Trip Diary Part III - Gagnac/Lespinasse

France, 9/27-28/05

We set off late again from Gagnac because of rain. Right before we left, the owner of the auberge, whose father had been the original owner back in 1954, invited us to have quick drink with him at the bar. We went over to the bar and he pulled out a big jug of raisin wine or rattafia, and poured us each a large glass. Turns out, he made the wine himself; it was a bit too sweet for me, but tasty nonetheless in a homemade wine sorta way. He also had a collection of electronic toys like a Big Mouth Billy Bass and a chicken that clucked the music to the chicken dance and when you strangled it, it made choking noises and its cheeks lit up red. We finally started walking and went through the small hamlet of Gagnac. It was full of "makeshift medieval" stone houses and an small church from 1662.
Next we walked thru Glans, a lovely village where everyone seemed to be part of a large coop of vineyards and everyone made wine. We stopped to admire a really beautiful house and the owner came out to talk to us. Of course I understood not a lick of what he said, but when I got it translated apparently he was explaining the coop situation. After Glans we headed thru a long road flocked by walnut orchards and vineyards. Next we just passed by what seemed like endless herds of cows and finally past a working quarry. After what seemed to me to be too much discussion on the matter, we stopped for lunch. We were at a sort of crossroads a bit off from a lone horse in a field. Our lunch stops were at least an hour, since Debbie and Jack felt the need to take a nap. I just can't sleep on dirt with bugs, too afraid they'll crawl all over me. When we eventually got everyone up, we started our trek to the next hotel, another 2 hours away.
To while away the hours, Kerrin suggested a number of games. The jukebox game consisted of find a number of songs for each letter of the alphabet, in order. I just have this very distinct memory of Jack jumping up and down while singing ABBA's "Dancing Queen" as we wandered through a field of tall grass. Then after a quick bout of "are we lost?", we started playing the name game. This consists of saying the name of a celebrity or fictional character and then the next person had to name another person whose first name starts with the last name of the previous mention: Bob Ross -- Raquel Welch. That lasted a bit longer than the jukebox game did. And after a bit of frustration on my part since one of my walking companions insisted on walking really really slowly and I just wanted to get where we were going, we made it to our next hotel, Les Trois Soliel du Montal in St. Jean Lespinasse.
This was the very nice restaurant we paid extra for and it was worth it. They had an elevator and had taken the luggage to our rooms for us. We all relaxed for a bit and Jack ran out to take a quick swim in their pool, despite the fact that it was no where near warm. Once we were all changed and looking presentable, we went down to dinner at their Michelin starred restaurant. Dinner for me consisted of:
-an amuse bouche of some sort of meat pate flavored with cinnamon (much better than it sounds), mini omlettes with mushrooms on toast, and small yellow cherry tomatoes with fresh herbs
-foie gras de canard, served with pieces of toasted bread, coarse sea salt and pepper, and a sort of sandwich with thin slices of dried pear, a slice of foie gras, and pieces of fresh pear. (Everyone else either had salmon tartar with dill and creme fraiche surrounded by limes)
-roast lamb, which was almost buttery, with assorted roasted vegetables including roasted garlic (which was just begging to be spread on the lamb), 2 different kinds of mushrooms, eggplant, zucchini and tomatoes (the others had either the lamb of whole sea bass served with vegetables)
-the cheese board, where I had some reblochon and some other regional cheeses.
-desert was an upside down lemon tart for me and Jack; Kerrin had dark chocolate leaves with chocolate mousse and bitter orange coulis and Debbie had 3 small creme brulees, one vanilla, one pear, and one fennel
We had gotten a bottle of some local white wine for dinner and that paired with the cocktails we had before dinner sort of kept us from ordering any after dinner drinks. So we all had mint tea and sat for a while, luxuriating in the insanely good food we'd just eaten. During dinner Kerrin introduced a game called Notte-Notto, which was fun till we all got frustrated. I told my special special Ned and Ted joke and surprisingly no one killed me.
After dinner, we went back to our respective rooms and Jack and I sat on our porch, looking at some castle lit with flood lights a bit off in the distance and had a quite serious discussion about religion: why would one believe, why would one choose not to believe, and everything in between. Before I went to sleep I decided not to chance another shower and took the longest bath in my life, which felt very nice after trekking around in nature all day.
All too soon it was morning and we had breakfast. A word about breakfast: every place served at least baguettes, croissant, butter and jam. Some places, like this one served fruit and yogurt as well. The butter in France tasted nothing like the butter here in the US and I must admit we all indulged quite a bit in that heavenly butter. It rained a bit, so we waited around the hotel and Jack went for another swim before we headed off. The water was apparently freezing and Jack went in very very slowly. After I teased him, he jumped in and popped up after a few second and yelled "FUCK IT'S COLD!". And I just laughed and laughed.
Debbie and Kerrin came down the pool with our lunch the hotel had packed, and they were freaking out. The hotel owns some animals, a few donkeys and 2 goats, and one of the goats had "attacked" them and they had to throw one of the sandwiches at it. Little did they know that the goat had followed them to the pool and started running around the pool in a circle. It was funny and bit odd at the same time, and Kerrin was just scared to death of that goat. When we went back inside so Jack could take a shower and we could leave, we told the owner what happened and she just laughed and had the kitchen prepare another sandwich for us. Turns out the goat was always very naughty; it had been lying on a lounge chair by the pool one day and 2 patrons had thought it was just a very hairy man from far off and then another day it ran to the pool and ran around it while some older ladies were swimming. She said that some days she threatens it that if it doesn't behave she'll tell her husband to turn it into pate..
Once Jack had changed and everyone had futzed around for long enough, we headed out of Trois Soliel and toward Loubressac, our next destination.