The River Cottage!
Night 1, dinner time.
Last weekend was a tough one, I’m not going to lie. It was a long weekend, and we worked hard and arrived home really tired… but I suspect if I tell you what we did, there will be no sympathy! Last weekend we hired and car, and went via Luxembourg (see the last post) to the French countryside in Burgundy. We stayed with a group of fantastic friends, in a 16th century stone cottage by a stream with only cheese, wine and fresh produce to each. The only thing we could find to do was to visit the local markets and see the variety of historical buildings and beautiful countryside. Like I said, rough weekend!
Viaduct in a little village, it was huge!
Now, seriously folks. Last weekend was fantastic. We drove to ‘the River Cottage’ in a tiny little village in Burgundy. A friend of ours hired the cottage for 3 weeks, and as she said, better to stay in one place and have her friends visit than spend her time trapsing around Europe. She is a very clever lady! We were certainly happy, despite the slightly longer trip than we anticipated the cottage was everything we had imagined and more. Not only was it a 16th century little stone cottage, but it had three floors, a very social kitchen and a nearby path that led along the river through the hills and through the countryside. It was an absolutely picturesque place, with all stone buildings, little churches, streams and meadows full of flowers and cows.
The only way to hike
It was in the middle of nowhere though. Really, nothing, no shop, no food, one old man and one tractor, thats it! So what did we do you might ask. Well, as if it needs to be said, we were in the middle of Burgundy, what else was there to do but drink wine, eat cheese and wander in the countryside. So that is what we did… I ate my first fresh artichoke, which was surprisingly filling and tasty to boot. We shared a bowl of snails, which apparently originated in the Burgundy region. We tried all manner of local wines, we were right next door to Champagne too, so the result of that is inevitable. In fact, we went hiking with a difference, we all took a glass of Champagne! Even the cows were impressed. The local wine and cheese was amazing. The French sure know how to eat, i’ll give them that!
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The owl on the cathedral in Dijon, you rub it for luck.
The owl on the cathedral in Dijon, you rub it for luck.
The only real problem with the whole weekend was that we had to leave! We were all very sad and we took it till the last moment we could but it was worth it. One of the nicest weekends yet!
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The one that got away, there were lots on the hiking trail.
) to empire sausage and mock chicken legs (only a Hetherington or close associate will know what these are!). These are things it had been over a year since I had eaten but I had thought about/planned eating for an embarrassingly long time before arriving home.
But i have had a few different beers lately and i have found a few old pictures on the camera that i may attempt to post over the next week or so… so stay tuned for some beer blogs and some “Ghost Posts” of times gone by
