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Published: October 4th 2009
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Friday - God’s Hotel, Bulgarian cookery and International Table Football
Hôtel-Dieu
Friday morning and it’s a visit to
Hôtel-Dieu. If my French is any good {
and we’ve already established that it isn’t!} that translates as “God’s Hotel”. I don’t think I’d be able to get a room there. Also known as
Hospices de Beaune, it was originally established as a hospital for the poor in the late 15th century. It remained in use as a hospital until as recently as 1971 {
Am I showing my age by describing 1971 as “recent”?!?} but has now been opened as a museum showing the hospital as it was back in the 15th century.
The guide books describe it as one of the best examples of 15th century French architecture and it is certainly worth a visit. The roof, which is glazed with red, brown, yellow and green tiles in geometric patterns, is probably the most characteristic feature of the building. The
Grande Hall Pôvres is equally impressive, being set out as the original hospital ward. Moving through the buildings the
kitchen and
pharmacyare also both well laid out and reconstructed although the promised “light and sound show” in the kitchen was
not as spectacular as the phrase “light and sound show” might imply! I spend a long time in the pharmacy trying with my really poor French to work out what was in the bottles and trying to work out what powdered semen, elixir of property and vomit nuts powder might cure.
Town Walls and TV
I meet up with Nick in town and we go for lunch and a beer. I succeed in ordering a burger! But when it arrives it appears to have been freshly made on the premises. We get into a long discussion about British and French attitudes to food and what Nick feels is the French reluctance to accept the poor quality of mass produced junk food we accept in Britain - a point which seems to be borne out when we visit the market the next day and I see the types of foodstuff people are buying and the prices they are happy to pay.
We take a walk around the town walls; we walk about a mile of the one and a half miles of the walls. I would describe them more as ramparts being wide enough in most
parts to drive a car round and with some houses being built on top of the walls. Nick and I spend the rest of the afternoon watching TV while Anne is at work picking grapes! Nick hasn’t been able to get much TV reception for some time and I manage to find a really hi-tech way of fixing this. We celebrate by watching an edition of the French “Candid Camera” which must be at least 50 years old - Nick is enthralled by this because the program relates to a book he has recently indexed! Some channel-hopping then takes us to a cookery program which I correctly guess is Bulgarian. As we learn how to make a large dumpling I wonder whether there is a business opportunity here - could there be a market for a Bulgarian Restaurant in Beaune?
Ali's Bar
In the evening we all go down to Nick and Anne’s “local” - Ali’s Bar. On arrival Nick and Anne greet everyone else in the bar with a handshake and some jokes in French which go totally over my head. I must still seem antisocial because I’m not yet used this ritual. Bruno, who
I have met when he was in the UK, is there so at least I have been friendly to someone and don’t appear totally antisocial. We decide to share a bottle of Ali’s finest Algerian red wine. Bruno has been working the
vendange with Anne and comes and joins us. I can actually follow some of the conversation!!
Ali has acquired a table football game {
for Ramadan??} and the fanatical supporters of Stoke, West Brom and Huddersfield take on a Frenchman who knows nothing about football but who spends a lot of his life in bars. Unfortunately for us his experience seems to be more useful than ours and our boys took one hell of a beating.
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