Days 14 & 15 – Immersion is a perfect fit for us

Thursday morning arrived and we were ready to relax. The housekeeper visits today and we have no travel plans for the day. We are just going to hang out in town today and then have a nice dinner in the evening.

It may seem like we have built in many rest days and we have. That was the plan and it is working out great. We did not want to be running to a different tourist spot every day. Instead, we wanted to blend in and do everyday things like go to the market, stop at the boulangerie in the morning for fresh bread and sweets, grab a coffee or glass of wine at a cafe and just ‘be’.

We had a great time with our friends Nancy and Michael. They bought into our plan to just ‘be’ in Chablis. We took a couple of rides into the vineyards, took a couple of wine tasting tours, enjoyed the little tourist train, went out to dinners and relaxed at home. It was enjoyable to do things and to just spend some quality time together laughing and talking.

Weather permitting, we have some additional locations that we want to visit. Castles, chateaux and small towns that seem to be beckoning us will be honored with a visit.

Anyway, back to Thursday. The housekeeper arrived and spruced the place up a bit. She is a very pleasant young woman who after exchanging pleasantries, gets right to work and does so enthusiastically. Pillows and couch cushions get fluffed, carpets get vacuumed, furniture gets dusted and windows cleaned. We try to move around to stay out of her way, so as not to impede her progress.

With the house all clean and fresh, Sue and I walked over to the boulangerie to get a sandwich and a sweet treat. Even with a line ahead of us, the woman greeted us and gave us a big smile when we walked in. I think she is still confused as to who is actually my wife, since Nancy and I made a couple of breakfast runs together. The point is we feel like part of the town – even if they are just humoring us.

We returned home to eat our simple little lunch. It wasn’t fancy, but it was good! We washed down our meal with big glasses of water. We need to step up our fluid intake (besides wine) – especially since the next few days will once again be over 80 degrees.

For the afternoon, we had the windows wide open and just enjoyed the fresh air on this beautiful day. We have been pretty lucky with the weather so far, there’s been a little rain, but nothing terrible. The temperatures have been between 65 and 85 degrees and just a bit of wind at different times. However, the week ahead is supposed to be rainy and much chillier. We will just wait and see how that plays out.

Dinner time rolled around and we had reservations back at Au Fil du Zinc. Since it is not the weekend, they have a simpler ‘entrée-main-dessert’ menu that sounded good. We tried another Morey-Saint-Denis red burgundy. This one was a 2018 Les Broc from David Duband.

They started the meal with an amuse bouche, after which we both had the ‘carrots three ways’ as our starter. Carrots with black curry, marigold and sea buckthorn, plus carrot sorbet and a carrot compote.

Our main course was a delicious roast duckling. It was prepared as a seared breast portion along with a shredded leg meat “meatball”. It was awesome and perfect with the wine. In fact, it looked and smelled so good that we finished it before I realized I hadn’t taken a photo. Bad for the blog, but a nod to the chef for a creation that you just wanted to savor.

Dessert was a creamy gorgonzola cheese with sliced figs, a port wine reduction, a steamed ‘bun’ with crushed nuts and tonka beans.

It was a scrumptious meal and we left without feeling stuffed. We took the short walk back to the house and let the meal settle before heading up to bed for the evening.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Friday morning sunshine was streaming through the windows when we awoke, but it was still warming up the chilly overnight air. Nothing that a nice warm shower couldn’t conquer – and it did! Sue followed after me and we were ready and raring to go for the day.

We started with a little walk and found our way over to the boulangerie. On this day, there were several older women ahead of us, all getting their fresh baguettes. We scored a big smile when we let another woman go ahead of us, since we then had more of a chance to ‘talk’ with the proprietor woman. We ordered our baguette and sandwiches, then peeked at the pastries. Sue ordered a palmier and when I once again ordered my tigrès, Sue and the proprietress pretended to be ‘surprised’ and we all had a chuckle. We paid for our goodies and with an ‘au revoir’, we were on our way.

Once back home, we had our lunch. Sue’s sandwich was the same as yesterday, a feuilletés jambon fromage. After finally pronouncing it correctly, I felt I needed to move on. So for me, I had a bagnat poulet. It was a chicken sandwich with slices of tomato, onion, egg and red bell peppers and a touch of vinaigrette all on a brioche roll. Winner, winner chicken dinner!

There seemed to be a tad more traffic than usual in town – especially more trucks than we’ve seen since the harvest. We are not on a highway, but notice when there is a bump-up in traffic in the otherwise quiet town.

We were originally planning to go to Guédelon Castle, but decided to wait until Saturday. The hot weather did not sound like something we wanted to walk around in and Saturday was supposed to be a tad cooler – though still nice.

We were surprised by the number of people visiting Chablis this afternoon. There was a large tour bus that dropped off a bunch of people and then we saw two more vans full of people a while later. We just laughed and thought that there must have been a coupon.

It’s funny…when we open the gate or driveway entrance door on the front privacy fence, there are always people rubber-necking to see what’s behind the ‘mystery doors’. Sorry… no celebrities or sports stars – it’s just us.

Neither of us were overly hungry this evening. We decided to just stay in and munch on some of the goodies that we have at home. I figured out the television connection and we watched a couple of YouTube videos. We wanted to get up earlier on Saturday to visit the castle, so this was perfect.