En voyage
Sunday, March 08, 2015
If you get out of this blogging habit, it's hard to get back in. Time was, I would have meticulously taken a photo at the start of this trip and then logged each stop. I am more relaxed these days. Sorry.
I am on one of my favourite runs - through France to Cannes for MIPIM, an annual real estate jamboree that I have attended every year since 1992. I go now more from habit than necessity. Most of my friends are still working and it's a splendid chance to catch up with them and set the world to rights. One good thing about having lots of friends from post-socialist countries is that I am easily the least right-wing of any group of drinking buddies. Those guys have lived The Guardian's future and they know it stinks.
Tonight I am overnighting at the Chateau de Gilly in Burgundy. When I stayed here last year for the first time, they apologised for the restaurant being closed and regretted that they could not serve something of appropriate quality. They then delivered one of the best meals of my life so I have been waiting for a year to find out how much better they can do than the magnificent meal they so regretted last year. They achieve all this, by the way, in a village smaller than the one in which I grew up. I fear my home town's chip shop, Chinese takeaway and Indian restaurant are unlikely ever to test a Michelin inspector.
I love the bits of France where the road signs look like wine lists. I am not far from Gevrey Chambertin here, where my favourite tipple comes from. These days, so many Chinese have emerged from poverty to become wine enthusiasts that a humble ex-lawyer can't often afford the stuff, but after a wonderful drive on some of my favourite roads (with the roof down in sunshine for part of the way) I might just indulge tonight.
Have you gotten yourself a Coyote yet? Invaluable things in France. I'm driving to Annecy on Tuesday, 6 hours from Paris through the largely empty Bourgogne. You're right about the infrastructure: between Lyon and Geneva you go through elevated motorways hugging the valley sides and tunnels in succession, each one of which would have been considered Project of the Year in the UK.
Posted by: Tim Newman | Sunday, March 22, 2015 at 09:48 PM
"I love the bits of France where the road signs look like wine lists"
Moi aussi!
Somewhere I have photos of a very youthful-looking me standing at the entrances to Romanee-Conti, Chambertin, Musigny, Montrachet, and a number of others.
Unsurprisingly, that's as near as I've ever got to tasting those wines.
Posted by: Andrew Duffin | Thursday, March 12, 2015 at 03:10 PM
Ah... Gevrey Chambertin... Stayed a night there some many years ago with the Mem Sahib. On the wine list was a Chambertin "Cuveé Yuri Gagarin" - I said to the waiter that I'd never seen that one before - he told me that it would have been very unlikely as "it didn't travel well". :-)
As for the Lambo - Espada mayhap? Ghastly heap - as were most Lamborghinis of that era. Porsche man myself.
Posted by: Pogo | Tuesday, March 10, 2015 at 12:16 PM
The Mazda MX-5 is a fun car - a bit of a rip off in design terms from a classic Lotus of the sixties. My brother in law has one and it's at the cool end of my personal Cool Wall. I will never be able to cross France in one because I am too big to get in it, alas. I have averaged over 75 mph travelling through France in the last two days because of the higher speed limit - 130kph is just over 80mph. The roads are brilliant. While the French Government has overspent and indebted its citizens as yet unborn just as much, if not more, as the next social democracy, at least it has delivered some adequate infrastructure in the process.
Posted by: Tom | Monday, March 09, 2015 at 06:18 PM
Tom, I have had a break from blogging too and am just getting back into it. It's surprisingly difficult! I have kept up with my bloglist through a reader app, but rarely visited the actual blogs. But I did follow your US road trip and the sad news that came before it. All good wishes, and keep posting, because sure as eggs it's the only way I will ever cross France in a Ferrari - although I may well be doing so in a Mazda MX-5 in June, which will have, I imagine, much of the fun with none of the class.
Posted by: Richard B | Monday, March 09, 2015 at 07:08 AM