Monday night was a casual dinner in St Remy de Provence at a restaurant called La Gousse Ail. The French certainly have a way of creating very appealing restaurant environments. Sitting in the courtyard below a canopy of vines we had a good French bistro style meal.
Tuesday was a relaxing day at the house followed by an extraordinarily good meal at Chateau d’Alpille. Set in the gardens of a grand hotel it was a wonderful combination of surroundings, service, food, and of course company. Smoked salmon, dorade fish and homemade sorbets hit the spot with me. Certainly one to recommend.
Wednesday I decided to cook dinner again. We drove 20 minutes to the HypeMarche at Avignon which was an experience in itself. The packaged goods section was OK at best but the fresh food selection was quite unbelievable – cheeses, produce, dairy, meat and fish provided an excellent choice. I opted for fresh prawns for entree, gnocchi gorgonzola, mushroom/bean sprouts and corn to accompany the coconut/lime marinated and baked fish for main course. That all went well but only one more day in paradise.
Thursday morning and Danielle, Vivien and I went to Aix-en-Provence. This is one of my favourite towns around this part. It has a wonderful integration of modern life into the historical parts of a very beautiful town. Danielle and I took the mini train tour of the town which gave us an excellent overview of the history and development of the town.
That evening we went to Mas Tourtoron – a Michelin rated restaurant. Before going to the restaurant we drove in and around Gordes a wonderful small mountain village. It is interesting to again see how much the church must have dominated village life in France with the Abby once again sitting atop the village.
Entering the restaurant through a canopy vines and being seated at an outside table within a wonderland of trees and gardens it seemed we were in for something special. Unfortunately it was the wrong type of special – nobody approached us for about 30 minutes and it was only after 40 minutes that we managed to place a wine order. When we asked the waiter to take our order and I asked him whether he spoke English he answered “perhaps”. Anyway we ascertained that he did. The menu was exceptionally tricky with three entrees of which I am guessing the entire restaurant ordered the same one – prawns with a gazpacho and avocado base accompanied by calamari and salad –very good indeed.
For mains the choices were pigeon, stuffed vegetables or a mixture of fish in a cream sauce. I opted for the latter and it was just “OK”.
The cheese plate was excellent but the best of the meal was best to come. A wonderful selection of desserts buffet style. The waitress ushering you around and serving you whatever you wanted. I ordered a piece of Creme de Catalan and when Danielle saw it she said “wow I have cut bigger pieces to straighten a cake” but you were allowed repeated visits so no problems there.
Friday morning we left early for Nice and our flight to Berlin. Usual crap – plane an hour late, wait forever for the luggage, walk 500 metres to the train yada yada yada. Arrive in our hotel in Berlin which is very comfortable indeed. We head off for a restaurant called Kadima which figures a star of David in the advert – hmm thinks me some Matzoh Ball Soup and chopped liver – guess again. It was a mid to upmarket restaurant with a touch of Jewishness in the menu – Danz had the chicken consome which I would rate as one of the tastiest chicken soups I have eaten followed by a summer salad while opted for the potato and leek soup with chantarelle mushrooms followed by gefilte fish both of which were excellent. Back to the hotel and half way through the walk back forced to get a taxi by the rain.
Next morning we had all sorts of plans but first up we went to Starbucks for coffee. Now you may think that Europe should have good coffee with Italy at the heart of it but let me tell you that finding a good coffee in Europe is a task of unbelievable proportions. The main problem here is that they don’t maintain their machines very well – backwash them daily and chemically treat them weekly. This results in a bitter acidy taste to the coffee as the acid builds up in the machine parts. Finally they either like their coffee weak or just seem to make it that way. So Starbucks, which I confess to finding quite OK, becomes a good option.
Anyway that choice proves sound when we discover that we can hire bikes next door. Mind you at €12 for 24 hours for the most basic of bikes that I suspect you could buy at KMart for €100 it isn’t cheap. Being a flat city this works well here just like Paris. Our first mission was about 5kms away – a Dali exhibition. Past Checkpoint Charlie and the Brandenburg Gate we find our target. Now I do love Dali and this exhibition was no disappointment. Two floors of wall to wall Dali paintings, sketches, statuettes etc. I ascertained that it was a private exhibition of works owned by a German Company supplemented by borrowed pieces as well. Anyway well worth a visit.
Afterwards we visited DeKeWa, reputedly the largest department store in Europe. My guide, Danielle insisted that we must go to the 6th floor gourmet section and how right she was. This place made Harrods look like a soup kitchen for the homeless. There were any number of counter style restaurants – we opted for the sausage menu of currywurst, bratwurst, weisswurst etc – excellent and again recommended. For Nachspeise we bought some Lenotre desserts to accompany an EXCELLENT Lavazza coffee. A little more shopping at Peek and Cloppenberg where I secured some polos I had been searching for and a most unusual happening. I often struggle to use my American Express card with many establishments not willing to accept them – this store ONLY accepts Amex!!! Go figure.
When we arrived at the HBH or main railway station we noticed a large commercial element of shops etc. so we drove past the Reichstag to the HBH for a schmooze and then to the hotel for a relaxation before dinner.
I must say that I am quite impressed with Berlin as a city. It is clean, the people are VERY friendly, it has a wonderful ambience and mixture of old and new throughout. This feeling is heightened when we go to dinner. When we went out last night we noticed that the rest of the street was very buzzy, lined with restaurants most of which were bars as well so we opted to go back there and find somewhere to eat. A northern Indian restaurant caught our eye and we had an excellent meal there. Prices are noticeably less than France or England with a one entree and two very generous mains plus one soft drink meal costing €25 or $A40 a price hard to achieve elsewhere – this reinforced something we discovered when we travelled to Germany in 2006 for the World Cup Soccer.
On the bike ride back to the hotel Danielle and I managed to lose each other but caught up at the hotel. We worked out that we had cycled around 23kms that day but I was still suffering numbumitis as Danielle called it and very sore legs as I called that.
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