Few more great days at L'Abesle

Wednesday 19th September (l’Arbresle)

Although we planned to take the 9.15am train to Lyon today the Fullers are not known for their early starts, so we eventually caught the 10.17. The main purpose of the trip was to collect Pam’s pants which she brought on Friday but needed to be let down. She was very excited about this –the 1st time ever apparently. It was also an opportunity to get our blog and emails up to date as McDonalds in Lyon has free WiFi. The train only took half an hour to get to the main station called Gare Lyon Par Dieu. This was a side of Lyon we had not been before and was close to Layfayette which is a big Paris based department store so Pam was in her element. Sit Paul down at the local MacDonalds to use WiFi and go shopping! Unfortunately the WiFi was not working so after only an hour it was decided we should go into town to collect the trousers and to try the McDonalds “downtown” i.e. near the Zara store that had Pam’s pants. This is where we had a bit of a challenge. We could not work out the best way to change stations twice, nor where to go, or where to buy our tickets. Pam has a good eye for helpful people, and approached a lovely dark skinned French lady who was amazing. She helped us purchase our tickets, actually went with us onto two different trains, and then walked up a number of steps to make sure that we were happy with where we were! Pam wondered if we would have been as helpful as this lovely lady was, had the boot been on the other foot, in Sydney! Admittedly the train system here is great and we never seemed to wait more than 45 seconds for a train to appear. This WiFi worked so Paul had heaps to do to update emails and the blog and Pam continued shopping in this area for a short while then decided to walk back to where we had been as she couldn’t work out the train system! (Purchased beautiful black and white top “ribbon lace” and scalloped. Looks lovely! Pam says she will wear it for her birthday and my 60th. For what it cost I hope she wears it more than twice!) I stayed where I was and caught the train to meet Pam at 6:30pm. Hungry by this stage and wanted to see the rugby. No reasonable restaurants around and no-one watching rugby so decided to spoil ourselves and go to the Raddison for dinner. The restaurant was called Restaurant Panoramique L’Arc en Ciel. This restaurant was somewhat of a cut above McDonalds where we had lunch! On the 32nd level with panoramic views over Leon. The staff gave us a beautiful selection of canapés, then an appetizer (which they just produced and we were not charged for) which was delicious. They were most surprised when we did not order an entree or a dessert and just wanted a main meal. We only had enough time to eat a main meal as we had to catch the train back to L’Arbresle. Paul ordered calf sweetbreads and Pam ordered the lobster. No vegetables with either of these, but a beautiful lobster frothy sauce in a tiny little glass with a straw accompanied the lobster. With the sweetbreads there were 6 snails and the actual sweetbreads wrapped in vine leaf on a long skewer. A long narrow shaped bowel that we would use to put olives in, was also part of his dish and contained tiny little mushrooms. I’ve not seem them before in Australia, but they are eaten a lot here. (Just as an aside - Pam has decided that if she sees another baguette she will scream and is still amazed that dogs of all shapes and sizes actually go into the shops with their owners!). Caught the train back to L’Arbresle which took only half an hour, then a fashion show with what Pam had purchased, updated diary and off to bed. Weather cold in the morning and during the day we noticed we had stripped off 3 layers and it would have been around 22 degrees eventually having started off at 7 degrees when we left for Lyon.

Thursday 20th September (l’Arbresle)

Today was the usual leisurely rise. Drove to Villafrance –sur -Saone & on the way stopped at the pretty village of Beaujouli and had lunch lovely waitress spoke no “Anglais” so pointing and our newly acquired French/English dictionary we had the Plat de Jour which was black pudding, potatoes and lightly stewed apple . The sausage was soft and melted in your mouth and was beautiful. Also purchased our new camera which should make our pictures less blurry. Pam very excited as found a shop that had clip on earrings! Came back to Super U for dinner - waiter spoke no English but we got there and had a steak. Made animal noises to ascertain what the words on the menu said. Waiter was a hoot and had just had new son Jardin. Did our grocery shopping and home to install software for new camera.

Friday 21st September (l’Arbresle)

Back to Roanne today as it has WiFi at the local McDonalds so we could catch up on some homework. On the way we stopped at a lovely little restaurant in Tarare and had the dinner de jour which was jarbon (almost raw ham) as an entree, followed by chitterlings which turned out (with the help of a couple of people sitting next to us to interpret) to be pork sausage. Pam has great fun making various animal noises but I think the pig one takes the bacon! Patrons were in stitches and the food was great. Dessert was a selection of cheeses and a blueberry pie. Back in Roanne Paul bought some new jeans and I did my usual looking but not buying, as we are already overweight (not just us, but our bags as well!). The French don’t seem to have any concept of skim milk, low fat or Weight Watchers and yet they don’t seem to be at all overweight. My (Pam ) observations: - have not seen any Asians at all in France so far, they now make bras with nipples so the poor men are getting completely conned, mauve is in for winter, spots and stripes are in for ties again which is great, there are no carparks like the ones back home in the towns, you simply park in an area near the square which each of the villages have known as Centre Ville (centre of town), you have to take your own loo paper with you everywhere as they don’t provide any, the male and female toilets are frequently next to each other whereby you share the same handwashing facilities. I have thought on a number of occasions that Paul might be had up for exposure, as it must be hard for the men to remember to put their bits back into their undies before leaving the urinals and turning around, because if they didn’t they would be in full view of the waiting ladies. To date he seems to have remembered thankfully! You cannot simply go into a McDonalds in the cities and use the loo as you must provide a receipt to show that you have actually purchased something in their shop that day. Finally, everyone in France has at least 2 dogs which go absolutely everywhere with their owners! They are often tiny little “rats on strings” but very cute. Now had an opportunity to take some photos which we hope to download onto the blog at some stage (either that or we can all meet up and have one of those wonderful slide nights for 16 hours!). Packed up when we got home ready for an early start tomorrow as we have a long drive.