mother in 1986 - Sally is fetching me to take me across to Mme Brimaud, we rented her home in Marly-le-Roi. Sally features in so many of my memories of those years we lived here in France.

Here I am, visiting John and Sally, friends from our years here in France.

John and Fred had met through Telemecanique while Fred still worked for the firm in South Africa, so when we arrived in Paris in 1986, John and Sally helped us through the settling in and we got to know each other well.

How I love the flow of memories from our times together and also the story telling to bridge all these years and how life has played out for all of us.

Friendships, 30 year memory, Paris - Andrea, me and Sally, 1986.

And here we are today, around a lunch table, in a quiet corner of Normandy, how lovely:

A is for Angers: the 13th C Citadel

Massive and austere, the Chateau d'Angers dominates the city of Angers.

We walked around the citadel and marvelled at man's patience, this is a mountain of stone work and in two tones.

People have lived here since Neolithic times, making a safe place to live on a rocky knoll above the Maine River. This fortress takes safe to another level, 3 meter thick walls, a deep moat, and protected by 17 towers!

And these towers were reduced in height in the 16th C when Henry III used the stones to build the village and pave the streets of Angers.

Early evening view of the Chateau d'Angers.

S is for a Cold Soup: Honeydew and Cucumber Soup

Cold Honeydew and Cucumber Soup. 

A  blend of melon, cucumber, lime and a drizzle of basil oil and black pepper, it was the most refreshing and delicately flavoured cold soup I have yet experienced. 

A thing of beauty from Les Petites Tables in Manosques.

I am going to trawl and find recipes to test until I can replicate the soup - thinking ahead to Christmas!

C is for a Chateau: Plessis-Bourre, Maine-et-Loire

Built between 1468 and 1473, Chateau Le Plessis-Bourre is a hidden gem in the Maine-et-Loire, reflecting both the end of the Medieval period building style and the dawning of the Renaissance architectural style along the Loire.

Off the beaten track, in a tranquil setting, it was a lovely way to start our day. We have driven across France, from the hot, hazy days in Province to the Maine-et-Loire region, just north of Angers.

The weather here is cooler, crisper and the buildings are imposing and glow white with blue slate roofs.

The Chateau is privately owned and used as a place for displaying some impressive collections of furniture, art and books. We enjoyed the tour, especially seeing an original chateau door from the 15th C with all sorts of secret carvings and encoded messages - alchemy and royalty woven together by Jean Bourre who was Louis XI's Finance Minister.

This was a place of intrigue at the highest levels.

M is for Mt Ventoux: another 30 year memory

Fred and I so enjoy watching the Tour de France each year and Mt Ventoux in Province is one of the outstanding challenges that face the cyclists,  it is known as the Beast of Province.

It is windy, bald, bleak and coming back after 30 years it is still a remarkable giant of a mountain at 1912m and I am in awe of anyone running or cycling up its steep switchbacks.
Even sitting in the car tired me out.

Summit in sight on Mt Ventoux.

M is Manosque: the home of L'Occitane

L'Occitane, Manosque. Boutique, factory and museum and garden.

This wonderful brand has become a firm favourite. I first came across the shea butter range, especially the hand cream, when Shawni and I flew across to Australia some years back and L'Occitane was the business class hand-out.

So I went searching for where I could find the story of this French company, seeing that I was in Province. And find it I did, it was our first destination this morning. A museum telling the story of the 40 years, a huge factory. Learning that the face cream I like - Immortelle, the bright yellow everlasting flower, is a crop from Corsica; my almond cream, the almond trees come from around Manosque on the Valensole Plateau.

Subtle pleasure indeed and a bag full of purchases.

Shopping and loving the L'Occitane success story.

F is for Fields of Lavender: Haute Province

We have packed up and left the Alpes-Maritime and the wish for the road trip today was to see fields of lavender.

The harvesting starts from mid-July but the season ends late August, so off we went, firstly to the famed Valensole Plateau, at 500m in the Haute Province, where the fields are legendary.

But harvesting had happened, we saw the rounded but very green remains of the shrubs. We did see some very young bushes though but the effect is not the same.

Breathing lightly through disappointment we moved on.

As it happens and when least expected, en route to Mont Ventoux, the lavender was still in full bloom around Sault!

Beautiful.
Iconic.
Haute Province.
Happy.

P is for Plage: finding spots to swim along the Cote d'Azur

First attempt...

Peak season, summer heat, loads of people, traffic and we headed out to be part of the beach scene,
even given that I was nervous, as this is a list that does not fit well with me! It all went just fine, not too much agro between driver and navigator....

First off we tried the sandy beaches just beyond Cannes, quick swim and we moved on.

I remembered reading that the rocky alcoves, with stairs, are usually quieter and we drove towards St Raphael and found our next stop  - even with pebbles it was a great swim.

Things looking up....

Beach number 3, 150 steps down, was just beautiful, water a gorgeous colour and so warm in the late afternoon. Hands down the pebble beaches are my favourite, even if they are hard on my feet. A special memory and a good way to close off this leg of our holiday.

A beautiful alcove along the Cote d'Azur

Lunch with a view!

We stopped awhile for lunch at the roadside La Cabane, en route to St Raphael, with this magnificent view, and laughed at the goings on at Chez Monique - 3 women running (literally) the kitchen, bar and front of house with lots of theatrics, plates of Steak Tartare flying out of the kitchen.... We kept to our usual, goats cheese salad and a pitcher of wine and were in awe of the locals eating their mounds of raw steak. 

F is for Fragrant: wild lavender and thyme in Province

Wild lavender along our path.

Gentle violet colours, echoes of the shutters in the villages we have been visiting.

Even though we are at the height of summer here in the south east of France, there was still a profusion of wildflowers along our hiking path today.

A little gem surviving the dry, hot summer.

Fred takes real pleasure in photographing flowers so this was an unexpected treat for him.

What I loved the most was the fragrant wild lavender and thyme - herbes de province waiting for the picking!

The lavender bushes got smaller and smaller as we climbed. Once we crested to the dry plateau, they were miniatures of themselves and certainly look nothing like the cultivated fields of lavender. But their fragrance is heady.

The yellow route marker, peeping through the wildflowers on the mountain.

R is for Randonnee Panaromique: a hike in the Moyen Pays of Province

The joy of being on a path, hiking the Circuit de Vieriou.

Another country and another opportunity to be on a path!

We chose a hike in the Moyen Pays of Province today. The route is rated average, climbing and  then descending 480m from the village of Coursegoule. We spent about 4 hours on the paths with switchbacks taking us up onto the Crete du Cheiron, along the crest and then back down via the Bastide de Vieriou to the village.

A fabulous morning; clear, crisp fresh mountain air to walk in with endless vistas. Very special.

Our destination, the Crete du Cherion, from the village of Coursegoule.
The beautiful terraces no longer used for lavender but for grazing crops.

The Chapelle St-Michel, XI century and almost untouched all these years.
Our destination looming in the background

The village of Coursegoule from the Col de Coursegoule, our highpoint at 1424m along the hike.

Magnificent views across the Moyen Pays as well as across to the Alps.

Switchbacks. Not easy walking, rocky, boulders and lots of loose stones.