Let me tell you about dinner last night. We drove down to the beach, for yet another Mediterranean meal and found a place called La Bourride. To be quite honest, I don’t know whether this was a highly rated restaurant or not. All I know is that we had a fabulous meal – the best on our entire trip. If you’ve been following this blog then you know we’ve eaten pretty well. So when I say this was the best, that’s noteworthy.
We started off with Tattinger Champagne aperitifs and chose the menu for 39 Euros, which was an excellent deal given the average 35-40 Euros price for just main dishes. Dawn had a scallop and gambas entrée and I had duck foie gras – surprise! For main dish we had the same thing – the duo of fresh fish, dourade & rougette on risotto. Dessert was a chocolate fondant gateaux for Dawn & I had a carmelized apple dessert on shortbread. As we sat looking down the beach towards an ultra modern apartment complex in Villeneuve, we thought we were in heaven.
We went down for breakfast on our last day in France. C’est domage! As we sat with Marie Paul, her husband and another visiting couple, we started discussing plans for the day. At that point, we realized we really didn’t have any. They recommended a perched village nearby called Biot. How is it we’d never heard of this place? Suddenly we had plans for the day.
Do perched villages ever grow tiring? Possibly, after the number we’ve been to on this trip. I’ve mentioned before that often the most impressive aspect of these villages is the view from a distance. When you start exploring them internally, they start to look very much alike. I don’t know. Maybe we’re getting jaundiced. Maybe we need to go home. Oh, I forgot. We’re going home tomorrow. Again – quel domage! Sorry, by the way if my French spellings aren’t 100% correct. I’m trying, OK?
Anyway, back to Biot. The nicest thing about this place verses say an Eze, Gordes or even Saignon, was the total lack of tourists. Because it’s famous for blown glass, it does get its share of visitors, but apparently not today. This was a nice way to wean ourselves off perched villages. St. Jacobs doesn’t exactly qualify.
Continuing today’s itinerary, we wandered through Antibes and then drove down the Cote d’Azur towards Nice. The wind was up so there were numerous kite surfers showing off along the beach. You really need to do this drive to appreciate why this is called the Cote d’Azur.
We continued on to the Cap 3000 in St. Laurent du Var, a huge shopping mall with a Galeries LaFayette. We finally got Dawn some new jeans and then we picked a couple of little quiche-type tarts, two gateaux St. Honare and a bottle of Auxey-Durress for lunch. We chose to hang at our mini-resort for the afternoon, eating on the terrace and then getting serious about packing. It turned out that weight is not an issue on this trip. Hallelujah!
We’ve had one fabulous month in France! Little more can be said. We are already anticipating our next visit. So, for now, it’s a bientot from France!
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