Minerve
Today, we rose late and headed off towards Minerve. Once again, only an hour away from us was a complete gem of a city. The photo does not do it justice. Classified as "Plus beaux villages de France", Minerve is one of the most beautiful villages in France - apparently. It is situated on a rock between the gorges of 2 rivers - the rivers Cesse and Brian (funny - a river called Brian :) ) These gorges give Minerve its remarkable geographical location and in particular its strategic location at the head of the rivers. Strategic right up unitl some geezer decided to wheel up a few huge catapults (one of which is still there) and bomb the bejesus out of the inhabitants of Minerve. Nice one - strategic position my arse.
Jamie and Ben in front of the walls of Minerve on the catapult
Jason, Jamie and Ben talking a walk in a gorge
It really was a beautiful place. We meandered through the city, climbed the stairs down to the river floor, up the hill to the catapult and back down to the floor. We then decided to walk around the base of the city as per the photo above. The floor where we were walking was in fact the river bed. The water was somewhere below and in Winter, this entire place is under water. We saw a sign that said that there was an opening further on where the waters poured in, so we headed off to find them. It said that is was 288m long so surely we couldn't miss it. Check out the next 2 photos! It was like entering a massive underground cave but was in fact the channel that the water had carved out of the limestone over many hundreds of years - awesome.
Chris, Jamie and Ben entering cave/big hole that flow of water made
Jamie (clearly taller than Mum but Mum says daughter is standing up hill)
and Chris, in hole that lots of water made
After our walk, lunch was on the agenda. Ok, before we went for our walk, lunch was on the agenda. OK, when we woke up, lunch was on the agenda. Anyway, I digress. So, we went for lunch. We found a little creperie that also did fantastic galettes - buckwheat pancake thingies akin to a crepe but gluten free and filled with savoury fillings. The place was small and busy. One lady was doing everything. Taking orders, cooking each galette to order including the actual galette as well as the various fillings in another pan plus salad, clearing tables, doing dishes and taking money. Read, Wonder Woman. We arrive at the end of lunch and ended up having to politely wait for about 1 1/2 hours. She kept apologising and we just kept saying that it was d'accords or ok and that we were on holiday, so were in no rush. Anyway, when we finally got our food, it was amazing. We were the only ones left in the place and the place was trashed - this pour lady was run off her feet. We ended up talking to her about business, telling her what we had done and relating it to her fledgling business in Minerve. We also ended up helping her by clearing all the dishes off the tables because she had so much to do. She was super appreciative and made us all delicious FREE crepes to say sorry for the wait and thanks for helping. Mine was a caramel with salt butter. Mmmmm yumbo. These are the types of situations that you come across that are the most memorable on a trip like this - the ones that you don't see coming. We had a great time - we even enjoyed doing the dishes.
Us and the crepe lady
The next day we rose a little earlier because our mission was a bit more extensive than the day before. On the cards was a re-visit to Montpellier to visit a particular restaurant, a visit to Vergeze to see the source of the mineral water Perrier and on the way home a visit to a seaside port of Sete for a late dinner.
The last time we were in this part of the world (4 years ago) we went to an amazing small chain of restaurants called L'Entrecote. I think that there are 4 of them - Paris, Marseille, Bordeaux and Montpellier (could be wrong here...). An Entrecote is a cut of meat - a nice cut of meat. A classy cut of meat to go with a classy restaurant. Well, you wouldn't call your restaurant Le Rump would you. All these restaurants do is steak and frites. Its a set price of 18 euros per person (approx NZ $32) for which you get the obligatory bread, a simple green salad w walnuts, a plate with the entrecote sliced into slices that are about 5mm thick and covered with their "famous sauce" (think light, buttery, herby, garlicky...) and frites. You also get a platter in the middle of the table with tons more steak all laid out (as per pic below) and unlimited frites!! Accompany all this with a bottle of red wine and you have the perfect cholesterol inducing, heart attack forming lunch. My favourite. We had arranged to meet Susan and Frederic again for lunch as they live in Montpellier. It was a joy seeing them again as they are such lovely people.
Restaurant L'Entrecote
mmmm Steak and frites
After lunch, we set the GPS for Vergeze, about 1 1/2 hours away. Vergeze is the source of the extremely famous Perrier mineral water and we had a recommendation to visit this amazing place. It turned out to be extremely underwhelming. The tour that we had (8 euros) was in French, which is both cool and understandable, but did make it a little hard to comprehend what was going on. We understood a bit but the sort of French spoken when explaining the history and process involved in sourcing and making Perrier necessitated language that we just could not understand that well. This made it a bit boring. Plus they could not show you much because everything was so secret. Plus the lady doing the tour clearly wanted to be elsewhere. Overall, a bit of a disappointment but still glkad we came. However Ben did walk away with 24 bottles of Perrier, as per below...
Ben and his Perrier
After Vergezes, we headed for Sete - again about and hour away. Everything is within an hour to an hour and half which is great. Also, considering we are planning to almost circumnavigate Europe in the car in the next 2 weeks, getting used to driving is a must.
Sete is a lovely, busy, seaside city. We have come to Europe after the high season. You cant help to imagine these places during the high season. There would be 10 times the amount of people here which would be crazy. We drove around for half an hour or so trying to find a park, which we did eventually. We then walked around doing the tourist thing, doing a bit of shopping and scoping the place for a dinner spot. We purchased a bag for Chris (15 euros), a pair of jandals for Chris (5 euros) and a pair of shoes for Ben (12 euros). All good buys at good prices. It was a lovely afternoon in Sete and it was lovely to be by the sea again. The place reminded us all of Spain actually - San Sebastian or Bayonne in particular. It was the colours rather than the geographical layout of the place I think. All brilliant blues and whites - the colours of the Mediterranean coast.
Finding a place for dinner proved difficult - too much choice actually, so we decided to head for home (it was about 7.30pm before we headed off) and to make dinner in our own kitchen at St Chinian. We ended up having a simple pasta with onion, bacon, garlic, parmesan and some crunchy bread bits that I crisped up in the bacon fat, and of course some vin rouge. Delicious. We all then got in our PJ's and settled in front of the iPad to watch the Americas Cup. Another win for the good guys and the end to yet another perfect day.
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