In the morning, after a lovely breakfast, we went with Dominique to a local, smallish farmer's market, which is not the one that she usually goes to, but does have the traveling cheese truck. This is, for me, very nearly almost the height of cheese sales; there are wonderful, beautiful, incredible cheese shops, but there's something tremendously charming about selling a wide selection of great cheeses out of a specially modified van. We picked up a couple of things (a ash-rinded, very mild goat cheese, and a piece of Salers) and while neither were really *great* it was still a wonderful experience.
Being able to buy cheese and meat and such is a typical part of French farmer's markets. I was admiring the butcher truck to the left, and Julianna and Dominique had just finished with the vegetables, so I picked up a piece of salame. Didn't realize until walking away that this was not any typical butcher truck, but one that specialized in "cheval" i.e. horse. There were a surprising number of cuts, including a lovely (gigantic) standing rib roast, a couple of steaks, a bit of "poulain" (foal), and horse salame.... an example of which I had just purchased. And while horse may not be my the first choice for salame, it's not actually much different from pork or beef or whatever. The spices were balanced, there was a bit of citrus, the texture was nicely variable and not too tough... all in all, a lovely salame.
Upon our return to Basse Indres, Christian took us on a tour of Nantes. His knowledge of and passion for the city are quite remarkable, and the very brief tour touched upon such distinct sites as La Cigalle, an incredible, Art-Nouveaux brasserie dating to the late 1800s, the local Castle of the Dukes of Normandy, the original LU factory (those are the guys who make Petite Ecolier and such) and a charming, though somewhat worn, covered arcade from the early 1900s. A wonderful tour, though necessarily constrained by the fact of our imminent departure later that day. However, we were able to make a stop at one of the other places I remembered from my previous visit to Nantes, the Boulangerie d'Honor, an incredible bakery with lovely pastries and real, serious French bread, presented in beautiful, golden brown piles. Some of the best bread I've had, and certainly one of the most intoxicating buying experiences.Christian, Julianna and I got back to the house about 2:30, just in time for the lunch Dominique had prepared; roast chicken, a variety of cheeses, a bit of salad, and some wonderful wines, including a delicious Muscat Cap Corse, a light, golden-green dessert wine. What with the long, lingering "midi," and expressing our thanks with sufficient vigor and emphasis, we weren't on the road to Limoges until about 5:00.
It is not unreasonable to say that in France, all roads (and trains, even more so) lead to Paris. And since we were heading East-ish, we weren't going to be able to take major autoroutes, even if we had wanted to do so. I mentioned earlier the joys of driving on the small, quiet back-country roads, and while it is certainly my preference, the autoroutes aren't too bad either. There's a very different sense about driving in France than in the US. First, it is quite expensive; gas is highly taxed and each major road has a toll both every 50-100 km. The tolls aren't cheap either; I think we've spent around 50E thus far on the trip. However, those tolls and taxes are reinvested in the transportation system, so the trains are great and the highways are in great repair. Also, rather than having Highway Patrol cruise around looking for speeders, there are automatic cameras along the route, who take a picture of cars going too fast and send a ticket to the address associated with that license plate. It is refreshingly consistent, and it means that people don't really speed; the limit may be 130 km, and while there will be a few people up around 140, the vast majority of cars are 120-127. The passing lane is only for passing, and people get quite irritated if you drive in the left lane and don't get back to the right as soon as possible (particularly when the person behind you is in a BMW and isn't content with the 130 limit). All in all, a rather civilized experience.
At any rate, we drove for about four (five?) hours, taking the long way to Limoges, and though it didn't get dark until 21:30, we didn't pull into town until late, and while I made an attempt to find interesting lodging, said attempt was ill-advised and we ended up an hour later pulling in to the Ibis (or whatever standard chain hotel) we should have landed at in the first place. However, everything worked out in the end and we were able to take showers and check email, so the evening was judged a success.
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