A bit of an odd post this. The first of a compilation of various observations and anecdotes written over the last couple of years that I never got around to actually compiling into anything organised. Rather than lose them forever in the dark recesses of some long-forgotten disk drive (or perhaps floating in the cloud somewhere) it seems reasonable to bring them together here for posterity. So, in no particular order - actually, probably in roughly chronological order - here they are:
Here I am in
Bangkok, sometime in 2013. I'm staying at the
Pullman hotel (it's a work trip, I am teaching a course here and someone else is paying the bill, so it's the Pullman this time). I am at the reception desk where there is a lot of staff. They have name tags with 'English'
names - how do they come up with there I wonder? I am served (at the same time) by two lovely girls named 'Nutty' and 'Luck'. My mind goes back to the early 1980's and other places in Bangkok where you could (can?) be served by multiple girls (often also wearing name or number badges) at the same time. I drag my mind back and focus on task at hand: checking in. There are
other interesting names, but these two catch my attention.
Actually, there are lots of
staff everywhere; a feature in Asia where staff is still cheap enough to have
lots of them. The lobby area sometimes seems to have more staff than guests,
the restaurant is bustling with not just customers, but also the huge number of
staff replenishing the buffet, cooking, baking fresh bread, making coffee at
the two enormous machines (that look like they are set up for guests to use,
but with the amazing service mentality of the staff, they are not giving any
guest the chance to have to make their own drink). You order a coffee at your
table from one person and what seems like seconds later another person
magically appears with a freshly made cup. How do they know where you are in
this vast place? There are no numbers on the tables. But then again, there
aren't so many westerners either, the
place is certainly popular with the Chinese and Japanese tourists, clearly
outnumbering the locals. I probably stand out from the crowd more than I realise.
Now we're on a quick road trip from France to Andalucia (and back again!), also sometime in 2013 - June actually.
We make a special detour to
Le Puy en Velay to visit a lace school. As luck would have it, the day we are there the school is closed "exceptionally". The heating isn't working so all the teachers have gone home... We stay in a quirky
B&B right in the middle of the old town. It's a medieval building, charming in the sense that there's not a square angle in the place and if you were to spill a bag of Maltesers, they'd roll over the sloping floor to the far corner of the room, falling into the gaps between the floorboards as they went. Since we're in France, and not in an Australian cinema in the 1970's, we don't have any Maltesers with us anyway. The B&B is actually a tea shop with a couple of rooms upstairs. There's free WiFi, but it doesn't reach the upper room, which of course is the one we're staying in. The view through the wobbly old glass paned windows over the town square is gorgeous. Breakfast is generous with a vast array of cakes, breads and other things - and tea!
In Montpellier we have dinner with some friends in a restaurant that seems to serve essentially baked slow cooked
food. It's tiny. The service is good and the wine list is impressive - and since we like our red wine, all seems well with the world. There's confit de canard and a slow-roasted lamb, which is delicious, falling off the bone. The portions are very large, but we have enough red wine to last the distance.
Then we're in Spain and in Murcia after a marathon run down the east coast autovias. It must be said that the motorways in Spain are, in general, excellent. Most are quite recent, there's not a lot of traffic, and there's enough bendy bits to make them interesting as well. Driving into the town we spot a familiar sign: a hotel Campanile. Boring as anything, but reliable, clean, and at this late hour a welcome sign after all. The place is being run by just one woman who is flat out trying to deal with everything, including manning the desk, handling the bar, and serving food. There's no dinner however. The next morning this is somewhat compensated by the very complete breakfast
buffet.
Now we are at our destination in Andalcia,
Jimena de la Frontera. We're staying at
Casa Henrietta which is a relatively recently restored large building on the main
street. It's probably an old doctor's mansion or something similar. There's a nice feeling and decor, with central space open to the roof level with
balconies looking down into the lobby area. Like many buildings in this part of Spain, there's a Moorish / Moroccan influence and the open central space with patterned tiling reminds me of a small hotel in Morocco I stayed at towards the end of my trip across the Sahara desert way back sometime in the eighties (is it really that long ago?) I like how things can trigger memories of places you've been but may have not otherwise remembered. Our room has great
views as you would expect in Jimena. It's all very casual and easygoing; the girl running the place has a relaxed approach to hotel management, which it must be said is not at all out of place here in the south of Spain. Again there's no
dinner here (seems to be a theme we're encountering) but there's a good assortment of rather unusual tapas and there's a bar, so all is not lost. Breakfast is very simple but adequate. The only disappointment is that since we're the only guests, we don't warrant them turning on the espresso machine in the morning so have to have tea instead, which seems somehow wrong when you're in Spain. The free WiFi is only in
lobby area and if you're lucky perhaps in the rooms next to and above the lobby. Our room is on the top floor, well beyond the range of the little WiFi router in the lobby (seems to be a theme we're encountering). There's a lift,
but (of course) it's not working. It's probably been a long time since it has worked. Miraculously, we find a parking spot in the main street, right outside the hotel so we end up leaving the car there for most of our stay in Jimena (which is a village for walking in any case).
One night when we are thinking about dinner, we decide to walk into a restaurant on the main street called
El Ventorrillerro. This is a place we've walked past many many times over the years, but which we never thought would be much. How wrong we were! Our evening turned into a memorable event, thanks to both the excellent food as well as the theatrical owner, who also turned out to speak excellent English. The meal was designed "to order" together with the owner / waiter, who used the paper tablecloth to write down various suggestions, making up "our" menu as he went. While this sounds potentially tacky, it was all great fun. Red wine came by the bottle-on-the table and pay-for-how-much-you-drink method, which personally I think all restaurants should propose, since I can never finish a whole bottle (although I have been known to come close on occasion). The food, cooked by Mama, is genuine, simple, generously portioned, and delicious.
One of the nights we are in Jimena we make a pilgrimage visit to the
El Anon restaurant. It's a pilgrimage of sorts since this place is an institution that's been there even longer than we have been coming to Jimena, which I realise is almost 30 years now. Is it really that long? El Anon is still essentially the same as it has been for
all that time and it's nice to come back to something reliable and known. There's quite a
large selection on the menu with an eclectic mix of local foods with a few
British influenced dishes - just like it always has been.
On the way back to France, we stop in
Cáceres and stay at the
Hotel Iberia. This place is a little quirky, but it has an excellent location just off the Plaza Major. It's a charming old
building, clean and tidy. We have a good-sized room and there's friendly and helpful staff. Parking at a special price at a nearby parking station. Furnished with attention to detail. Cáceres is a medieval walled city and it's a pity we're on a quick road trip back and we're only stopping for a night. Still, we spend a little time wandering through the cobbled streets getting a feel for the place. The Iglesia Concatedral de Santa María is fascinating, not least for the square bell tower (with wonderful stone spiral staircase) which you can
climb all the way to the bells - and stay there while they toll (fingers in the ears is good strategy at that point). Great views over the old town from here.
Then we're in
Salamanca and staying at the
Hotel Toboso. It's a good location, right in the old town - which is always nice for discovering the old areas, but not so nice if you're arriving by car, since often - such as here - you cannot reach the hotel by car. The receptionist is very friendly and helpful; he's chatty and I guess that might be because he's glad to have someone to talk to; are we the only guests I wonder? The reception area is a bit grim and there's nobody to be seen. Salamanca is a university town and is a lovely colour as a result of the local stone used for most of the old construction. There's also the unique feature of having two cathedrals; the
old cathedral and the
new cathedral. These two buildings actually join at one point and are most definitely worth visiting. "Old" and "new" are of course relative concepts; even the "new" cathedral dates from the 16th century. The new cathedral has a gorgeously decorated (on the inside) dome and there's a
clever mirror set up directly underneath it so you can look up without having to look up. In the morning we head for the "best churros in Salamanca" - a little hole-in-the-wall place which serves up what are indeed very delicious churros (con chocolate, of course). There's a guy making them in front of us, by the hundreds. He's clearly making orders for surrounding restaurants and large packages of churros are regularly picked up and taken away. We are glad for our chatty hotel receptionist, who let us in on this little gem.
Our last stop in Spain before re-entering France is
Vitoria. Here we stay at the
Hotel Dato which is most definitely deserving of the label "quirky". Outside, on the footpath there's a large bronze statue (chained to the door, presumably bronze statues - even almost life-sized ones - are popular souvenir items in Vitoria). There's no elevator and our room is on the fourth (top) floor (seems to be a theme for our entire trip). The walls in the hotel public areas are pretty much all covered in mirrors and everywhere you look there are brass, marble, and bronze statues. I have to wonder what this establishment was in its previous life? Our room in in the attic and is small, as is the bed. Dinner that night is at the
Restaurant Dolomiti, which turns out to be a very good Italian restaurant. To complete the non-Spanish picture, the waiter turns out to be English. The home-made desserts are seriously good. After a couple of weeks in Spain it's good to have a change from tapas....
Back in France and it's time to re-visit
St Emilion, which I last visited in what seems like another life, when I was working in Africa (the eighties again). A lovely town in what is, of course, a key region for red wine lovers: Bordeaux is emblematic of red wines in many ways (of course, this is not to say that there are not many other regions making very good red wine!!) But, if you're in that neck of the woods so to speak, it would be a shame not to stop in St. Emilion. We stay are a
B&B just out of town and are greeted in a fairly odd way on arrival - it's a bit like "what are you doing here?" although no quite. Luckily, things do get better and the room - and the breakfast next morning - is very good. Dinner is at
L'Envers du Decor, which is definitely a good choice: simple, great wines (of course!) and good authentic food.
Lakes Entrance, New South Wales, Australia
25 March 2015
Watching birds at bird feeder. Interesting hierarchy. The Rainbow Lorikeets and Rosellas argue amongst themselves for the prime spot. The magpies, which are much larger, have to content themselves with whatever falls on the ground. Each time they attempt to get seed directly from the feeder the Lorikeets drive them away. The wild pigeons stand on the sidelines watching. When the Lorikeets leave, the Magpies take over the feeder and chase the pigeons away.
The sunset is filtering through the gums trees as I sit on a veranda overlooking the bush, glass of red wine in hand. The local cat is much too old to even think about chasing the birds, who clearly know that he isn't going to cause them any harm. In fact it's more like they are taunting him. The cat contents himself with brushing up to my legs and trying to find a way up on my lap. There are definitely worse ways to spend an evening.
La Ducrie was the home of a future King of France and goes back to 1437. Coming from Australia, which was only discovered by the English in 1770 it always impresses me how old things are in Europe. You see that bridge? It was built in the year that the first settlers arrived in Australia. You see that house? It was built two hundred years before Australia was even on the map!
So what else to do in Normandy? Have the world's most delicious ice cream in the home of seriously wonderful dairy products, Isigny-sur-Mer of course! Arriving at the dairy we were greeted by the sight of dozens of people milling around all holding ice cream cones; an odd sight, but soon we had joined them and had appreciated why they were there! Next on the agenda was a visit to the ancestral home of cheese: Camembert. For what must be the world's most recognisable cheese type, this is just an unassuming little village - similar to many such places that are familiar from their products, but unassuming in real life.
