Slightly Whirled – A Traveler's Tales

Day 6 & 7 – The walks, the talks, the sites and the meals!

Wednesday arrived and a check of our schedule showed that it was a free day. No rushing anywhere and only dinner reservations in the evening. We made our daily pilgrimage to the boulangerie to get some fresh breakfast goodies. The woman greets us like old friends when we walk in, and we transact our business in French. We don’t tie up the line, we know what we want and we don’t dilly-dally. We even get smiles from some of the other customers that feel like an acknowledgement for our efforts.

We hurried back home with our goodies to share for breakfast. Today we bought a slice of flan, two more tigrès, four choquettes, a kouign-amann and some madelines. Everything is freshly baked, incredibly delicious and the prices are extremely reasonable. Our typical breakfasts are only costing about 13 euro in total.

After enjoying our leisurely breakfast, we decided to take a little walk. We strolled along the river, then crossed the street to continue downstream. The river branches off with a smaller section that funnels down as it rushes past a building that was formerly a grain mill. This little branch then reunites with the river just beyond the mill area. It looks pretty and sounds cool with the rushing water.

There is an alley that you can use to cut up to the street, which we took. From the street we zig-zagged through some small residential lanes and made our way over to the Saint Martin’s Collegiale and the Obediencerie (we’ll talk about the Obediencerie later).

In case you’re wondering, you might look and say that Saint Martin is a cathedral, but it is only considered a collegiate church. The difference is church politics. Saint Martin’s didn’t have a seated Bishop, so it wasn’t considered as a cathedral. The relics of Saint Martin were stored here at one time, however they are now kept in the city of Tours.

The 13th century church of Saint Martin features some beautiful stained glass windows and a 16th century organ. We walked through the church and found it to be simple, but spiritual. A place for prayer and reflection, rather than a museum filled with artwork and statues. We lit a candle and then made our way out.

Another item of note are the many horseshoes nailed to the door from people seeking church blessings, prayers and good luck in their lives.

From the church, we continued on until we reached the main street in town. The sidewalks were fairly empty on our way back home. Though it is harvest time, it doesn’t really seem to be a high tourist time. Perhaps the weekend will bring in more folks.

Back home, we had some time to relax before dinner. Tonight we are returning to Les Trois Bourgeons.

The walk over to the restaurant is only about 5 minutes. We arrived just a couple of minutes before they opened the doors and didn’t even press our noses against the glass while waiting. The hostess was pleased that we had returned and sat us at the same table. She brought us an amuse-bouche and then took our orders.

Though it is really just a two-person operation, the chef keeps the meals rolling out and the hostess-server tends to the front. It’s smooth, no long waiting times and always friendly.

Michael and I ordered the fixed menu, while the girls ordered ala-carte. Michael had the Oeufs meurette, which are like poached eggs in a wine sauce. I had the escargot. Then all four of us had the boeuf bourguignon for our meal. By meals end, there was not a drop to be found and the bread also disappeared as we all mopped up as much of the sauce as possible.

For dessert, Sue and I had the cheese plate and Michael had the peach cake. Everything was delicious and we definitely will be returning during our time here.

We took a nice walk back to the house and then hung out for a while before bedtime.

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When the sun came up, we were ending our first week here. I can’t believe how fast the time has gone.

Like a Beatles tune, “I woke up, got out of bed and dragged a comb across my head…”

Then the fun started. Sue and I walked over to the boulangerie and we picked up our breakfast goodies. The woman now recognizes us and we feel like regulars. She remembered our favorite tigres and the flan natural and then waited for our additional items. We paid, smiled and said “à demain” as we headed back to the house.

Nancy and Michael were dressed and ready to roll, so we sat down and ate our breakfast. Once again, everything was delicious.

We cleaned up the dishes and then readied ourselves for today’s outing. We had an appointment for a wine tasting at Domaine Laroche.

We started the tour at the Laroche Boutique. There were eight of us in the group: our four plus two other couples. Our tour guide was Registe and he was both informative and entertaining. We started out with a walk over to the Obediencerie. It’s located behind the church of Saint Martin and way back when, it was both the monastery and the place where the monks made and stored their wine.

After learning about the history of the Obediencerie, we ventured inside to see the barrel storage rooms and aging rooms. It was interesting to see the wines that have recently been moved to the barrels. You could actually hear them fizzing as the yeast was doing its job. One of the techs was doing some work testing the acidity and sugar levels of the barrels as we were passing through. In the aging caves, which date back to the 9th and 10th century, there were some barrels of Grand Crus that just wanted to come home with us….but alas, they could not.

We then moved into another room where we saw the ancient wine press. They say it dates back to somewhere between 13th and 15th century. It is still used for ceremonial purposes every so often. After talking about the press, we were shown a short movie about the life of Saint Martin.

Once the movie ended, we headed back over to the boutique for our tasting. We tasted a total of six wines – a chablis, two premier crus and two grand crus. In addition, he brought out another older vintage 2012 Vaudesir. All of the wines were delicious and it was a special treat to try the older vintage.

We walked back home, talked about the tour and tasting, relaxed and then prepared for dinner.

Dinner was at a restaurant called Kimm & Ridge. It was a pleasant place with about fifteen tables. We had 7:30 reservations, so it wasn’t busy when we arrived. We ordered our food and wine and in no time at all, we were being served.

We kept it simple with an entrée and dessert, as we’ve been eating bigger meals throughout the week. Everyone tried something different and we all enjoyed the meal. As seen above, my meal was a nice grilled salmon and an il flottante (floating island) for dessert. Sue also had the salmon, Nancy a salad with warm goat cheese and bacon and Michael had a grilled pork dish with a delicious sauce. The trio of desserts are above – my il flottante, Sue’s pistachio creme brulée and Michael and Nancy’s fruit pavlova. We really enjoyed a bottle of 2020 Domaine Pattes Loup – Premier Cru Beauregard with our meals.

I know I sound like a broken record…however, it was another excellent meal.

We took a slow walk home, enjoying the evening air and then enjoyed the remainder of the evening chatting and laughing.