Our final day also seemed to have a food orientation – so it is a good job a large number of calories were burnt in the last week on the slopes.
After our routine coffee & croissant/pain au chocolat we walked over to the La Grand Épicerie. The Grand Epicerie is the food hall of the department store Le Bon Marché. I think anything you could buy almost any food item there. We did enjoy doing some window shopping. We only bought some Valhrona Guanaja Chocolate and Orange Candied Chocolates – which was pretty restrained. (Even more restrained is the fact they remained unopened in our fridge, for nearly a week!)
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| reflection in the spotty mirror of our breakfast bakery |
Lunch was a simple pasta affair as we had a booking for this evening and didn’t want to ruin our appetites.
Our table was alongside that of an older French couple. They obviously heard us speaking English through our meal and as we were paying bill they couldn’t curb their inquisitiveness any further and the wife asked in French What country were we from? And pointing at my Kathmandu jacket – did we come from Kathmandu? So through a series of bad French translations on my part an odd conversation ensued. We said we were from New Zealand. The husband then began quite a long dialogue with waving hand gestures which culminated with the words “Greenpeace” and a wry smile – he still associated NZ with the Rainbow warrior bombing. They were ‘country people’ on a day trip from the city of Chartres and we told them were returning to Laos the next day. Probably gave them something different to talk about.
Dinner was the 2nd gourmet affair in 2 days. I had read about Lilane restaurant which was near our hotel and it had received unanimously good reviews, but was still described as being flying under the radar. At 7:30 this time, we were still the 1st people in the restaurant, but it did fill quickly after that.
Andrew insisted on a glass of pink Champagne to start. The 3 a la carte courses were done beautifully – €33 each (plus a superb recommended wine)- miam miam! Both mains, Fillet Steak & the Pork braised in Milk were as good as the best we have had anywhere.
Sunday +15 hours sleep
Monday 0 hours
Tuesday slept 2 hours, awake for hours, dropped off about 5am for another 2 hours sleep