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There is a well-established network of local and highspeed intercity trains in France, and of course France is justly proud of its impressive high speed train services - TGV (Train à Grande Vitesse).
However there are a number of preserved “tourist” railway lines, which whilst they may at first seem to be for the railway enthusiast, do really offer some great opportunities to view parts of the French landscape from quite a unique (and usually leisurely) perspective.
Some of the best include:-
le Chemin de Fer de la Baie de la Somme in Picardie, running around the bay of the Somme near Abbeville on the Channel coast (steam and diesel)
Chemin de Fer de Provence route which runs from Nice up to DIgne (04 Alpes, Provence-Alpes-Cote d’Azur) in Provence through stunning scenery back from the Mediterranean coast - the full journey takes 3½hours each way but you can get off at numerous intermediate stations - at weekends some journeys may be with a steam engine (Train à Vapeur).
Chemin de Fer de Vallée de l’Ouche in Burgundy’s Côte d’Or, northwest of Beaune (31 Côte d’Or, Burgundy)
Chemin de Fer de la Mure south of Grenoble, runs from St-Georges-de-Commiers (38 Isèe, Rhône-Alpes) to la Mure using vintage electric engines through some dramatic scenery.
Chemin de Fer du Vivarais in the Ardeche, running from Lamastre (07 Ardeche, Rhône-Alpes) to Tournon along the valley of the River Doux - mainly steam with some vintage diesels.
Chemin de fer Touristique du Haut-Quercy “Le Truffadou” - steam and diesel on a strecth of track in and near Martel (46 Lot, Midi-Pyrenees)
Train Touristique de l’Albret runs on an old SNCF line from Nerac (47 Lot-et-Garonne, Aquitaine) to Mezin on a tourist train - about 90 minutes running from April to October.
On a different level altogether, SNCF (French National Railways) is rightly proud of its recent world record for a train at 574.8 kilometres per hour (about 360 mph) - so much so that you can see video footage of the record run at www.record2007.com/site/index_en.php - dramatically produced. However, the new trains which are now running on the TGVEst Europeen to Strasbourg, Luxembourg and all points east will work at a mere 200mph!
| August 15, 2007 |
Lautrec (81 Tarn, Midi-Pyrenees) holds its Festival to celebrate the connection between windmills and bread (Fete du Four au Moulin).
includes a demonstration of milling the flour in the traditional manner (wind permitting!)
- plus a Marché de Terroir (farmers market) - lots of different breads to try, music,dancing.
The village also famous for its Pink Garlic (Ail Rose) festival earlier in the summer. Gaillac is the local wine. See Domaine de Labarthe for a good selection of Gaillac wines.
For more info see http://ot.lautrec.free.fr
A recent missive from the “Seigneurs de Cahors” helped to unravel some of the varying terms used for oak barrels in France.
The “Seigneurs” or “lords” is a self-selected group of some of the best Cahors producers – but whilst I will agree that they are amongst the best, there are other producers outside the hallowed group who produce great wines.
The Seigneurs of Cahors include Chateau de Mercuès, Chateau Haut-Serre, Chateau Leret-Monpezat, Chateau les Bouysses, Chateau de Caix, Chateau de Chambert, Chateau du Cedre, Prieuré de Cénac and Chateau Triguedina.
However, back to barrels and barriques. As it is France, there is inevitably quite a lot of regional variation in names and sizes. The most common is the Bordeaux barrique (as pictured) used for ageing (and sometimes) fermenting wines especially to impart the softening and oaky flavours that contact with oak (especially new oak) can bring to a wine. In Bordeaux this is usually a barrique of 225 litres. However, in Burgundy a 220 litre barrel is known as a “pièce”, although sometimes this is 228 litres in the Côte d’Or. You will also find a demi-pièce which holds half of the equivalent quantity.
On a larger scale come the pipe (400 litres), the tonne(or tonneau) at 1000 litres and ultimately the foudre which can be over 11,500 litres. These larger containers tend to be more for storage, as the larger the barrel gets the less contact the wine has with the wood. The larger foudre tends to be quite ancient and will impart no real “woodiness” or “oakiness” to the wine.
The smaller the barrel and the newer the oak, the more intense the impact on the wine will be. Many winemakers will use a proportion of new oak barrels with some that have been used for one or two harvests to get just the right amount of “oak” character in the wine.
Also the French being French, they will usually choose French oak from the massive forests of the Allier or the Troncais for example. American oak is sometimes used, but tends to have a more powerful oaky flavour than the more subtle French oak. There is a whole industry and mythology around the whole process of oak cultivation (sylviculture). cutting and drying the staves, toasting and making the barrels (tonnellerie). There is now cheaper oak available from Eastern Europe to complicate matters, and seeing as how a quality oak barrel from a good supplier can cost €700 or more, then price has to be a serious consideration for the winemaker.
For more info on the wines of Cahors see www.frenchduck.co.uk/cahors.html and www.vindecahors.fr
This photo of a section of the Alsace wine route, taken just a few days ago really raised my spirits in what has been an English summer which can only be described in the range of “disappointing” to “disastrous”. Amid reports and experience of a very damp June in France and late ripening in the vineyards it was good to see a picture of a vineyard looking like it should in the middle of summer. Of course it also serves as a reminder that the Alsace climate boasts one of the lowest annual rainfalls in France, mainly due to being situated in the “rain shadow” of the Vosges mountains to the west.
The Alsace Wine Route winds its way from north to south, for more than 170 kilometres, along the eastern foothills of the Vosges. This delightful itinerary runs across a succession of undulating hills, through pretty villages with narrow streets of flower-decked, half-timbered houses, clustered around their church steeple.
Visitors can easily explore the heart of the vineyards, along numerous vineyard paths leading to the crest of each slope, where signs explain the work of the winegrower and the diversity of the grape varieties.
They are welcomed into winstubs and tasting cellars to instantly discover the traditional appeal of the vine and the wine.
I keep an eye on a site called Trek Earth which is a photo repository, and which includes a France section see – http://www.trekearth.com/ which is where the above photo comes from. I often see photos on the site which are very evocative of the magic of France.
For more on the Alsace Wine Route (la route des vins d’alsace) see www.vinsalsace.com – but if you planning on spending any time on that site I suspect you may want to turn the sound off!
2007 is the three hundredth anniversary of his death, and hence numerous events are planned to celebrate this master of military invention. His physical legacy is of course the list of imitimidating fortresses to defend le Hexagone - the defensible boundaries of France from the northern border with Belgium down to the Alps, along the Mediterranean and up the Atlantic Coast. However, his military reputation initially was more concerned with planning and implementing sieges - so in many ways he was a poacher-turned-gamekeeper - if you are good as breaking sieges, then who better to design defenses to repel them? The hallmark of Vauban is his impressive use of massive angular pentagonal walls which prevented attackers targetting one section of wall without being at risk of counter-attack from an adjacent section. The classic examples are the Citadel at Lille, Briancon and Besancon, although many other examples exist.
My favourite is on the island of Belle-Ile off the coast of Brittany, where the fortifications adjacent to the small harbout of Le Palais are most impressive. More familiar to visitors to France will be the fortifications at St Malo and la Rochelle. Vauban left his mark on most of the land and sea frontiers of France, although he was born in Burgundy which hosts only one of his constructiona. On the Côte d’Azur, Antibes, Villefranche, Cannes and St.Tropez. Toulon, Marseille, Collioure on the Mediterranean;
other sites are at Arras, Auxonne, Barraux, Bayonne, Belfort, Bergues, Bitche, Blaye, Bouillon, Calais, Cambrai, Colmars-les-Alpes, Douai, Entrevaux, Givet, Gravelines, Huningue, Joux, Kehl, Landau, La Rochelle, Le Quesnoy, Lusignan, Le Perthus (Fort de Bellegarde), Luxembourg, Maastricht, Maubeuge, Metz, Mont-Dauphin, Mont-Louis, Montmédy, Namur, Neuf-Brisach, Perpignan, Plouezoc’h (Château du Taureau), Rocroi, Saarlouis, Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, Saint-Omer, Sedan, Toul, Valenciennes, Verdun, Villefranche-de-Conflent. For more info see www.vauban2007-bourgogne.org and www.sites-vauban.org
The Chateau Rieutort de Blanville at Saint-Pargoire (34230 Herault, Languedoc) is a very stylish chateau surrounded by vines – the chateau estate producing classy wines in the Coteaux du Languedoc and Grès de Montpellier appellations as well as some Vins de Pays Vicomté d’Aumelas.
Sitauted just 10 minutes from the medieval town of Pezenas (34 Herault, Languedoc), and not far from the Mediterranean coast at Narbonne, many of the best Languedoc vineyards are within easy reach
The Chateau offers classy Bed & Breakfast (Chambre d’Hote) accommodation.
Rieutort is not an hotel. It’s a home open to you and where you will feel welcome, the home of the owners of Blanville Wine Estate.
Blanville produces high-quality wines ( red and white), in particular Château Haut-Blanville, regularly rated amongst the best brands in Languedoc.
For more on the B&B - see Chateau Rieutort
For more on their wines see Blanville Languedoc wines
If you are not able to get across the Channel this summer then you might like to take a look at the London Royal Academy exhibition “Impressionists by the Sea” which runs until 30 September 2007.
The English Channel coast of northern France and the Normandy and Brittany beaches were within easy reach of Paris, and often provided scenes for paintings by the likes of Manet, Monet and Boudin. As impressionists they found that the play of light in coastal scenes gave them more opportunity to experiment with their art.
“Painters initially portrayed the coast in Romantic terms, focusing on the evocation of the sublime forces of nature and the depiction of picturesque scenes of local fishermen. By the 1860s, however, stylish holidaymakers began to appear in paintings, as many of local resorts, such as Deauville and Trouville, became fashionable.”
I suspect that many visitors tend to dismiss these coasts and hurtle south for more hedonistic resorts, but when the weather is friendly there are some great beaches and interesting resorts, stretching from west of Dunkerque all the way along to St Malo and the Brittany peninsula.
For more info see www.royalacademy.org.uk where you can also download a podcast about this exhibition, and enter a prize draw to win a luxury break in Normandy!
The Languedoc-Roussillon region has a lot to offer the visitor, but one of the more unusual offerings has to be the Museum of the Mundane - Musée Internationale des Arts Modestes (or MIAM) in Sete (34 Hérault, Languedoc-Roussillon).I rather like the term of “modest art”, The museum features objects which are (or have been) part of daily life, often with little real use, but which are aesthetically pleasing or interesting - often very simple and always lacking any intellectual value! - so examples will include a King Size model of Elvis Presley, plastic elephants and a fantastic jumble of the useless but interesting. (The website is quite fun in a rather obscure, French way). The objects come from all over France and other parts of the world.
On a more practical note is the Museum of Firefighting (Musée de Sapeur-Pompier) at St Hippolyte du Fort (30 Gard, Languedoc-Roussillon) in the foothills of the Cevennes (where there is also a Silk Museum (Musee de la Soie)
“The firefighting Museum enables us to discover all there is to know about firefighting from 1830 to nowadays. A 750 square metre exhibition of vehicles, equipment and exclusive collection of costumes and accessories covering a large period of time;”
Dr Roger Corder’s Book The Wine Diet
He writes in the Telegraph (20 July 2007); “…. moderate drinkers suffer lower rates of heart disease, but only those people who limit themselves to two or three small glasses (around 125 ml) a day with food can be assured of these preventive benefits…..It is better to drink small amounts of wine everyday than to drink only occasionally. But it’s also healthier to drink your wine with food, not without.”
To be honest I cannot imagine that you would really want to drink a Madiran or Cahors without food, as these wines are based on relatively tannic grape varities as Tannat and Malbec. These are wines to be savoured not glugged!
Our favourite remains the Gold Medal-winning Madiran AC Cuvée Charles de Batz from Domaine Berthoumieu available in the UK from Noel Young Wines
Normandy is rightly famous for its cheeses - indeed think of Normandy and I immediately think of apples, cows and lush green fields, thatched cottages and cream - cider and Calvados (apple brandy), Camembert, Pont l’Eveque and wonderfully creamy butter.
Livarot is another of the great cows milk cheeses to come from the region, nicknamed the Colonel due to the straps of rush which hold it together and which look like military stripes.
It does of course belong to the family of seriously smelly French cheese, and has a strong distinctive taste and when properly ripe has a glutinous texture - yet it dissolves in the mouth.
This is definitely the type of cheese to be purchased from a proper cheesemonger rather than most local supermarkets. Online you can buy from the Teddington Cheese Company who describe the cheese as:“a full and assertive flavour, a supple texture and a pungent aroma…. excellent on the cheese board although it is best tasted after milder cheeses. It is best enjoyed with a full-bodied red wine, a glass of Normandy cider or even a nip of Calvados.”
Livarot holds its annual cheese festival in August - see our events schedule
