Return to France - Where our Hero Goes through Hell Only to Achieve Redemption

September 11, 12, 13 - Finale

A story of all that can go wrong, falling into the depths only to have our intrepid heroes redeemed in the end.

Saturday the 11^th – A calm day with no hint of what was to come

Saturday was mostly a travel day. We drove from Alba to Valence France dropped off the rental car, successfully stamped our train tickets, and took the TGV train to Paris. Successfully managed to secure help getting our luggage on the train. Unsuccessfully managed to secure help getting them off the train. 2 and 2B are going to the hotel we stayed at originally but Wife and I are off to the Ritz where a client/friend has bought us a 2 night “gastronomic” package which includes lunch and a kitchen tour of their Michelin 2 star restaurant.

The Ritz is, well, ritzy. A lot more upscale then anything we would normally ever stay in. Once, we are settled, 2 and 2B came down and we decided to walk around and catch Paris by night. It’s been a while since I did that. Wife was having fun doing her photography with her tripod.

Sunday the 12^th – The descent into Hell

On Sunday Wife and I had planned a trip by ourselves to the Norman coast. Plan was to take a train to Rouen (where I had first studied in France way back in the 60’s) rent a car and then drive to the coast. I was using a rental car placement agency which is very unusual for me. Some time between midnight on Saturday when I checked email before going to bed and 7 AM when I checked again, the agency sends me an email announcing that the office of the auto rental company being used is in fact closed on Sunday and that I did not have a rental car. We were running tight on time to catch our train. I called the placement agency quite upset. It’s not like this was a fact that just popped up. They basically told me to stick it that there was nothing open or available in Rouen or the Rouen airport and that I should put in a claim to get my money back. So I’m pissed about not going direct to a rental car company and we’ve got to make a decision. Do we go to Rouen anyway? I then on a whim got on line and found that I could in fact pick up a car from Hertz, my normal vendor, in Paris. So we decide to do that and drive to the coast.

By the time we get the car, it is 10:30. We would have been in Rouen by 10:30 originally. So we’re way late. Then I make a mistake with the GPS programming and it sends on back roads to Rouen. Actually though Wife likes these but it adds another hour and half to the total time so we don’t hit the coast until almost 1:30 when we should have been there at 11:30. Our lunch takes us much longer than we anticipate and it’s after 3 PM before Wife can start wandering the coast and town taking pictures. The Hertz location is supposed to close at 8 PM and I’m worried about driving back to Paris on Sunday night anticipating a lot of traffic. So I mention that we need to be on the road by 5 PM. So Wife gets really upset with me for wasting our time at lunch and I’m feeling hard done because I’ve been just trying to improvise ever since I got the email canceling the car reservation at 7 AM. We clear the air and do get on the road…and the traffic is horrendous. GPS insists it’s going to reroute us for our own good but the changes don’t seem to do any good whatsoever. We’re trying to beat the clock but we don’t get back to the car location until 8:10. Fortunately there is still someone there and I can turn the car in.

We’re supposed to be taking 2 and 2B to the Hemmingway Bar at the hotel, a very famous place that you can only go to if you are a guest at the hotel. It’s 10:30 before we get back, have a chance to calm down and the kids come over. Well the bar is packed. There is one waitress and she basically says, “We have no tables open. You have to go away.” So we go to the other bar in the hotel where we pay a lot of money for some small drinks and very indifferent food. Thankfully the day is done.

Monday the 13^th – Where redemption is received

We are scheduled for our lunch today at L’Espadon, the Michelin 2 star restaurant at the Ritz. We were thinking of trying to fit in a quick visit in the morning but after the events of Sunday decide that we are not tempting our luck. We sleep in, do some packing, go for a stroll and do some window shopping in the area, stop at a café, have coffee and read the paper for an hour, and then head back for our lunch.

I was a tad apprehensive especially after our disappointment with the bar the night before. This however turned out to be one of the best meals of my life. Our waiter, Dominique, greets us. He takes us down for our tour of the hotel kitchen. We are introduced to Chef Gros. He is attentive, warm, and friendly. Then it’s back up for the meal. The sommelier whose name I don’t remember is equally friendly. We decide to go with wine by the glass pairings and he came up with some spectacular ones for us. During the whole lunch (which was about 2 and half hours by the way), we could not have been made to feel more comfortable. Wife wanted to know if it would be incorrect to take a picture. Not all we are assured people do it all the time (and if fact there are two other tables where that is exactly taking place). This food was so good that it got Wife to eat foie gras (something she has never liked) and eat it with relish. I won’t go into all the gory details of each dish but it was fabulous.

So feeling like a couple of very satisfied cats and slightly tipsy as the size of the wine pourings was every bit as large as the night before drinks had been small, we took our cab back to the hotel where we had started our trip – back to reality. We met up with 2 and 2B. We went out walking, stop at a café for a coffee, walk some more. Around 9 PM we’re hungry again (didn’t think that was possible). We go to the same old school place we went to with 1 and 1A where I had the Tête de Veau. This is like going back 20 years. No softer fuzzy Paris here. I’m looking on the board where the food is posted. The waiter comes over and says, “you want meat or fish? If you want fish, you should get this and if you want meat you should get that.” End of story. We go with the fish recommendation. He’s telling me how they get their fish and how good it is. Then I notice they’ve got oysters from Concale, Brittany. My Dad has talked about these often. So the waiter is telling me how hard they are to get but the owners no some one from Concale so they can get them so 2 and I share some of those. It’s a very, very pleasant evening. “Monsieur would like to finish with a Calvados or some Armagnac?” Sure we would.

We’re sitting outside, Paris is around us, we’re already reminiscing about the trip. It’s been great.