Belleme -- June, 2012

By the time we got tickets for Le Mans, the closest we could find a place to stay was an hour away in Belleme.  We found a good route back and forth and enjoyed the driving.  Some of the pictures in the countryside driving post are from those drives.

But we got a little off base going from Giverny to Belleme.  A certain exit number was indicated on the instructions but not on our Michelin France road  map.  Instead of following my gut as to where to turn off, I kept looking for it.  That sent us pretty far west and we had to come back on backroads to get to the town.  We wasted about an hour doing that.

The loss of time was important because our hotel reception closed between 2 and 6, we were hungry and we had laundry to do.  We got to Belleme just after the reception closed.  I looked for the location of the laundry I found online and didn't find it on the ground.  I asked at a couple of places including the tourist information, but they knew of none.  Silly me, I thought it was a self-service laundry.  As it turned out it was a laundry where they do it for you.

We took our clothes there the next morning when it opened at 9, got them back at noon, considerably wetter than normal European dry, put them in the back of the car and headed for Le Mans.  Our trials and tribulations at the track are documented earlier, but we might have avoided them if a.) I had followed my instincts about where to turn off thereby arriving at the hotel before they closed and learning where to take our clothes, or b.) asked about a place to have someone else do the laundry.  The place we took it just looked like a dry cleaners to us, so when we walked by, we missed it.

Since we couldn't check into our room until after 6, we drove to the little town north of us, Mortagne on the traffic circle sign below.  We found a self-service laundry there, but stupidly didn't stop and do our clothes right then.  Part of the reason for that was that we were starving.  Maslow's Hierarchy kicked in and food was more important. 

If you've kept up with the timing, it is now between 2:30 and 3:00.  If you kept up with the location, it's small town France.  There is no restaurant open.  In Mortagne, right next to the laundry we should have used, was a bakery.  They had both savory and sweet things.  We got both.  The sweet young girl there offered to heat the savories for us, so we got that and went back to the car to have a little picnic.  The food was delicious and our attitudes got a little better.

So here's us coming into Belleme.

 

It looks pretty quiet, eh?

 

This is the "busy" town center.

 

The main street went straight to the corner where we turned left to get to our hotel.  

 

I'm not sure what this was, but it looked fancy to me.  I did see a family on the bottom floor where the shutters are open.  They had grandparents and grandkids and a golden retriever, so they were cool.

 

We turn on around the corner and see the fountain in the pond across the street.

 

There was a small corner park right next to the hotel.

 

And here's the hotel.

 

We requested a ground floor room.  We got one.  It was in the building attached to the hotel that looks like a barn.

The room was pretty large with a very large bathroom.  It was a good thing because we spent quite a bit of time in it and there was plenty of room to spread out our clothes to dry after we got back from the race track Saturday evening.  Trout seems comfy.

 

This window was on the back side of the room over a back yard.  We never closed the dark curtains.

 

There was no need to.  No one was out there.

 

And the grape arbor grew right up onto the window grates and sill.  The grapes were just started to set when we were there.

 

We ate all our breakfasts and dinners at the hotel.  It caters to many Le Mans fans.  Lots of them are Brits, so they had this nice dark beer for Trout.

 

There were some people who were there the whole time we were, but most of the people in these pictures were just there Sunday evening after the race was over.  

 

Dessert was always a part of the fixed-price meals we had.  By Sunday night, we had run through almost all the options.  I did a repeat, but Trout decided to try the Calvados souffle.

 

The place was almost full when he ordered it.

 

Imagine our surprise when one of the waitresses rolled out a table by the side of ours.  Then the chef came out.

 

Look at the size of that souffle!  It was embarrassing and funny at the same time, as you can see from the guys staring and laughing.

 

It was light as a feather and fancy with the apple swan.  The liquor had burned off, so even I could taste it.  We ate the apples off the top and about half of the thing.



 

Trout had to deconstruct the swan.

 

The next morning as we and so many others were checking out, he struck up a conversation with one of the Brits.  After years of going to Le Mans, they had the best methods down pat.  I doubt that we will ever go again, but if we do, we will use their methods.

 

While he did that, I talked to the owner of the hotel.  I think her husband is the chef.  We had a very interesting discussion about how hard it is to get good help these days.  She had one waitress who had been with her for 4 years and was going to leave soon to study to be a hotelier herself, or at least to work at a higher level in the hospitality industry.  The rest, including the cleaning staff, came and went just like they do in the States.  I had noticed that the owner was there in the dining room late at night and back at work the next morning when we had breakfast.  That was not her desired work schedule.  It was what she had to do because of the lack of staff.

 

Belleme is in the former province of Perche where Percheron horses were developed.  Oddly, we didn't notice any near the roads where we drove, but as we left town heading south, we came upon this traffic circle.  I made Trout stop so I could get a decent picture.

 

 

Wikipedia doesn't have much info on Belleme.  That's why I chose something different for the link at the beginning.  But Wikipedia did have an interesting chart of population for the town.  In 2009, the population was 1,547.  In 1793, the first year on the population list, there were 2,771 people.  The highest year was 1846 with 3,350 people.  It has become a vacation town more than anything else, it seems.  That was fine with us.

Mistakes & Lessons Learned from Them -- France, 2012

Versailles

I've never been particularly interested in going to Versailles, but Ramona raved so much about it that I decided we should go.  The ticket prices are so high, that in fact, that was the main reason I got Paris Museum Passes for us.

We went on a supposeedly "slow" day.  We arrived at a supposedly "slow" time, even after taking the wrong train and having to switch to a different one.  Nowhere in any discussion about transportation to the palace did I see anything that mentioned that the trains were named and that only one went straight to the town without changing.  Oh, and the names are like human names, not anything descriptive.

I am not fond of the style of architecture or excess that Versailles represents.  The only thing I  wanted to see in the palace was the Hall of Mirrors.  I did want to take an English language tour.  While Trout waited outside, I checked into that.  All I had read about it said that you got to see some different rooms and that the tour groups were small.  Nothing said that ALL the rooms were different, so no Hall of Mirrors on the English language tour. 

The normal crowd shuffle through the palace takes about 90 minutes.  The English tour takes about 90 minutes.  Neither of us was willing to spend 3 hours in the palace, whether we were in a small group or a crowd.

So we decided (mostly me) that we would see the gardens which Ramona really liked and Marie Antoinette's palaces.  Just as with so many of the monuments, we had to go through a long line for security to get through to the gardens.  On that slow day at that slow time, we only stood in line for about 45 minutes.  Here's a word of warning.  The entire front entrance area is paved in very slick and rounded cobblestones.  If you go, do not wear any kind of shoe that will not work on those, wet or dry weather.

Did I mention it was raining?  Rather than try to find the little train that you can ride to and from the palace to Marie Antoinette's places, we decided to walk through the gardens.  We later learned that it leaves and returns to an area on the total opposite side of the palace where they made you come in and it was completely unseeable unless you went around to that side of the palace.  We got soaked even in rain gear and with an umbrella.  I had read that there were several places to eat along the way.  Well, they were mostly open air so not the greatest situation in the rain. 

There was a nice restaurant along the way.  We decided to hold out for it.  Nothing I read said you had to have RESERVATIONS for it, so we couldn't get in.  And it operated on French lunch time, so it closed at 2-ish.  Nothing I read said that the nicer places to eat weren't open the whole time the palace and grounds are open.

Are you starting to get the picture?  Hungry. Wet. Tired.  We finally found a place to eat that we thought would be inside right next to the Petite Trianon.  Well the serving counter was inside but where you ate was outside.  By that time we decided that we were too tired and hungry to care if we were freezing and wet or if the food was the same.  We got our food and went out under the umbrellas to eat. 

This is where that happened.  As you can see, the umbrellas didn't cover all the chairs and tables.  Can you tell how hard it is raining?



The umbrellas leaked and didn't even come together in the middle.

We did go inside the Petite Trianon and I was very disappointed.  It was not very impressive.  The masses of school groups between the ages of 6 and 16 didn't help.  We could have walked on over to the Grand Trianon, but I had had it.  My feet were killing me by this time, even with somewhat sensible Danskos.  We waited for the little train and took it back to the palace. 

All I can say about the gardens is that they are big.  I can certainly see how someone could get lost in them, have trysts, hunt or whatever.  And with a 40+ minute walk between the palace and the Trianons, I can see why they rode in carriages or on horseback to go back and forth.

With the rain and it being the first week of June and still cold, the gardens were a mess.  Nothing was in bloom.  By the time we got back to the palace, we had been there almost 5 hours and seen almost nothing.  It was a joy to see this dog in a workman's van as we were leaving. That was the best part of the visit.

The pictures with the dog show a bit of blue sky.  By the time we were leaving, it was starting to clear up. 





If I ever try to visit Versailles again, I will plan for us to spend the night before and after in the town of Versailles.  We will go very early or very late.  We will pay the money for one of the golf carts or go on the little train and not bother trying to walk.  We will bring our lunch if possible or make reservations at that restaurant near the Trianons.  And we will not go in early June.  Fall when the kids are back in school sounds better to me.

Le Mans

This was supposed to be a highlight of the trip.  It was another big disappointment.  Trout wanted to see the start (3 pm Satruday), the end (3 pm Sunday) and be there when it started to get dark at about 9+ pm on Saturday night.

We had lodgings in Belleme, about an hour away for Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights.  My plan was that we would arrive to check in before 2 pm (the office closed between 2 and 6), find out where or how to do our laundry, get settled, take care of the laundry and have a nice dinner in the restaurant of the hotel.

The first problem was that I tried to follow the map instead of my instincts for getting there off the autoroute.  That cost us so much time that we didn't arrive until after 2.  I had an address for a laundry, but nothing was there at that address.  We drove to another town just a few kilometers north, found a laundry, found something to eat at a bakery (all restaurants were closed by the time we got there), ate in the car, drove around a bit for fun and planned to come back Saturday morning early to do our laundry.

We checked into our hotel at the appointed time and asked about the laundry I couldn't find.  It turned out it was a non-self-service one and just looked like a dry cleaners from the outside.  It opened at 9 on Saturday morning, so we planned to take our laundry there to have them do it.  We had a great dinner and a relaxing night.

We got up early the next morning, took our laundry to the place, left it and they said it would be ready by noon.  Perfect!  We had plenty of time to eat breakfast, get dressed, pick up the laundry and drive to Le Mans to get to the track in time to pick up our tickets before the race started.

We had walked to the laundry before, but this time we drove so that we could just put the folded clothes into the trunk of the car and deal with them later.  We get there and she had forgotten them in the dryer.  So they weren't out and folded already, and they were even wetter than what we call European dry.  We had to wait while she folded them, sort of, put them in our laundry bag and we paid.

Okay, so far so good.  We're on the road to Le Mans.  We're going to park downtown and take the tram to the track.  We still had plenty of time to do that. 

The people who were selling the special Le Mans tram tickets said that the last stop was where we should get off.  We wondered why everyone got off at the next-to-last stop.  We found out.  You had to walk almost 2 kilometers from there to the entrance of the track.  So we got back on the tram, rode to the other stop, got off and started walking. 

The time is now getting close to the start and we still don't have our tickets.  After asking several people and going to the entrance to get them, we learn that we have to go to a special building even farther away to pick them up.   So we walk back around under the autoroute to that building to get them and they ask, do you have your entrance tickets?

Huh?!  There was nothing on their website about separate entrance tickets being required when you paid the money for a seat in the stands.  Arrrrrrrgh!  So we bought the entrance tickets and walked back around under the autoroute to the entrance.

By this time, with all the walking, it is long past the start.  Need I say we are hungry, thirsty, tired, etc.?  We had walked at least 4-5 kilometers total and spent over 2 hours doing that and getting the tickets.

We go in the entrance and head for our seats.  We are confronted with a wall, and I do mean a wall, of people facing us.  There is an ambulance trying to get through them.  We continue walking in the mud -- no paving, just rocks and gravel -- to our stands.  But we can't get to them because there are so many people on the hill next to them standing, sitting or whatever. 

Yes it is a good place to see the race from.  So we walk around the back of our grandstand to a friendlier access point, work our way through all the people to the entrance to the stands, show our tickets and try to make our way to our seats.  It was so muddy that at some point they had brought in rocks to sort of pave the way.  Big, pointy rocks that had not been rolled into the mud to flatten out the walking area.  Although I didn't injure myself, I did turn my ankle twice trying to walk on them. 

I had worn my Danskos, which should have been fine on paved areas on even flat muddy ones, but they weren't the greatest on size 5 no minus pointy rocks.  I was so pissed off by this time that I even shrugged off Trout's attempt to help me.

Now for some pictures.  These are on the tram to the track.  There was standing room only from downtown Le Mans.  Coming back was no better.  Apparently, you have to be a lot older than we are for any French person under the age of 30 to give you their seat. 

Our seats were great, but can you see the other few people in the stands?  It was freezing and everyone was bundled up.

After about 30 minutes we were done.  Right behind us was a carnival area with a huge bandstand.  The rock group that was going to perform was rehearsing.  I kid you not, they were so loud that we could not hear the race cars!  And they never stopped the whole time we were there.

Our first stop after leaving the grandstands was a pit stop.  The men's bathroom had a very long line.  See the people on the hill behind?  That was the front way to our grandstands.  That ambulance I mentioned earlier was going to assist someone who had fallen off that hill.  In the short time we were there, someone else fell off the hill requiring another ambulance.

We later learned from some Brits at our hotel on Sunday night that they never buy tickets to the grandstand seats.  They just get the entrance tickets and wander around to see the race from different locations only they wander in their cool cars.  You can pay for special parking pass that will allow you to do that.

I did love the line at the women's bathrooms, although only one stall had any toilet paper even as early as it was after the start of the race.  I knew it could only get worse as the day/night progressed.

I had hoped that there would be decent French fast food available, but it was as mediocre as any track or carnival food anywhere.  We ate it anyway, sitting at tables in mud puddles.  I was willing to stay until dark, but Trout was ready to go mostly because he knew that the band would never shut up and he would never enjoy the race because of them.

So we walked out a back entrance, Trout bought the souvenir programs he got and we headed through a parking lot to the tram.  We weren't the only ones taking a break by the way.  I had to get a picture of these guys with their specially rigged ladders.  Be sure to click on it to see their unique seats. 

In the heat of the moment I swore I would never go back to Le Mans, but that's not really true.  I would not go back for the 24 Hours because it appeared to be more of a big drunken party than something for people who really care about racing.  Perhaps being somewhere away from the carnival and bandstand would help.  I might go for the historics held in July sometime.

Having said that, I would have gone back on Sunday with Trout.  We had our tickets -- all of them.  We knew how things worked and it would be much quieter that day.  But he hated it as much as I did, mostly because of the crowds. 

So we had as late a breakfast as we could at the hotel and just stayed in the room attached to our electronic devices until dinner.  See the posting about Belleme for more details on our stay there.

Buffalo Grill

As we were driving around France, especially along the autoroutes, we kept seeing the signs for the Buffalo Grill.  It looked like a fast food joint, but maybe a little better.  Trout said he wanted to eat there every time we saw one.  It was a fast food joint and it wasn't any better.

When the kart track wasn't open yet, we decided to go to the next closest town for lunch.  Small town, France, we were running out of time because they close around 2.  However, there are some all day service places and the Buffalo Grill is one.  And we saw one we could get to, so we pulled in.

From these pictures you can see that there weren't many people there at about 1:30 in the afternoon.

You can also see that they have some mixed mascot metaphors here.  Buffalo?  Longhorn?  Northwest Indians?

We got burgers and fries and they were awful.  We know you can get good burgers and fries in France because we had some in Paris that were superb.

You know you're in trouble when the back of the placemat has games for kids.  That's a sure fire indication of bad food no matter where you are in the world.

The chain was having some kind of contest where you picked your favorite meal and the winner would get a trip to the good old USA.  These were supposed to be representations of typical American meals.  Look closely.  Click on the picture to see it better.  Nothing says US west or southwest  like Tartare Classic!

So our advice to you is that even if you are sorely tempted to go to a Buffalo Grill while driving around France, don't give in.  Many bistros have hamburgers that are much better than even Zinburger here in Tucson. 

And there are better choices at other roadside gas stations with restaurants.  We did stop at one along the autoroute.  Trout's meal was poor because he picked the wrong thing.  I got something from their version of a fixed price meal and it was great.  The ham was some of the best I have ever eaten.