This post originally featured on Maison Cupcake.
I have hankered after a proper look around the Cite Europe complex at Calais for a couple of years. Whenever I’ve been past, I’ve been short of time or cruelly taunted by French Sunday trading hours.
To make things worse, I’ve even stayed in hotels just across the road but not been able to convince my husband to delay our journey south in order for me to get my shopping fix.
So this weekend I was determined to put this right….
These Christmassy photos from a December trip to Belgium originally featured on Maison Cupcake.
The great thing about a weekend getaway to Brussels is that the hotels are such good value.
As the centre of the European Parliament, the hotels are expensive during the week when all the bureaucrats are about. Come Saturday night they’ve all gone home and the hotels are selling off their rooms very cheaply.
That’s not to say Brussels isn’t a place for tourists, December especially sees the streets surrounding the Grand Place filled with atmospheric Christmas Markets.
You can get a very good four star hotel room in the centre of Brussels for under £100 per night including breakfast, we booked Hotel Windsor using lastminute.com. We had driven from the UK and parked overnight in an underground car park near the Grand Place for around 12 euros.
This was 4 years ago now but I have been researching trips to Belgium more recently and know this hotel at weekend would be phenomenally good value even now. Bruges on the other hand, is very pricey, very difficult to book at weekends near Christmas since its proximity to Calais makes it very busy for “booze cruisers”.
Brussels is worth the extra hour’s drive. We were able to leave Brussels at around 4pm on Sunday and using Eurotunnel still be home for a reasonable 9pm and not be too tired for work the following day.
In the hotel lobby, we were captivated by this village of gingerbread houses. I vowed to make one myself but to this day have not yet managed to do so.
Aren’t they gorgeous?
The lobby was filled with smell of gingerbread, it was so welcoming. I think these are the best gingerbread houses I have ever seen.
As a food blogger, taking this many pictures would be normal but this was a long time before so that gives you an idea what an impression they made on me!
This post originally featured on Maison Cupcake.
Ghent is famous for it’s architecture and canals. It was a bright day in January and the sun was very low in the sky making photos difficult. I took these pictures long before my days as a blogger so they are very different to what I might try to capture now.
The canal was so still you could see the buildings almost reflected perfectly in the water. Everyone seemed to be on bikes.
Looking up, there were lots of pretty shutters and windows. We drank Kriek (Cherry Beer) in a bar and ate crepes with chocolate sauce in a cafe.
If you are visiting Belgium, I would recommend a daytrip to Ghent. I’ve not been to Bruges but heard that it is incredibly crowded. Ghent is a quieter alternative but still has plenty to look at.
One thing confused us though. All the shops still had Christmas displays and in the streets the trees and decorations were still up. Didn’t anyone tell them it was mid January?!
This post originally featured on Maison Cupcake.com.
L’Ile de Ré is a thin sliver of land off the west coast of France near La Rochelle. Accessible only by an expensive toll bridge, the island is a popular place for holiday makers as well as for Parisians, French celebrities and politicians to buy second homes.
Ré vie (translation: Ré life) is very close to rêvie, the French for “dream”. This is highly appropriate….
This summary of 3 places to stay in St Remy de Provence first featured on Maison Cupcake.com
Too sick to to cook this week, I am taking you a weekend mini break in my favourite town on earth, St-Rémy-de-Provence. >As you might expect by the name, St Rémy is at the heart of Provence, southern France around 20km between Avignon and Arles. It has been home to Romans, Nostradamus, Van Gogh and Princess Caroline of Monaco. With chic hotels, shops and restaurants, St Rémy has an upmarket Parisien air. I have been fortunate enough to stay there around half a dozen times in the past twelve years and have watched it become even more well-to-do in that time. That’s not to say that it isn’t friendly or welcoming. No St Tropez snobbishness or disdain here. St Rémy is very down to earth and there are still a few scruffy buildings waiting to be renovated… but you’d better be quick!
Small but perfectly formed, St Rémy forms a tightly packed circle around a single plane tree lined boulevard. With 10,000 inhabitants yet stuffed with maybe fifty restaurants, it is clear that food is high on people’s priorities here. The Wednesday market draws a huge crowd each week. >Our most recent visit was for 2 nights in September this year. I can show you round the hotel where we stayed and let you know about a couple of other places we have stopped in before. In a future post I will show you some places we visited nearby such as the Sunday Antique Fair at L’Isle sur la Sorgue.
The garden at Hotel Les Ateliers de l’image >We returned to one of our honeymoon hotels; Les Ateliers de l’image. Initially a quirky three star hotel built in the shell of the town’s old cinema that made it onto the pages of the popular boutique Hip Hotels guide. The name means “Photography Workshop” and the hotel runs bespoke photography courses for groups. The owners later expanded the hotel into the long derelict Hotel de Provence on the nearby main boulevard around the town. With the large new wing came an expansive garden and new luxury facilities; suites, a larger pool, a sushi restaurant, even a tree house.
We stayed in a room like this. Standard rooms are from 165€ per night.
(Photo reproduced with permission of Hotel Les Ateliers de l’image )
Superior rooms start from 300€ per night depending on season.
(Photo reproduced with permission of Hotel Les Ateliers de l’image )
The Treehouse Suite is 300€ off season but I cannot say whether it might be bit draughty then!
(Photo reproduced with permission of Hotel Les Ateliers de l’image )
The lovely cocktail bar set inside the old cinema music hall building.
We enjoyed fabulous glasses with Baileys in crushed ice here on our honeymoon.
At weekends, they still show films in the cocktail bar.
Above the screen you can see what was previously the projectionist’s gallery.
(Photo reproduced with permission of Hotel Les Ateliers de l’image )
Ephemera from the hotel’s past remains; flip up cinema seating….
…and old movie cameras.
The new swimming pool. A private area surrounded by trees. Nice cold drinks to hand.
The terrace outside the cocktail bar looking towards the pool area.
A tunnel underneath leads from the road to the car park so not to upset the tranquility of the garden. >As well as photographers, the hotel is also popular with American cycle tours using it as a base whilst they explore the rest of Provence. Should you find that Les Ateliers de L’Image is fully booked when you want to stay, there is another way you can access their pool and garden. Guests staying at nearby Bed & Breakfast, La Maison du Village, are able to enjoy these facilities at Ateliers de L’Image for a supplementary fee of around 10€.
Violette Suite at La Maison du Village
Photo reproduced with permission of La Maison du Village
We stayed one night at La Maison du Village back in June this year, this time with our 2 year old son. La Maison du Village is a beautiful old French house in the heart of the town. Rooms have huge high ceilings and period furniture. We were amused that our son had this huge room above, in their Violette Suite to himself whilst we were next door in the smaller adjoining room. (We chose there as it had the television and we’d not disturb him using the bathroom!).
Ted in the garden at La Maison du Village.
A very pretty breakfast table at La Maison du Village. Croissants and pastries arrived moments later. >Breakfast was served outside in the garden. A typical Provencal setting with curvy iron furniture, a tinkling fountain and dappled light filtering through the trees. Ted was a little obsessed with the stones on the floor wanting to arrange them on the tables and the giant glass hurricane lamps made us a little nervous he might fall and hurt himself near one. Toddlers and beautiful things do not really mix…
The tea room at Hotel Ville Verte
Photo reproduced with permission of Hotel Ville Verte
The last place I will share with you today is Hotel Ville Verte which stands on the corner of a square where the Wednesday market is held. The interiors of Ville Verte are highly decorative and definitely not child friendly. Their website even holds the intriuguing warning, “Careful! for security reasons no babies or children or extra person are accepted in the rooms.” It says elsewhere that the hotel is not “adapted” for children although I think you would get away with a well behaved 8 year old.
We stayed here for around five nights back in 2005. Their room rates are very reasonable 145€ considering the standard of the furnishings and the fact that Ville Verte is also one of the few places other than Ateliers de l’image with a pool and private parking in the centre of town. Our room had stone coloured toile de juoy soft furnishings and a little balcony.
Breakfast is served in the tea room downstairs and it does feel a little like the set for Sophia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette with constant piped opera playing – possibly Gounod’s “Mireille” which was composed during his stay in the building. Amusing on day one, the tone of the tea room can grate towards the end of your stay – although the rooms, pool and service were faultless.
Teatime treats at Hotel Ville Verte
Photo reproduced with permission of Hotel Ville Verte
I will leave you now with a few street scenes of St Rémy… the Eglise St Martin…
Streets near La Musee des Alpilles. The channel down the middle carries water through the town.
Restaurant table at Xa
Me, sitting in restaurant, La Gousse d’Ail.
Not sure that lead would pass health and safety in the UK…
Nostradamus fountain
The joy of St Rémy for me is that such a little place should be stuffed with so much to look at. I haven’t touched on the shops, restaurants, museums and galleries nor history. I struggle to find a comparative destination in the UK and can think of only St Ives, Cornwall which shares an artistic legacy and also has narrow streets filled with artists galleries and shops.
I hope you have enjoyed this little trip to France. I expect this will become an occasional series when I am too ill to cook but can share my tourist tips from my favourite destinations.
Nearest airports: Nimes – Ryanair (We flew for a ridiculous £8 return from London Luton) Marseille – Easyjet, British Airways, Air France (flights from London Gatwick) Montpellier – Easyjet, British Airways, Air France (flights from London Gatwick)
Trains: TGV stops in Avignon and Arles. No station in St Rémy. I recommend hiring a car. Buses to St Rémy from Avignon are few and far between.
Need more travel tips for Provence, Cote d’Azur or elsewhere in France? Email me and see if I’ve been there!
Mont Ventoux is the highest point in Provence and quite possibly the highest place, bar a skiing trip to Meribel, that I have been. Situated 20km north east of Carpentras in the Vaucluse département, it was a little way off from our usual stamping grounds of St-Remy-de-Provence and The Camargue and it took six or seven trips to the area before we visited.
1912 metres at the peak, Mistral wind speeds of 200mph have been recorded there, hence the name Ventoux which means “windy” in French. Locally nicknamed “The Bald Mountain”, the bare terrain is a memorable stage in the annual Tour de France cycle race. A website showing daily webcam conditions of the area is called Cycling on the moon.
We cheated and drove up there. Although a very pleasant September day, it was very cold at the top and during winter would often be covered in snow. Mont Ventoux is geologically part of the Alps but has no similar size peaks around it and stands alone. The view, it goes without saying, is breathtaking.
This post originally featured on Maison Cupcake.
Oysters are alive aren’t they? Just to check I kept pricking these little guys with my fork to watch them flinch. I’m a bit of a sadist like that.
After so many years since our previous visit, there were things that disappointed us about Ré. Our return to Skipper was not one of them, the staff are very friendly, the portions generous, the decor cosy and casual. It was reassuring to go back and relive some holiday memories from our pre-Ted years.
There is plenty of atmosphere here, sat across from the harbour boats with their masts chink chinking in the wind. Lanterns and lighthouses decorating the interior without feeling twee.
It will probably be some time before we return to Skipper, but I can relish the memories both distant and recent of the evenings we have spent there. My quest in the meantime is to find oysters this good elsewhere.
This post originally featured on Maison Cupcake.
For peak holiday times, you have to book very early to get a cabin on the overnight crossing from Portsmouth to St Malo. It’s not cheap but when you consider how pricey a Dover Calais crossing can be during school holidays (£90 each way sometimes) and bear in mind the extra petrol costs, motorway tolls and an extra night staying in a hotel to break up your journey, actually the £200 extra you are likely to pay for the longer crossing becomes more tempting.
We’ve previously travelled on the overnight ferry from Portsmouth to Cherbourg. Big mistake. Driving down the Cherbourg peninsula is like going from Dover to Birmingham without motorways. It’s a long, dull drive. Plus you’ve only had four hours sleep on a six hour crossing (they wake you up at 5am British time, an hour before you get into port at 7am French time).
However the Portsmouth to St Malo crossing is around ten hours and arrives in port at 8am French time so you get more sleep and do less driving. It’s a win win situation, especially if you have a toddler who doesn’t like sitting in the back of a car for more than two hours at a time (less if hungry).
So with much excitement we boarded Brittany Ferries’ Bretagne en route to L’Ile de Re which would be four hours further drive from St Malo the next morning.
The Spinnaker Tower and harbour side bars
Out on deck. It’s windy but plenty of room to stretch your legs.
“We don’t need a window” I told my husband.
“But Teddy could have looked out of it at the sea.”
“It’s cheaper to not have a window and we will be asleep when we’re in the cabin anyway.”
I hadn’t quite bargained we’d be down in the hull of the boat. I didn’t even know that was possible but you go down in a lift below the car deck to reach your cabin.
The food is much better than Dover to Calais routes. There are salads and cheese plates as well as hot dishes.
The desserts looked very tempting too.
My husband had fish and chips which admittedly in this light looks like the meal from the Secret Nuclear Bunker post.
The photo of the chocolate-mousse-to-die-for is rubbish. Imagine though if you will, that scene in Pulp Fiction where John Travolta tells Samuel L Jackson that “it’s the little things” that make Europe special i.e. the glass of cold beer in the cinema, mayonnaise on the fries etc.
Well the little thing that I thought made these chocolate mousses special was that they were served in china ramekins. A totally unnecessary touch since they were in plastic pots as well but it’s these details that make eating on a French ferry company more special than the service station service you get from the British equivalents.
Off to bed.
“It’s rather nice” said my father, impressed it had a telly. You get TVs on the St Malo crossings although you only get a radio on Caen crossings.
The bathroom was predictably tiny but serviceable. It reminded me of the scene on the train in Sex and the City where Sarah Jessica Parker and Kim Cattrall are travelling with Amtrak to LA and have a toilet situated underneath their shower.
So down in the bowels of the ship how did I sleep? Not very well. How much this was to do with feeling like I was in K19: The Widowmaker and how much to do with fretting that Ted would roll out of bed I’m not sure.
That said, since taking this crossing we’ve travelled mostly on the Portsmouth to Caen evening crossing, and even though we don’t need to go to bed, for having privacy and access to your own bathroom, somewhere quiet to sit, somewhere to drop your bags, I’d highly recommend hiring a cabin even for day time crossings (they’re half price in daytime too).
On this occasion I was struggling to sleep and fancied pacing the decks in my slippers, even if it meant dashing down a corridor that looked like another scene from Titanic, the one where Leonardo has been chained with handcuffs to a pipe and Kate dashes off to get help. But I couldn’t as my husband and father were on the top bunks and there was only I to stop Ted rolling out.
Which he did, with a loud thud, head first at 4.30am, following by much more relentless loudness i.e. crying. None of us went back to sleep after that but then they wake you an hour before you get into port anyway.
The view of St Malo’s city walls and pointy buildings as you arrive in the morning is delightful.
This post was originally featured on Maison Cupcake.
Today we go to chocolate heaven and back. This place is truly wonderful. I discovered it on holiday this summer in St Malo, Brittany.
It’s called Maison Larnicol and sells a fabulous range of sweet treats. I was stamping around St Malo in the footsteps of the delightful and hopelessly chocolate addicted Kerrin of My Kugelhopf who had seduced me with her posts Salted Butter, Sugar and Oh some Flour too and Got Milk? That’s All You Need in search of the Maison du Buerre and other Kerrin haunts.
She never told me about Maison Larnicol so today I attempt to out Kugelhopf the Kugelhopf but I’ll never top those blog post headlines *must try harder*.
It’s a dark little shop with wall to wall wooden cabinets of buttery Breton biscuits and chocolate and serve yourself tongs to fill up your paper bags. Think “scoop and save” but classy.
Not only do they sell macarons but chocolate grand pianos.
And chocolate SHOES. Who needs Laboutin eh?
“Les Chocolates Self Service”. I love it when the French adopt English words as their own, like le weekend although it too me a while to realise that om-bugger was not something rude.
Les Galets. AKA big fat discs of chocolate with fruit and nuts on them. Which count towards your five-a-day.
These ones look more like olives than olives do.
And some massive coloured meringues. Must make these some day.
Sucette, French for lollipop, is a word that always makes me snigger and never more so than at the sight of these little chaps.
Swoon. The Kouignette. These ones are blackcurrant cassis flavour. Here is one I took home up close:
With a bite taken out, just to taunt you.
These are pistacho flavour kouign amanns. Read Kerrin’s piece for the low down on what these babies are all about. Detailed research is not my strong point right now.
Is this the way to St Malo-rillo?
Gulls egg chocolates and rocher – not to be confused with the Ferrero variety.
Inside the gull’s egg. Caramel. Chocolate down fingernails too. Which proves I was enjoying myself.
Macaron chocolate artist’s palette
Framboise macaron heaven, quite possibly my favourite macaron ever. Photographed for posterity.
And hey who’s this? The little boy who fortunately for me, prefers Kinder Surprise.
Maison Larnicol 6 Rue St Vincent, 35400 Saint-Malo, France
This post was previously published on Maison Cupcake.
Whether it’s on TV or film, every now and again, the glimpse of somewhere I’ve been before pictured on screen fills me with excitement. Daniel Craig walking down the street where I used to work in Layer Cake. An obscure Tim Roth movie filmed in and around Southgate tube station. Borough Market in Bridget Jones’ Diary.
Sometimes it’s the other way round. I see somewhere on screen and am determined to seek it out and go there myself to feel a little of the magic I felt when watching. Working out which French beach featured the wooden chalets on stilts in Betty Blue with no internet took some detective work I can tell you. (It’s Gruissan near Narbonne in the Languedoc region)
About 4 years ago, in the closing titles of 80s detective series Bergerac on UK Gold, I saw a picture of the plane tree lined pool shown below. Not many people remember that the closing series relocated to Provence rather than its usual Jersey. I have holidayed in Provence many times and was intrigued by this pool which was shown at the very end of each episode. How come I’d never seen it in a tourist guide or on my travels? Where on earth was it?
I was determined to find it, not because Bergerac, my pregnancy craving at the time (others dip Cheerios in ketchup; I watched endless episodes of Bergerac and did 3 Sudoku puzzles per day but have done neither before or since, honest) had been filmed there but out of my quest to know every corner of Provence.
Shortly afterwards I saw my Provencal pool onscreen once more. It was featured in what was to become my favourite film ever, Ridley Scott’s romantic comedy A Good Year starring Russell Crowe and Marion Cottilard. Now this film did not go down well with critics and you’ll probably find more people admitting to liking Bergarac than the film but I know from conversations on Twitter that at least three people, including Juls share my love of it.
Image via bastidequest.wordpress.com
Even freakier, Max (Russell Crowe) has inherited Jim Bergerac’s new house, this gorgeous bastide – Chateau la Canorgue in the Luberon. That’s just spooky.
Happily, locations in the film are much easier to research than a random film still in one series of Bergerac‘s closing titles and I soon deduce that the Provencal pool is in Cucuron, an understated village north of Aix en Provence with no other claim to fame. I conspired to visit during my weekend in St Remy de Provence. We drove there on the Sunday after visiting the busy brocante at L’Isle sur la Sorgue.
We drove to Cucuron and discovered the sleepiest of Provencal villages. Streets were deserted. Saucepans belonging to vielle madames clattered as we passed kitchen windows. Cats barely lifted eyelids to look at us. There was no sign of a square with this huge pool centre stage which had accommodated an orchestra and outdoor cinema showing clips like Charles Trenet singing Boum where Max and Fanny kiss after everyone else has bolted in the rain storm.
Eventually, on the point of giving up, we found a map marking L’Etang and tucked away in a corner we found the pool with a couple of cafes and sat down for our less romantic glass of Sprite and an ice cream next to the local fire station (odd… they disguised this in the film).
Sadly I can’t find clips to embed due to copyright… You can pick up copies of A Good Year for £3.99 on dvd. If you like France, you will enjoy it.