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| May 7, 2008 | to | May 12, 2008 |
| September 19, 2008 | to | September 21, 2008 |
Nimes (30 Gard, Languedoc-Roussillon) like many towns and cities on or close to the Mediterranean coast, has a long tradition of bullfighting and many of their festivities are centred around the “corridas”..
Most Brits will find the idea very unappealling, but that is no reason to avoid the whole of these festivals, as they are but one element of the events, and what you will miss is a tremendous festive Mediterranean atmosphere.
19–21 September 2008 are the dates for the Feria des Vendanges (Wine harvest) A Feria is a feast day often associated with bulls in the south of France.
7-12 May 2008 are the dates for the Feria de Pentecote
Anthony Peregrine in the Telegraph (22 Aug 2007) provides an excellent introduction and guide to the city of Nimes and its nearby attractions such as the Pont du Gard.
From the point of view of wine, Nimes lies on the boundary between the Provence, Languedoc and Rhone, which is also reflected in the style of the local wines. But the Costieres de Nimes AC is classified as part of the Rhone appellations. The grape varieties for the red and rosé wines are Syrah, Grenache, Mourvèdre, Carignan, and Cinsault. For the white wines: White Grenache, Marsanne, Roussane as well as Clairette, Bourboulenc, Maccabeo and Rolle.
Well worth a visit would be the Chateau de la Tuilerie just to the south of Nimes where Chantal Comte produces some excellent wines – a good tasting room experience is guaranteed – and they even have their own helicopter landing pad if you are planning to arrive in style!
For more info on Nimes see http://www.ot-nimes.fr/
| September 16, 2007 |
Fougerolles (70 Saone, Rhone-Alpes) is situated at the north of the Haute-Saône, at the foot of the “balloon” of the Vosges southwest of Alsace, reserves for itself the title of Pays de la Cerise – mainly for the production of Kirsch, which is a clear pure brandy made from cherries – not to be confused with Cherry Brandy which is a sweetened, flavoured version of simple grape brandy.
Kirsch is made from pressing the fruit, adding the ground cherry stones and allowing it all to ferment. The stones add a characteristically bitter note to the spirit, and also contain minute quantities of cyanide! The liquid is then heated in a still to distill the alcoholic spirit and then aged for a short time in glass “bonbons” or steel or earthenware vats so that the spirit remains colourless.
Often used as to provide an additional punch to desserts, it can also be taken lightly chilled as a refreshing after-dinner tipple – but preferably in small quantities.
This is one of those lesser-known parts of France – not really on any of the main routes to anywhere, and the proximity of the Vosges mountains limits a speedy transit of the region. But it may well be worth visiting in early July for the annual Fete des Cerises which celebrates the beginning of the harvest – or in September there is an annual fair of Cherry Dougnuts (Foire aux Beignets de Cerises) and Kirsch tastings which sounds like fun. (held on 16 September in 2007)
For more info see http://www.otsi-fougerolles.net
Understanding and appreciating the styles of cuisine in France can enhance the enjoyment of what you are eating (or cooking) – much like wine, where I find a little additional knowledge can helps me be more discriminating in my choices and combinations of dishes and wines.
Doug Stewart at www.france-property-and-information.com offers some insights into some of the nuances behind the rich variety of French Food
Regional influences
Each region of France has ingredients, recipes and style of cooking specific to that region. Although they may be exported to other regions of France (and the world), production is largely local and consumption is highest in the region of origin. For example, in Provence the food typically features olive oil, herbs and tomatoes; these are all locally produced and they feature in a surprising large variety of different recipes.
The evolution of regional cooking styles has been influenced by:
• Local availability. The French, a nation of gourmets, prefer to use local ingredients. Consequently, coastal regions (such as Brittany and Normandy, on the northwest coast of France) will favor sea fish and will use it more often and in more varied ways than inland areas. Likewise, areas where fruit or herbs grow easily, will incorporate these into their local cuisine.
• Neighbouring countries and immigration. Near the borders with other countries, the local cuisine incorporates certain dishes and ingredients of the neighbouring countries. It is not surprising to find Italian dishes near the Italian border. More notably, the French region of Alsace is similar to Germany in its food (sauerkraut is popular) and wine, partly due to it currently bordering on Germany and partly due to it having been part of Germany at various points in its history (the border has moved back and forth with various wars). In parts of the south which have a large North African immigrant population one can enjoy the cuisine which they have imported from their original countries.
• History and economic conditions. The culture, lifestyle and economic conditions over a long period of time have formed the development of local food traditions. The rich meat dishes and cream sauces of Burgundy are not only due to Burgundian excellence in raising cattle, but in large part to the economic prosperity of this region over several centuries. On the other hand, mountain regions excel in firm cheeses, which allow food to be preserved over the long and difficult winters, and can be produced from mountain livestock which historically were the main means of support for many families in economically limited areas.
Of course, throughout France one can find a range of dishes, both in restaurants and at home, which extends well beyond regional specialities. However, at the same time, the regional influences in terms of ingredients and style of cooking is marked. Consequently, for those who move to France, the choice of region will influence the types of food one will find.
Italian Influence
Culinary historians generally associate the development of high cuisine in France (as opposed to the existing rural traditions) with the marriage in 1533 of Catherine De Medicis (a Florentine princess) to Henry duc d’Orleans (who became King Henry II or France). At this point, France was not know for its food or food culture. Catherine brought an entourage of Italian chefs with her to France, who introduced to France a variety of dishes, food preparation and dining practices. Although France and Italy obviously have evolved very different food cultures, both before and since this contribution, much of France’s current food culture can be traced back to this time.Cooking styles
As discussed above, each region of France has its own distinctive traditions in terms of ingredients and preparation. On top of this, there are three general approaches which compete with each other:
• Classical French cuisine (also known in France as cuisine bourgeoise). This includes all the classical French dishes which were at one time regional, but are no longer specifically regional. Food is rich and filling, with many dishes using cream-based sauces.
• Haute cuisine is classical French cuisine taken to its most sophisticated and extreme. Food is elegant, elaborate and generally rich. Meals tend to be heavy, especially due to the use of cream and either large portions or many smaller portions. There is a strong emphasis on presentation (in particular, vegetables tend to be cut with compulsive precision and uniformity). The finest ingredients are used, and the meal is correspondingly expensive.
• Cuisine Nouvelle. This style developed in the 1970s, as a reaction against the classical school of cooking. The food is simpler and lighter. Portions are smaller and less rich; the heavy cream sauces of the classical approach are particularly avoided. Cooking is less elaborate and quicker, with more emphasis on local and seasonal ingredients.
• Cuisine du terroir. This focuses on regional specialities and is somewhat more rustic in nature. Local produce and food traditions are the main focus.
Each of these traditions is strongly represented in France, each having its supporters and specialist restaurants. At the moment, Cuisine Nouvelle is less popular than it was, while Cuisine du terroir has grown in popularity in recent years.
For more on French Food see Doug Stweart’s site at www.france-property-and-information.com/easy-french-food-recipes.htm
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!
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
| July 22, 2002 |
The village of Cairanne (84 Vaucluse, Provence) in the southern Rhône Valley holds its 33rd Annual Wine Festival on Sunday 22 July 2007 (4pm-10pm) – the usual shindig with plenty of wine stalls, a Provencal market with over 50 stands, some music and plenty of opportunity to try out the local wines.
An interesting aspect is the invitation to the producers of another wine region to be the “guest appellation” and for 2007 it is the turn of Bandol AC, from the mediterranean coast east of Marseille - rich heavy reds which major on the Mourvedre grape.
Cairanne has an excellent co-operative Cave de Cairanne - Leon Stolarski stocks some of their range, and I can particularly recommend the Cuvée Voconces - “Aromas of stewed fruits and Christmas cake and smoky “garrigue”. Rich, dark, sweet and sour fruit flavours, a hint of peppery spice and a superb finish. Quintessential Cairanne.”
There are also a number of really good independent producers - A recent recommendation from a French wine merchant whose tastes I rate was for the wines of Domaine de Delubac - Cairanne, Côtes du Rhône Villages AC Les Bruneau
available in the UK from the Halifax Wine Company: “Red and black fruits with a peppery and spicy personality - lots of rich, elegant complexity and a big mellow aftertaste. I think this is brilliant.”
The red wines of Cairanne are rich and spicy being grown on the hillsides around the village - with a minimum of 50% Grenache in the blend together with Syrah, Mourvedre and the other southern Rhône varietals.
For more on the Cairanne Wine Festival see www.vignerons-cairanne.com/
Evening Jazz concerts in the vineyards of the Southern Rhone
1 September 2007 – Cairanne
27 October 2007 – Visan
17 November 2007 – Cairanne
For more info see www.frenchduck.com
No. 10 Downing Street is by any measure a rather modest and functional residence for our Head of Government, compared to say the White House in Washington or the Elysee Palace in France. Of course the inhabitants of those palaces are also Head of State. But it must be a trifle frustrating to see the splendour of the accommodation available to the new French President, Nicolas Sarkozy.
First the Elysee Palace in the centre of Paris is very much a palace, somewhere you wpuld be proud to welcome foreign dignatories. But Monsieur le President, also has at his disposal another Chateau at Rambouillet on the outskirts of Paris (see photo) - just a tad more grand than Chequers, which is only a country house.
However, the French do not stop there - Hotel de Marigny is another fine house in Paris - and then there is the Domaine de Souzy-la-Briche a little further outside Paris near Dourdan (91, Essone, Ile de France)- but this is “just a private residence for the President”.
But to top it all there is a little islet on the Côte d’Azur - the Fort de Bregancon, near Bormes-les-Mimosas, in case you get bored with the splendour of the other residences.
- see map. President Sarkozy has just spent his first Presidential weekend at Bregancon.
Unfortunately none of these buildings seem to open to the public - although there is a video tour of the Elysee Palace on the French Presidency website
For a time this was the most successful foreign film in British box-office history, and deservedly so. It’s a continuation of Jean de Florette, which told how a hunchback from Paris tried to establish himself as a farmer in rural Provence, only to have his water supply blocked off by a conniving neighbour (Montand) who wanted to take his land.
See full review of Manon Des Sources from Channel 4 Film.
Two other films in the series are Le Chateau de Ma Mère (my mother’s chateau) and La Gloire de Mon Père (my father’s glory) - all set in the Provencal hills above Aubagne (13 Bouches-du-Rhone, Provence) between Marseille and Aix-en-Provence. (see map)
Aubagne is proud to be the birthplace of Pagnol and whilst it cashes in somewhat with a “miniature world of Marcel Pagnol” with hundreds of Provencal figurines based on his characters, the house where he was born is now a museum to the great man.
However, what to my mind is better (if you are fit enough) is to take one of the signposted walks which take you up in to the hills (the Massif du Garbalan) where Manon and Jean de Florette were based and filmed. Here you can capture the essence of deepest Provence, both beautiful and stark, abundant with herbs and awesome views over the “garrigue”
The local tourist office in Aubagne has details of these walks, and there are some guided tours available with a coach to take you up the hills. Alternatively there are “threatrical excursions” which involve a local theatre company’s actors recreating scenes from the films in the original locations. But be warned, some serious uphill walking is required and it can be seriously hot in mid-summer. Best to make an early start to avoid the heat of the afternoon. There can also be some restrictions in the height of summer to minimise the risk of moorland fires - again check with the Tourist Office.
LINKS:-
Aubagne Tourist Office and Pagnol walks
Manon Des Sources [1986]
Whilst researching the Alpes-Maritimes Département in Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, I landed on the website of the beautiful medieval village of Sospel close to the Italian border on the high hills back from the French Riviera. This is a great place for hang-gliding (so I am told), on the old “route du Sel” (salt route) from Nice to Turin - and with a good market on Thursdays and Sundays (cheese, honey, vegetables, cake, spices…).
BUT, to find out more I tried the local tourist office website , where the original French version of the site has been totally mangled by some translating machine which produces the following example of gobbledegook:
Located at 15 minutes of Chin and 30 minutes only of Nice, Sospel has a site of coasting flight very appreciated with 1000 meters of altitude.
Easy and pleasant for a flight of the morning in school, 750 meters lower, a vast grassy ground, allows the beginners as with the pilots experienced to improve their landing.
The same site becomes during the morning a starting point interesting for the avid pilots of distances. Directed Southern South-west, this site with broad generous thermics will propel you easily worms of pretty ceilings.
All the year, come to discover the joys of the coasting flight! “
Other sections include “To come in Sospel”, “To be restored” and “Reserve your Leisures” and the “MIddle Ages” or (”Moyen Age” in French) comes out as Average Age! - and “Our Producers will open the doors of their exploitation to you and will make you with pleasure discover the fruit of their work with nature. Contact them!!”
I get used to the ocassional inappropriate translations - usually due to a failure of a dictionary to identify the nuances of definition in English, but this has to be worth a prize for total garbage, My own grasp of French is reasonable rather than expert, but I will always decline the english version of a restaurant menu, as at least with the original French version I do know where my limitations are. The classic for misinterpretation (due to both languages seeking to find euphemisms for some dubious bits of offal) is “Sweetbreads” in English and “Ris de Veau” in French - both are often literally translated and could provide a severe shock to the diner when his/her “Veal Rice” turns out to be an ill-defined dish of a calf’s pancreas.!
John Scallan at www.bandb-burgundy.com/ has set up a business translating French websites for English-speaking audiences, as too many website owners rely on pigeon-English and a dictionary.
But back to Sospel - my suggestion would be to avoid the English-language version of the site - and struggle with the original French version - believe me it is easier to understand even if you only have very basic French - see www.sospel-tourisme.com/
Better still see Linda Cookson’s article in the Independent (5 May 2007) which in impeccable and entertaining English describes a trek through the region around Sospel.
