NICE to Monestier de Clermont

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NICE to Monestier de Clermont 23rd May 2007 (Wednesday Sunshine 25º to 30º)


Today we leave Nice and head North. We have enjoyed Nice and like it a lot…dare I say that Nice is nice! It certainly is not as pretentious as Cannes or as spoilt as Monaco - I suppose both these places could be forgiven as we did arrive in the midst of their annual festivities.

Our drive towards Digne is filled with jaw dropping scenery as a stupendous vista appears around each corner we turn. The road cuts its way through a part of the French Alps and in some places the mountains have been hacked through to allow cars to pass through tunnels and under huge overhangs. We stop at a little Medieval Village called Entre Veau and cross a drawbridge over a raging stream to walk through its cobblestone streets. It is a strange combination of tourist attraction and real village with working adults and kids rushing off to school as the bell calls them back from lunch at home.

As I sit here now writing this blog I remember that the whole town had a certain surreal feeling that it was slightly contrived this feeling is now magnified by the fact that I cannot find it on any maps and even the great Goggle cannot track it down. Do do do, do do do (sung to the Theme of The Twilight Zone).

Lunch is a Panini purchased in Sisteron. Whilst this might sound like the name of the Nun who trained the school football team it isn’t. It is in fact a lovely little place in a bend in the river and the road. We buy our Paninis from a ‘hip ’n’ happinin’ little joint where school girls titter in one corner and the boys play tough in another. There are a bunch of others taking coffee, some enjoy beers and Gauloises and everyone else is just checking out whatever is around to check out.

We sit in a shady lay away and enjoy the peace of this place. It is cool and relaxing until some clown in a Subaru WRX decides that this part of road is the next leg in the World Rally Championship and cracks the peace asunder with his revving engine and squealing tyres. Could do with the ‘little finger’ advertising campaign over here.

We push on through marvellous countryside. Painted hills with Villages nestled in between - land marked by the ubiquitous Church steeples back dropped by the French Alps.

At around 5:00pm we pull into the tiny hamlet of Monestier de Clermont. It is bypassed by the Auto Routes and so offers a restful sleep and maybe a hotel with some charm. Well we got more than we bargained for.

We drove up a side street just to get our bearings and stumbled upon the rear entrance to Chateau de Bardonenche. A small sign suggests that it is a Chambre D’Hotes and we walk in thru the garden calling out “Anybody Home?” As we draw closer we hear some children playing and see them some after under the supervision of the lady of the house. Her name is Cecile Schoebel and she and her husband (Thierry) run this magnificent Chateau (check it out at www.bardoneche.com).

We have a choice of three rooms, as there is no one else staying tonight. Tomorrow night however 30 Swiss are due in for 4 days of drinking and Cow Tipping (or whatever the Swiss do for kicks). We chose the Viscount room and you will see from our photos it is grand indeed.

The Chateau itself is amazing. It is nearly 500 years old and is halfway through a major renovation (which is not immediately evident). Views from all windows are though pine forests to the imposing needle Mountain that appears to be within reach if you stick out your hand.

Once we have dropped our bags we go for a walk down the main drag (in fact it is the only drag - there is only one street with a few small laneways heading off left and right). We watch some boys practising Rugby and Soccer side by side (unusual bedfellows in Oz but quite OK here).

We have drinks at the only joint in town. It is the Café/Bar that lives underneath the Hotel de la Poste. The walls are lined with large photographs of steaming Rugby scrums featuring the All Blacks, the Tri-Colours and the Welsh to name a few. We immediately warm to the place and to the bar keeper who has not a word of English.

In a most painful process of linguistic contortion we discover that there is a Restaurant at the rear of the Bar and he is also the Chef in residence. So at the appointed time we move the 15 metres from Bar to Restaurant and our Bar Tender becomes our Waiter. He takes our order and becomes the Chef.

NOTE: We have a long discussion with Chef about the way we want our Entrecote of Beef and Steak cooked. On a scale of 1 to 10 we explain that Blue is 1, Medium is 5 and Well Done is 10. Knowing how the French like their meat rare we plump for 10+ hoping that by well over-shooting the medium mark we will indeed get something cooked medium or better.

Now I am sure that everyone knows that you should never, repeat never, criticise or question the culinary skills of a French Chef. They don’t take it well.

Our meals arrive. Looking and smelling divine. At the first stroke of her knife I knew that Deb was in trouble - I leaned across in the dimming light to see a piece of beautiful fillet steak that looked as though (at best) that it had been near a stove - not actually on one for any period of time. It is the rarest piece of meat I have every seen that was not standing in a paddock eating grass. Mine is a thin piece of steak but does not fare much better.

We anguish over what to do and realise that we can’t sit here an not eat, so we call the Chef over and explain that we would like Deb’s fillet to be returned to the pan for a little longer (‘for about another hour’ goes unsaid). I persevere with mine as we don’t want him to implode with indignity.
After much banging of pans and pots in the kitchen and some barely audible Gaelic expletives he emerges once again with Deb’s fillet. We smile, he smiles and we return to our meals. But guess what? It is only marginally better and could still be revived if we had a paramedic and a set of heart paddles.

We again talk in hushed tones and curse the French and their ways. We summons the Chef and he comes to our table under his now attendant grey cloud. We again indicate that the fillet is far too rare to our liking and he grabs it and goes to the kitchen in a huff. The banging of pots and pans is now completely unrestrained and we can now actually understand some of the expletives as they are not new to us now.

He emerges once again with the thrice-cooked fillet. He leaves in the same huff he arrived in. Deb studies the dish closely, looking for telltale signs of sabotage (e.g. cockroach, rat poison, spittle…) but nothing obvious springs out and she tucks in. This time it is still rare by our definition of rare but it is indeed very edible and in fact tres delicious!!

We nurse our wines alone in the restaurant for 10 minutes after we finish and then decide that we should return to the bar and mend some culinary bridges that may have been burned (oh for something burned). All is well within 5 minutes and our Bar Tender is giving us free drinks and advice on something that we don’t understand but smile and accept anyway.

Home to Chateau de Bardonenche for a nightcap and a laugh about our night out in Monestier de Clermont.

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Photos

Entre Veau
A Medievil Village that may not really exist!

Jaw dropping scenery
This are the vistas that encouraged us to drive on and see what was around the next corner.

Sisteron
Not the Nun who trains the School Footy side. It is a pre-Roman town built at a narrow rocky gap where the Durance and Buech rivers join.

Another quaint village
Check the back drop!

Chateau de Bardonenche
One of the three rooms on offer at the Chateau de Bardonenche.

Cafe Hotel de la Poste
An olde lithograph of the Cafe Hotel de la Poste. Scene of the great steak debacle of 2007.