Advertisement
We headed south the Pyrenees about 9 hoping to go to the top of Pic du Midi at 9,000 feet. In the Tourist office in Bagneres-de-Bigotte, the pictures from their webcam at the top of the mountain showed solid white clouds. Instead, they recommended we head to Col de Alons for a view of the Pyrenees from under the clouds. Before we headed out we stopped for tea at the cutest pastry shop since Paris. It turns out Patisserie Bordelaise Maison Lamothe (www.patisserie-bordelaise.fr) has been a family run business since 1907. The gentleman who greeted us was one of the six family members currently running the shop. He had baked for the royal family of Belgium and his cousin who also works in the business worked for Lauderee in Paris. The toasted pine nut pastry was fantastic and when I asked about the filling he explained that is was feuilletee (one of the 3 kinds of Pates the others being sable and brisee). My Internet connection is down, but I’m going to be sure to look it up and try to recreate it at home. After tea we bought two bottles of wine as gifts for our hosts and Jan’s sister
who stocked the frig for us and with whom we are going to visit tomorrow. He had unusual macarons that used a special recipe from his father. When I asked for one of each type, he wrapped them up and asked for a kiss as payment. I was happy to give him 2 kisses, one on each cheek. It was charming and made me happy. In the US, this would be considered almost criminal and certainly offensive. Being in France it was charmant. Maybe there is something to be said for greater intimacy.
We headed out to the Col d’Aspin and the drive up the switch-backed road was actually pretty scary with huge steep drops on the passenger side. I couldn’t look. When we got to the views were spectacular. Since 1910 the Tour de France comes up this mountain. We saw about a dozen cyclists, including a couple that looked like they were in their 50’s. When Jack commented that there were people who looked only a little younger than us doing this ride, my response was don’t hold your breath. After some picturing taking we headed back down. Driving back I was on the inside of the
road so it was more fun. We stopped at the base at a cute little restaurant, where we could sit outside and look up at the mountains. We were the only English-speaking people at the restaurant, so I guess the rest of the folks were European tourists. This was the first sunny day we’ve had since our first day in Paris so we wanted to take advantage of it.
We arrived back around 4 to find that we still don’t have heat (not such a big deal since we have space heaters) or hot water (which is a pain). Oh well, we’ll simply use the tea kettle to create enough hot water to bath tomorrow morning and then shower in the evening after the plumbers next visit or when we visit Razia (Jan Brown’s sister) since I’m willing to bet she has hot water.
We went back to the restaurant we had eaten at on Sunday. The owner recognized us and was extremely friendly. Jack liked the blues playing in the background and when he asked it turned out to be Hugh Laurie (Dr. House). We both had confit that wasn’t as good as it had been on
Sunday. We agreed that one reason was that Sunday lunch is the big deal meal so she had a larger staff and second, we had been so hungry that almost anything would have tasted good. Perhaps, it doesn’t make sense to try to recapture special experiences.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.092s; Tpl: 0.017s; cc: 6; qc: 52; dbt: 0.0456s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.3mb