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.

Europe June 2011 -- Annecy

After breakfast on June 24th, it was time for us to take the shuttle from Zermatt back to Tasch, get our car and drive to France.  We had lots of options for the route, but I navigated us along the south side of Lake Leman (Geneva on the other side in Switzerland), through small towns along the lake, through some back country, and into Annecy.  We had reservations for 3 nights at our hotel there.

The countryside along the way, even on the autobahn and the autoroute was lovely.  We did kind of wonder about these giant dishes...

To get to the Hotel du Palais de l'Isle, we had some interesting directions.  We were to drive to a  speaker on the pedestrian street, call the hotel, drive across the bridge (the very one you will see later in the pictures), stop at the hotel, dump out our luggage and drive to the underground parking. 

It was so crowded that Friday afternoon that doing that was a huge problem.  It was compounded by the fact that we had multiple bags of stuff including lots of dirty laundry.  We literally dumped all of them into the tiny lobby of the hotel.  Then we tried to follow the directions the desk clerk told us, but the street was so crowded we could not get through the way we were supposed to go.

So we got off the pedestrian street the best we could and then started circling the drain to try to get back to the parking area.  As was normal, Trout was tired, cranky and hungry and not in the mood for doing that.  Fortunately, it only took us about 15 minutes to find our way back and park, but it seemed like forever.  We later walked the way we were told to go and discovered that would not have been an obvious or easy way to go, either.

We had considered taking the car out and driving around the area and maybe up to Chamonix in the French Alps, but we got so comfortable and settled in that we just left the car and explored the little town on foot.

So this is the front of our hotel.

This is the street sign on the building.

This was the window in our room.  The hotel did have an elevator, thank goodness.

After taking our stuff up to the room, we set out to get some lunch.  France typically has more restricted hours for eating, and we were having a hard time finding anyplace open.  While looking, we stopped in this little church.

Across the street from the ATM I used to get money, we saw this place that was still open.  I was up for going in and buying a picnic there, but Trout wanted to sit down somewhere.  Yes, these beautiful dishes were real and for sale.  None is sweet in this area, all are savory.

We did find a small place along the water to have a bite to eat.  It is the one with the red umbrellas in the right of this picture.  It was just a little bistro, but the pommes frites were great.

After eating we took off walking again.  This is the pedestrian zone right behind our hotel.

When we came out of our hotel on Saturday morning, this pedestrian area was completely filled for blocks with a typical French flea market.  Of course, I didn't have the camera.  We couldn't help gawking.  Why is it that French junk looks so much better than American junk?

You could tell it was June -- and white was the big color for summer.

We were heading in the direction of the laundromat the desk clerk told us about.  We came upon this sizable square.  I liked the combination of old and new buildings here.

You can see Trout walking toward the corner arch.  Restaurants were just starting to open up for dinner again. 

That was the way to the laundromat.  On Saturday morning we went there somewhat early for us.  I was sure it would be full of people and that it would take forever to do our clothes.  But when we arrived there was only one woman about our age drying her things.  During the entire time I was there (Trout went off looking for an English book store) there were a total of 5 other people who came in to wash and/or dry their clothes.

Two of them were the Australian couple we chatted with.  They were about our age, had farmed cotton and had even been to Lubbock.  They were traveling for about 3 months, escaping the Australian winter and were ending their trip in the US and Canada and flying home from Dallas.  Sometimes it's as much fun to meet travelers from other countries as to meet locals. 

The first time anyone goes to Europe, they are often surprised at the number of dogs in restaurants.  There are very few places where they are not allowed, and you usually can see at least one sitting outside with their owners.

This is the arch we were supposed to drive through to get to the parking garage upon our arrival.  It's lovely when it's not crammed full of people at the ice cream place.  You'll see a picture of that later.

Upon walking out the way we were to have driven out, we found ourselves on a main street looking back at the entrance into the old part of the town.

The castle was just above us.  The gold building on the right is our hotel.

While walking around, we saw this picture-worthy motorcycle.  Trout says it is a pricey one.

Then we walked in the park.  I didn't have the camera with us for this walk, but I did when we went back the next day, so we actually did this walk twice.  We were surprised to see this totem in the area where we entered.

There were families picnicing.  I thought we were in an Impressionist painting.

There were paddle boat rentals and lots of people in and on Lake Annecy.  The next posting will be all about our trip around it.

You could go on a beautiful wooden boat to tour the lake if you wanted.

There were these fun pedal horses for kids to ride.

We loved the tree bark.

And we loved the trees and dappled sunshine.

There were some very nice small boats moored in this area.  Trout like this one a lot.

We were walking along the Promenade Jacquet.

Across the street was  this church and on the way to it was the entrance to our underground parking.

As we were walking back down the pedestrian street, it started to get dark.

There were crowds at this ice cream place just below our window from the minute it opened in the morning until it closed at night.  Look to the left and you can see the arch we were supposed to drive through.  There were lots of ice cream places in the area, some huge, but the  Glacier des Alpes was the most popular.  It would have long lines when the others had no one in them.  The sign says they make their ice cream right there, i.e. they are an artisan glacier.  I went for the anise and Trout had rum raisin. 

It seemed like the later it got at night, the more action there was.

So we just leaned against the wall of the main bridge and watched.  This baloon guy was very popular with the kids.

After seeing so many of them, I finally had to take a picture of a Jack Russell. That was probably the dog we saw the most on the whole trip.

The old prison just got more picturesque the darker it got.

The other buildings in the area looked striking as it got darker, too.

Of course there were ducks.

"Our" street was really busy with diners and walkers.  This is about how it looked when we arrived only it was lunch time.

Trout wanted me to take a picture of these bugs. 

There's that charming prison again.

I'm not sure what I was doing, but Trout stepped into this church and said it was very nice inside.

The swans were a favorite with the crowds.  They looked like they were too dumb to get up on the upper level, but they were actually hanging out and waiting for something edible to drop over the edge.

We had breakfast at the hotel 2 of the 3 mornings we were there, but one we slept too late.  I was up for trying the little Creperie du Chateau right behind our hotel.  We had a fun conversation with the older couple sitting next to us.  When she couldn't think of the English word for sheep, she bleated.  Some sounds are universal.  I linked to a review of this restaurant on a blog called Sit Down, Dig In.  It was a good meal.

The entertainment was good, too.  Remember that big square?  There was a food market there on Sunday morning.  It closed at noon and these vehicles made their way past us and out through that arch while we were eating, leaving a view of the old part of our hotel across the street.  I think this is where Trout came out when he took the spiral stairs down from our room rather than the elevator.

So Trout and I are always talking about French food.  We had decent meals the whole time in Annecy.  Even the one we had along the canal at the place that catered to Germans was decent.  But the best were at the French places.

I already mentioned the creperie above.  I had both a savory crepe and a sweet one.  We also had lunch at the Atelier Gourmand des Jumeaux.  We got there toward the end of their lunch hours, and were almost the last to leave, but they were happy to serve us.  This is the place where the waiter spoke American-accented English and where we saw the young Asian "models" with the older French men.  The food was great.  The waiter said he learned his English from American movies and TV.

The other two great places we ate were Il Etait une Fois and Le Bilboquet.  We had fabulous meals at both.  At the former, the chef came out and talked to us in English.  At the latter, Trout had a little difficulty communicating with the waitress, but all was worked out.  A young man at a table close to us offered to help if we needed it.

This little town was very busy the weekend we were there.  In fact, the desk clerk who was there at night said he didn't know what was going on it was so busy.  This is the other place where we mostly saw families with children and few old retirees like us, or young backpackers.  I'm beginning to think that was because we stayed in the heart of things in a modestly priced hotel as opposed to a typical tourist place.