We’ve been experiencing a few technical and internet access problems, hence no blog post yesterday. The problem is mostly around including photos so I might have to forgo those for some of my blogs. Have managed to include a couple below.
To catch up from where the last post left off, Day One of our actual inter-railing was 1st April, All Fools Day or Poisson d’Avril, as they call it in France, so we were conscious we didn’t want to make April fools of ourselves by over-lunching and over-wining at lunchtime and missing our train to Lausanne. We got up bright and early for breakfast and made sure not to overdo the hotel breakfast given we’d booked this sumptuous lunch at midday. This was to mark the start of our trip in style, and not in any way indicative of how we mean to go on for a whole month by the way ..
We had a pleasant walk of about an hour after breakfast to help to work up the appetite - over the Pont d’Austerlitz, along the left bank of the Seine towards the Ile de la Cite and the stunning Notre Dame, back to the Ile St Louis and over the Seine to the right bank towards our hotel. I've visited Paris on many occasions and I was almost blasé about coming here as the jumping off point for inter-railing. Paris is utterly gorgeous and all the cliches are true, which is why they keep being repeated. Notre Dame is breathtaking from all angles, and in the early morning misty light it looked amazing!
We walked back to our hotel, Hotel du Bel Oranger, Gare de Lyon, packed up, got dressed up and made our way to the station and the gorgeous le Train Bleu restaurant. Of course, one bone of contention between my other half and me is that he likes to be mega-early for everything and I like to be bang on time (or perhaps a teeny bit on the late side). As this was his treat, we were there for 11.30, so unfortunately we had to go and sit in the bar and have an aperitif to pass half an hour. Life can be tough! Once we did go through to the restaurant, we were treated like minor royalty for an amazing 7-course lunch including a bottle of champagne; we were also persuaded (arms twisted up our backs) to have a glass of red wine with the beef course, plus there was a lime sorbet course, which included a large measure of Smirnoff poured over it, and a rhum baba which involved a bottle of rum being left on the table to pour over that! Good job we are trustworthy and too sensible to take advantage, and we did want to catch that TGV!
Once the train set off, I think I stayed awake for at least 20 seconds but woke up in plenty of time to do some reading and to enjoy the scenery, including some nice views of snow-topped mountains as we approached the swiss border.
On arrival at Lausanne station our pre-printed Google street map didn’t quite make sense and we set off hopefully up a very steep cobbled street, dragging our luggage behind us and finally arrived at our hotel to a warm welcome and a nice room, very close to the centre of the old city centre, with cathedral, University, city square with cafes, etc.
Once unpacked we started to explore the old town and found a bar/restaurant where we had a drink and watched diners having a meat fondue, something for us to try tomorrow night, but still too full from lunch to need dinner. The restaurant was called Les Sapeurs Pompiers (The Fire Fighters) so the fact that the diners almost set themselves on fire with the bubbling oil in the fondue pot was somewhat ironic.
I decided that some good things to do for the blog would be:
1. to identify good hotel and restaurant experiences for anyone who might be visiting these locations in the future
2. to define each of the places we visit in two words.
So Paris first, le Train Bleu is amazing as a restaurant and a cafe/bar for anyone travelling through the Gare de Lyon. Lots of travellers were in having breakfast and mid-morning drinks when we arrived and it's very stylish and definitely recommended.
My words for Paris are stylish and captivating.
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