Cyclosportive Vercors-Drome

This is the story of my ride in the Cyclosportive Vercors-Drome and how I ended up with a trophy. 

 

 



I was up at 4:30 a.m. to drive to the start of the Cyclosportive Vercors-Drome.  It was billed as a race or ride, depending on how you wanted to do it.  You had a choice of three courses.  One was 50 kms. the next 90 and the final 140 kms.  There was a 6:30 a.m. sign in and it cost 7 Euros to participate.

 

It was too early to bring others to photograph me.  It was also too important to keep riding for me to stop and take selfies (what my daughters have taught me is a name for photos taken of yourself) along the way.  So please forgive the excessive prose of this post.  But like the Moliere's Malade Imaginaire I am pleased to know that all that I'm writing is not just garbage, it is "prose".

 

To prepare for the Cyclosportive I rode at 7:30 a.m. the day before.  This meant I had to get up early and get ready, eat and get on the road and experience the weather (cold in the early morning but warming up rather quickly).

 

I got there before 6:30 and found the start without the help of the GPS.  I was disappointed to find out that they weren't timing the ride this year so it was just a ride, not a real race.  They said they had lost a bunch of money the previous year because they didn't get enough participants and were expecting the same because they had canvassed some of the field and participation was going to be down due to injury, conflicting schedules etc.

 

I chose to do the 90 km. route.  No sense in blowing my brains out on the 140 km. route with the difficulty of the climbs that I had experienced when I pre-rode them with Mimi the previous week.

 

You could leave any time after 7 a.m. (it was dark before that).  I headed out just after 7 a.m. with a few other riders that were friendly and we chatted as we rode along the flats and false flats to the first of the 2 big climbs that featured in my route. One of the riders was Daniel.  He was about my age and seemed to be of similar strength.  We rode to the beginning of the Col Jerome Cavalli together and then Daniel began to pull away.  This Col averages 4.8% over 9.7 kms. and climbs almost 580 metres over that distance.  I sat in the saddle and ground away at the pedals and then alternated with shorter shifts standing on the pedals in the technique the French "la danseuse" (the dancer).  In my case  my "danseuse" was like the Ballet Trockadero of Monte Carlo version.  (If you don't know the Ballet Trockadero you really must watch this video and check out others on You Tube of this troupe):

After Daniel had faded away into the distance I started feeling better and better and fewer cyclists were passing me.  Then I started passing some cyclists who had passed me.  Then I saw Daniel in the distance.  Soon he was pulled back and then I passed him and pulled away on the second half of the climb to the top.  I rode the downhill cautiously as there were a few dangerous turns that were banked the wrong way and I had had a close call on my trial ride the week before where I had to come to a complete halt and put my foot down on the gravel soft shoulder just before a steep embankment.  Daniel managed to pull me back on the downhill to where I saw him a switchback below as I started the second climb, the Col de Bacchus. 

On the Col de Bacchus I pulled away from him again and didn't see him again for the rest of the ride.  I was passed by a few strong cyclists and as I climbed I was more and more exposed to the strong headwind.  It was a tough day, up from the Col de Bacchus to the Col de Limouches.  I set a personal best on the Col de Bacchus but the wind slowed me down on the Col de Limouches.  (Incidentally they produce some of the best charcuterie (i.e. meats) at the Col de Limouches.  A delicious pork saucissons that is like a salami.  A wonderful caillette which is like a baseball sized pork meatball with spinach, onions etc. in it for flavouring.  Hams, cooked and uncooked salted ones.  So, much as I dislike tough climbs, I still enjoyed passing over the top of the Col de Limouches.) 

After that there was an equally delicious downhill, but it too was ruined by the headwind.  Then a flat stage to the finish.  All good but for the wind.  And for the fact I missed a turn and added 4 kms. to my ride.  For the details of my ride click on the following link:

http://www.strava.com/activities/chabeuil-combovin-gigors-beaufort-gervenne-plan-de-baix-col-de-limouches-peyrus-combovins-drome-france-and-back-with-mimi-77698429?ref=1MT1yaWRlX3NoYXJlOzI9ZW1haWw7ND04Mjk2NzE%253D

When I pulled in the organizers and volunteers greeted me with a plate sporting a big slice of ham and a generous chunk of baguette, a typical French recovery snack as you step off the bike after a race or hard ride.  There was also a chunk of chocolate on the plate and a Coca Cola was thrust into my hand.

Let me digress here about the perfect fuel that is Coca Cola for cyclists.  This sugary liquid is jet fuel for glucose depleted muscles.  Drink a Coke 15 minutes before the finish line of a race and, if the gas doesn't upset your stomach, you will be able to sprint without any effort.  It is like the pedals start turning themselves.  Pure magic.  I never drink Coke but will make an exception when cycling.  Those that do usually pour it into a plastic water bottle well in advance so that the gas has gone flat before drinking it,  but I don't mind a good belch when the pedals are turning themselves.  It is just proof of the explosive power you are putting out.

Back to my main story, however.  I sat and ate the ham and baguette and chatted with the volunteers who had no one to talk to except each other.  They interrogated me about everything.  "Did you just complete the 50 km. course?"  "No?"  "The 90 km. course?  Really?"   Then they were running around and talking to each other.  "Where are you from?"  "If you don't mind me saying so you have a bit of an accent."  "Canada?  Really?"  More running around and talking to each other.  "What's Canada like?"  "Do you have a democratic government?"  "What is your retirement age in Canada?"  "How many hours a week do you have to work in Canada?"  "What line of latitude is Calgary on?  Really?"  I gathered I was exotic.  I held court as another cyclist came in.  Then another.

They then told me I was the first rider to come in to complete the 90 km. course.  They then offered me a bowl of raviole, which are like little ravioli with fillings the French favour in the Drome province (Picodon fresh goat cheese, or Emmenthal for example).  I declined saying I would have had the pasta for breakfast but didn't need it for lunch.  They shook their heads in wonder.  I was exotic.

Then from the table with 3 or 4 big trophies and 3 or 4 smaller ones an impressive older gent selected a smaller one and presented it to me.  God knows what I got it for.  On it was engraved UNFOLEP 26.  I asked what that meant since I certainly didn't want to get a trophy that suggested I had finished 26th in anything.  (This reminds me of the awards on the Wall of Gaylord in the Meet the Fockers movie.)  But apparently UNFOLEP turned out to be the Union National Francaise d'Oeuvres Laique d'Education Physique which apparently organized the Cyclosportive.  And 26 is the number of the department of the Drome which department's UNFOLEP was the organizer.  Whew!  Still the best I could explain what I got it for was that I was the best Canadian in the ride.


Although I asked, there was no Champagne to drink out of the trophy.  Just Coke.  But I brought the trophy back to Bourdeaux where Cristina, my hosts and some friends had assembled to visit with us.  They treated it like a major award and I did all I could to not disabuse them of the idea.

The Arts Scene in Bourdeaux

Bourdeaux is a quiet little town but it has things going on.  There are yoga lessons and the like.  There is also some music.  And we took in one evening of the performance at the Protestant church across the street.  The dour trappings of the church did nothing to distract from the excellent acoustics the plaster covered walls and the wooden ceiling provided in the rectangular space with the end rounded off.  This August evening we were treated to Couleurs Baroques by the Amaryllis vocal and instrumental ensemble under the able direction of Mr. Dominique Montel. 

 

 

 

There were three pieces played:

• Psalm "Super flumina Babylonis" by Marc Antoine Charpentier;
• Cantate bwv 4 "Christ lag in Todes Banden" by Johann Sebastian Bach; and
• Psalm 50 "Miserere" for 5 voices by Francesco Scarlatti (Alessandro's younger brother and the uncle of Dominico, each more famous than Francesco).

I can just imagine you singingin your mind to the tunes of these baroque hits as you read the titles above.  However I needed the passed out lyrics.  The first was in Latin and I have trouble remembering "Super flumina" in Latin for some reason.  The Bach "Todes Banden" was in German and I find it just as difficult to remember this one in German despite the tune being so sing-alongable.  And the Scarlatti "Miserere" needs the Latin to obscure the depressing meaning of the lyrics.  But luckily I had the lyrics written out on paper for me to sing along and follow the bouncing ball.  I was also delighted to brush up on my spoken Latin since I have so little chance to use it in my line of work these days even though I am a lawyer.

 

I know that you are all thinking how great this concert must have been and how you wish you had been there.  I managed to record a bootleg couple of minutes but I just cannot figure out how to post them on this blog or you would be treated to breathing in the atmosphere of the Couleurs Baroque as I did.  I will do it in the future if I figure it out, but for now you'll just have to imagine it.

 

The evening was not without some special moments.  For example in the Charpentier "Super flumina"  I just could barely restrain my enthusiasm at the final verse.  It was splendidly executed, just wonderful:

 

Beatus qui tnebit et adlidet

parvulos tuos ad petram.

 

Let me translate that bit if your Latin is a bit rusty so that you don't miss the uplifting poetry of this song.  Roughly it means:

 

Ecstatic is he who seizes his little children

and crushes them against a rock.

 

The choir just hit this bit out of the ballpark.  What a performance!  I was singing these words (in Latin of course) as I left the church, in fact as the townspeople in the streets looked at me knowingly as if they shared the concept and I thought I saw some humming along.

 

When the choir was just killing the Bach number in German it occurred to me that this piece was probably chosen as a cross-over number to bring in the German tourists in the neighbourhood.  I guess for the other two pieces they hoped the composers would bring in their countrymen (French and Italian) and that between the two of them they would sweep in any Latin tourists that might also be building Roman ruins in the neighbouring area (God knows there must be lots of them in Provence judging by the number and size of the Roman ruins there.)

 

The Bach had lots of Alleluias, one to finish off each verse in fact.  I think however that this version shows how those American Gospel choirs just can't hold a candle to Bach in German.  It ended with:

 

Der Glaub' will kein's Andern leben.

Halleluja!

 

Now how can you beat that?  You can clap hands and raise your hands to the sky but is that any better?  I don't think so.

 

For the Scarlatti number the tremendous church organ was added to the instrumental mix.  This was a highlight the audience had waited for.  But that wasn't going to be all.  There was drama too!

 

As the instrumentalists picked up the music and go a few bars in Mr. Montel looked to his left at a violinist and raised his hands to stop the orchestra.  He shook his head barely perceptibly looking at a baroque violinist.  This lady stopped playing with the rest, steadfastly kept looking at the music and then the violin as if waiting for the violin to start doing what it was supposed to.  Then Conductor Montel raised his hands and they were off again.  They may have got about 8 or 10 bars further than the first time before he looked up again, to his left and raised his hands to stop the orchestra.  Again!  The lady with the violin again took the stare of the conductor who muttered something softly that I didn't catch (perhaps it was in Latin).  The violinist never looked up, or embarrassed or otherwise showed any expression and just looked between the music and her violin.

 

Conductor Montel started the music a third time.  Surely we were off for a good crack at Scarlatti's "Miserere" this time.  But just before the vocalists could get their voices on this piece the Conductor's hands were raised again to stop proceedings.  The audience started talking in hushed tones.  The Conductor looked to the left.  The violinist did not look back.  But it seems that she had no reason to, this time.  The offending musician was the organist (or as the programme called it the orgue continuo).  This prim middle aged lady with straight mousey brown hair and librarian glasses looked up at the Conductor as if to protest and he provided instructions softly to her (I'm almost sure it was in Latin).  Everyone could see the Conductor was trying to save the lady embarrassment by singling her out so gently.  She looked like she was surprised by what he told herm but she did not reply.  In stead she looked hard at the music flipped to a prior page, back again and then to a prior page.  Seems she and the rest were not on the same page.  But now they were.

 

The fourth time the Scarlatti piece started up, believe me everyone in the audience was sitting on pins and needles and laying side bets on which instrumentalist would be responsible for bringing the piece to a halt next.   The odds on violinist were a V to II if I made out the Latin bookmaking correctly.  The organist was III to I.  But no.  No stop.  They were off and playing, the choir was singing and the "Miserere" was about as exciting as it could get.  Noone was drifting out of this performance!

 

But all good things come to an ended and so did this evening of Couleurs Baroques and the audience drifted away into the night reliving the drama and humming the tunes they had witnessed. 

 





 

Cycling from Bourdeaux

Bourdeaux was also on the route of the 15th stage of the 2013 Tour de France.  It was 104 kms from the finish line at the top of Mont Ventoux to the South in Provence (and 138 kms from the start of that stage:

http://www.letour.fr/le-tour/2013/fr/etape-15.html

The profile of that stage featured the Cote de Bourdeaux at km 143 (from the start of the stage), just outside of town.  This is where a lot of the painting of cyclists' names was done around here.  See the profile of that stage here:

http://www.letour.fr/le-tour/2013/fr/etape-15.html

We plan to do most of the climbs on this route, including Mont Ventoux, but not this day.  We had another ride planned.

Let me say that I did not feel very well when I got up Thursday Aug. 22 since I hadn't slept after getting up in the middle of the night.  Jet-lag seems to bother me more than others.  However it gave me a chance to get going on this blog in the middle of the night while Cristina apparently slept. 

But we decided to get our first bike ride in and after checking out the market, OK after buying a bunch of stuff at the market, we headed off to Crest and took the harder route on the way there.  Up the Col de la Chaudière which starts a handful of kilometres out of the town so there is really no where to warm up the legs.  Warm up is probably the wrong expression to use because it was already 30 degrees at 11 a.m. when we chose to leave.  It was hot by my legs needed to turn for a while to get them going.  I didn't have the luxury of the time to do that.  Cristina killed the climb and here poses for me once I made it up.

 I had to take a selfie as Cristina wanted to get going and wouldn't reciprocate.  Ouf! 















See details of our ride at this link:
http://www.strava.com/activities/bourdeaux-col-de-chaumiere-saillans-crest-paz-de-lauzon-saou-and-back-france-76689191?ref=1MT1yaWRlX3NoYXJlOzI9ZW1haWw7ND04Mjk2NzE%253D



Coming back the ride was beautiful through the Forest of Saou and over the Paz de Lauzon (the Lauzon Pass).



I'm trying to convince Cristina to use the Strava app on her IPhone to record her climb times as she is so strong this year she is sure to be the QOM (Queen of the Mountain or fastest woman recorded by Strava) on most of the climbs in this area.  (There are a lot of strong male riders here but not many strong female ones, and in any event not many as strong as Cristina, especially taking her, um, ah, maturity into account.)

Market Day in Bourdeaux

Thursday mornings are market days in Bourdeaux and the main street crossing the bridge is closed to car traffic and covered with stands selling various produce that spill into a small square beside the bridge.

  Fruits, vegetables, saucissons (salami type sausages made of pork, wild boar or bull meat and are flavoured with cepe mushrooms, lavender, provençal herbs among other seasonings), whole freshly caught trout and other fish, olives, breads, cheeses and spices are some of the comestibles.  Chickens roast on a rotisserie and are served with roast potatoes.  There are pieces to sample of Caillette, a local delicacy that is a roasted ground pork ball the size of a grapefruit mixed with vegetables (like spinach and onions) that can be served cold or hot.  But today the highlight was the local goats milk cheese, the Picodon. 

The Picodon is a round flat cheese about 3 inches in diameter.  It is sold fresh (made within 48 hours) or aged 4 days, 12 days, 20 days or more.  The 4 day is fresh, but already flavourful and smooth.  The 12 day becomes creamy and runny and is wonderful too.  By 20 days aging the cheeses become more dry and crumbly and sharper tasting, but are great in salads, crumbled over green leaves.  Older than that is an acquired taste for most people and not easy to love at first blush.

A thick slice of Pain de Campagne (Country style bread) with a centimetre of 4 day old Picodon and a centimetre slice of the magnificent tomatoes sold in the area is a WOW lunch experience.

Bourdeaux

We drove from Avignon to Bourdeaux.  Up the Rhone Valley on the AutoRoute to Montelimar (where they make some of the best nougat you will ever taste) and then east to Bourdeaux.  Once you head east the roads are progressively narrower and more and more winding and hilly.  On dropping down the last kilometres into Bourdeaux you could see the names of Tour de France cyclists painted on the road.  ANDY, ANDY, ANDY, KITTEL, TEN DAM, MONTFORT all screamed up from the road.

If you look for Bourdeaux on Google Maps it will ask "Did you mean Bordeaux?" But do not be confused.  It is a pretty little town in the Department of the Drome with its medieval ruins atop the hill, people living in medieval stone houses near the top and progressively newer houses as you come down the hill to the Rubion river, which looks more like a creek.

 

The hilltop ruins are of not one but two castles of different lords and there are three churches within a stone's throw of where our friends live, by the Rubion.  It is 44 kms Northeast to Die (where they make the renowned Clairette and Cremant de Die, bubbly white wines from Brut to sweet and very nice).  It is a similar distance to the Northwest to Valence, which is the biggest town around and boasts a TGV train station.

To the North over a ridge is a nice size town which has the closest good shopping called Crest (pronounced Kreh).









To the South, through some spectacular gorges is Nyons (pronounced Nee-ownce) which is famous for its black wrinkly olives with bigger pits than normal and the olive oil made from them. Nyons also has a wonder Provençal market on Saturdays in the summer where you can get regional produce, handicrafts (baskets, pottery) and artisanal goods (e.g. scented soaps).

Bourdeaux has a good butcher, two general stores, a Thursday morning market, two boulangerie/patisseries as well as a post office and all the amenities you would need such as tennis courts, a swimming pool and a public pool to wash your clothes, if you were so disposed to.

This was our base from which we planned to cycle and explore the region.  Our hosts, Pascaline and Paul had a huge house to which they welcomed us in the village.  The house was probably two or three houses that had been put together over the years and boasted about 7 or 8 apartments that had been used as  "Gite" (a cross between and inn and a B&B).

 

Looking down we see the small town of Bourdeaux and to the North we see the mountains that yield some of the excellent cycling around here.  The cleft in the mountain range is where the Col de Chaudière can be found.  That was on the agenda for our next day.

 We had a dinner of ravioli and salad.  The postage stamp size ravioli are one of the specialties of the region and come with many fillings.  These ones were with pistou (a type of pesto).  Others I've seen here are with Picodon (the goat's milk cheese of the region), Emmenthal and spinach and cheese.  But there are many other fillings.  Only the size and ubiquity of the ravioli are constant.  Dinner was finished off with an apricot tart Pasacline made without any added sugar.  She was minding my weight for me.  Cristina must have put a bug in her ear.  Then it was off to our still jet-lagged sleep.

 

 

http://www.vin-gastronomie-drome.com/lao-raviole-du-dauphine/

Palais des Papes in Avignon

 
 We visited the Palais as early as we could to avoid the huge cues that form quickly.  The Dutch and Germans were there ahead of us, of course, but luckily there were not too many of them.

The huge shadow of the Palais shades the square outside and keeps it cool early in the day.

Adjoining the turrets of the Palais is the cathedral.

The cathedral can be seen through the slits for archers, fashioned in a stylized cross that characterizes the design of the Palais.

Inside the Palais windows with seats sculpted into the walls look out over the interior courtyard.  Nice and cool on a hot day it is an ideal place to contemplate when in a conclave picking the next pope.

The Popes stored their treasure behind walls many metres thick in the Armory, in which only the Pope and one trusted civil servant had access.










 














Even the chairs remind one of the Pope's headwear.

 

 

Avignon Blew Us Away!

We left Maresille and drove to Avignon.  No problem other than the GPS was not helpful at all.  It was even worse when we got to Avignon and was hoping it would guide us to our hotel right beside the Palais des Papes (the Popes' Palace) in the medieval section of town.  However we followed the GPS and ended up driving down streets barely wider than the car we were in and circling the Palais before asking for directions and being told to leave the walled city and start again.  And that worked just fine.

I dropped off Cristina and drove off to look for the parking lot while she checked in and had a nap.  I came back an hour later after having driven miles in various wrong directions.  Back to relying on hard copies of maps for me.  I've had enough of the French GPS.  (Somewhere there are some French programmers laughing themselves silly thinking of the stupid tourists that would follow the blue line on the GPS anywhere despite evidence the direction was wrong.)

After Cristina's nap we walked up the stairs by the Palais to the gardens perched atop the hill the Palais is on.  From one side you could see the famous Pont d'Avignon which only goes halfway across the river (Rhone).  Officially it is called the Pont Saint-Benezet and was finished in 1185 and then crossed the river.  In the 1600s arches of the bridge began to be washed away and now only 4 arches survive. 

Apparently no one knows the reason for or origin of the song "Sur le Pont d'Avignon" and maybe it should even be "Sous le Pont d'Avignon" (i.e. under rather than on the bridge), but we decided we weren't going to dance anywhere near it and in stead checked out the opening time for visiting the Palais (to avoid the cue that will form later) and visited the gardens above the Palais, the Garden of the Doms.  Here gale force winds whipped at the trees and lifted sand and dust into the air as we looked into the distant landscape and could see Mount Ventoux.  I gather it is aptly named.  We were blown away (figuratively).

Dinner was at l'Essentiel as Cristina didn't want anything fussy and too fancy.  It ended up being neither what Cristina was looking for or what I would have opted for, but was quite good and well recommended.

 While Cristina posted on Facebook I ate a brandade on a tomato and eggplant terrine for an appetiser.
With this meal I ordered a 2012 Vallon des Anges Rose from Domaine de Valdition.  It is a biological wine from Orgon on the Coteaux D'Aix en Provence, not far from Avignon.  It had a salmon copper colour and the bouquet had a aromatic orange essence and it had a similar taste. The wine started a bit bitter but had a nice long finish for a rose and lingered and improved on the palate.  50+5+10+15+7=87.

While Cristina had the Supreme of chicken I had seared tuna ringed with a lemon ginger puree with some soya sauce.  I could see why the chef thought this was a good idea but found the lemon ginger concoction overwhelming the delicious tuna in a very un-French way.  The side of chickpea and carrot hummus with sesame seeds and olive oil was much more successful.

The fig poached in port and spices was wonderful and the hazelnut ice cream  and carmelized sugar wafer were both decorative and added taste to the dessert.  This made a nice way to finish the meal and the evening to let us prepare for our visit to the Palais the next morning.

Petit Dejeuner in Nice

Breakfast in Nice was on the Promenade des Anglais that lines the shoreline in Nice.
By all indications Cristina took it seriously:

 

 

I had an English breakfast in honor of the "Anglais" and noted just how bad that kind of a breakfast could be.  I think the French must take a certain pride in seeing how bad they can make English food and still have English and Americans come back.  This Canadian ain't coming back for that anytime soon, but then again the French are far from famous for breakfast or petit dejeuner.  It is so much an afterthought that lunch is called dejeuner too.  Dejeuner means "break" the "fast".  The food the French eat in the morning is insufficient to break the fast it seems so they have to give it another go at lunch.  Contemplate that the typical French croissant for breakfast is a Viennese origin bread roll.  It's as if the French had no idea of their own what to have for breakfast.

 

Typical French breakfast is a huge bowl of café au lait in which you dip day old pieces of a baguette on which you may have already put butter or jam, or both, and trying to get this into your mouth before it degenerates and drops off into the café au lait as it inevitably will start to do.  Then the really exciting part is drinking up the café au lait au bread au jam with greasy buttery circles decorating the beverage.  And this doesn't break the fast.  It is a culinary mulligan in France. 

 

Bouillabaisse at Restaurant chez Michel in Marseille

To have a real bouillabaisse at a temple of the dish in Marseille has always been a wish.  30 years ago I cycled through France and covered over 5,000 kms. from Paris but when I rode along the Mediterranean coast I avoided Marseille and headed North up to Provence where there was less traffic, nicer sights and it was easier to find nice camping with my bike.   What I missed was the bouillabaisse.

Bouillabaisse is a fish soup that any gourmand or gourmet has probably eaten somewhere.  However, the Marseille version is reputed to be the true one and chefs there have access to fish that you cannot get elsewhere, at least not nearly as easily. This Greek origin dish has been made for hundreds of years and is typified by the fish being cooked whole in the saffron base and being served with rouille (a garlic mayonnaise with saffron and a little chili peppers whose name means "rust", probably as that describes its color well).  The rouille can be eaten various ways but it is recommended to slather croutons with it before dipping into the broth and eating.  See: http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bouillabaisse

I phoned from Canada for 10 days in a row before finally getting a lunch reservation at chez Michel in Marseille.  The internet yielded a couple of restaurant websites, reviews on the Michelin site and on TripAdvisor and each had a different phone number.  My old hard copy of the Michelin Guide had praise but also yet another phone number.  I called them all and eventually got through on the number listed on TripAdvisor and got a 12:30 p.m. reservation for lunch.  Going to Marseille was a detour from my planned travel from Nice to Avignon so I wasn't going to go without a reservation, but dammit I wanted to go!

We left Nice and needed to get on the AutoRoute to Marseille so had to go North.  Cristina kept us going North and I thought Cristina was getting us to Marseille.  She was only focussed on getting us North and thought I was getting us to Marseille.  After some 40 or 50 kms. going North I stopped and looked at the map.  Cristina pointed out where we were. We were 35 or 45 kms North of the AutoRoute.  So we headed back along the small road and had lost so much time we really had to hurry.  Luckily the ugly car we had rented had no problem going 160 kms/hr.  Cristina kept asking me to slow down but I just replied that it's either keep up the speed or not bother going to Marseille for the bouillabaisse.  She knew what that meant and clutched the hand grip over the passenger door and hung on gamely.

We phoned ahead to warn of our late arrival (they told us to be there by 1:30 P.M. or not bother coming).  Despite the misdirection of our GPS and the fact it turned itself off 15 minutes before reaching our destination (I think it considered us to have already arrived--it was colluding with the waiters at chez Michel), I managed to find the place and dropped off Cristina while looking for parking.  A big P promised parking up ahead but then there was no big P showing where to turn to find the parking when you got there.  After circling around twice I decided to do a U turn and double my tracks and that gave me sight of the furtive big P and found the underground parking.

Meanwhile Cristina ordered two bouillabaisse and by the time I jogged in a bottle of a white Cassis was open and Cristina was sipping it from her glass.  I just poured one for me and looked at the label.  I had told Cristina to order a white Cassis which is from a nearby appellation to the restaurant and goes well with bouillabaisse.  She had ordered the 2012 Cassis Blanc de Blanc from E. Bodin.  It had an acidic, tart even but clean taste of citrus fruits that even improved on the palate after swallowing and the aftertaste had significant length.  It had a generous smooth wet stone minerality that added to the ways this wine complemented white fish and would also do so with seafood.  It was a beauty.  50+5+12+16+7=90 points from this reviewer.

Our Bouillabaise was made with 4 of the classic fish to be used for this dish and they were shown to us beforehand.

They were the St. Pierre (John Dory) in the middle of the photo on the right, with the Rascasse on the left, Vive to the right and Galinette (Red Mullet) on the far right.  For the dish to succeed Michel believes that you need to exclude all shellfish from the dish (except for an optional addition of a langoustine) and to stich to local coastal fish.  The fish are cooked whole, head and all and all (after being scaled and cleaned) but are fileted and served on the side with potatoes cooked in the stock as well.  Here our waiters prepare to serve the dish while extra stock keeps warm on a burner on the side.

Bouillabaisse is flavoured with saffron and thickened with tomatoes and a little chili and perhaps this one had modest amounts of other spice.  It is served with croutons and bread (slices of rustic baguette) and the thick orangey yellow slices of potato.  On the side were both a Rouille and a white, garlic aioli.  If you don't like garlic, skip this dish.  There are huge amounts of garlic in the dips.  But I found the results delicious.  Cristina did too.

I liked dollops of the rouille in the soup and started by eating the fish on the side.  However I soon adopted Cristina's technique to bathe the potato or fish in the soup, and to add spoonfuls of Rouille or the Aioli on the morsels before eating with the soup.  I found the croutons a distraction but the pieces of the wood oven baked baguette a welcome addition to the dish.
                                           
 I had smelled fish and cooking fish as soon as I had stepped from the car in the parking garage 3 blocks away from Michel's which is on the waterfront just beside the Pharo Palace which was constructed by Napoleon.  Inside Michel's the place smells of wonderful cooked fish and garlic.  The walls are lined with paintings showing waiters in the traditional white jerseys with the horizontal blue stripes serving fish in berets.  The berets are now gone but the place otherwise is very much the same as it was when it opened in 1946 when the Germans stopped eating all the fish from the Mediterranean.  Now they have to line up and pay like everyone else.

See these websites for more about Michel's:
http://www.restaurant-michel-13.fr/presentation
http://www.kelrestaurant.com/restaurant-13-1518-restaurant_chez_michel.html

 

Nice: Bistrot Gourmand

August 19, 2013 I arrived in Nice with Cristina at 6 in the evening.  We picked up our rental car and on asking for the car in largest trunk space in the class we got upgraded to a Peugeot Tepee.  Two bikes, two big pieces of luggage and two small pieces of luggage could all be easily arranged in the trunk and the trunk cover pulled over the lot.  It's an ugly car but gets the job done nicely.


 

Our hotel was apparently 12 minutes away.  That's if you knew where it was however.  Our GPS kept talking to us but didn't give us the directions to our hotel.  I was sure I could locate the hotel on the map but we kept driving past the street it was on over and over, unable to see the street name on the narrow pedestrian filled road that it ended up being on.   https://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&tab=jl

We had reservations at Bistrot Gourmand, a Michelin one-starred restaurant at 8:15 p.m., which I thought was plenty of time.  To make the reservations we had to confirm the day of the reservation, which I did from Frankfurt.  Then in Nice we advised of the delays 3 times before we showed up at 9:30 p.m.  We were greeted like they couldn't wait to see us and the telephone advices from us were the greatest courtesy they could imagine.  We were treated with excellent service and a meal that made all the frustrations fade away into our wine glasses. 

 

To start our meal a tasting spoon of rabbit terrine and a small cup of a chanterelle foam soup was offered to us.  The soup was especially delicious.

 

I chose a white wine from the local Bellet appellation which is found on the hillsides of Nice. This appellation is so small even most wine lovers who don't live in Nice have never heard of it.  Still, I have learned to try the local wines in France, in particular, to discover more about wine and more about the region I am visiting.  (For more on the Bellet AOC see: http://www.vinsdebellet.com/aoc/aoc.html (in French) and http://belletwine.com/bellet-aoc/ (in English).)  This try was worth it.  The wines are such small production that they are relatively expensive, however the quality is high. 

 

The wine we drank was he 2011 Domaine de la Source AOC Bellet white wine from Dalmasso.  It was a very attractive light sparkling gold color and tasted like a chardonnay but more fruity.  It had an orange peel quality that made it distinctive and mirrored one of my dishes surprisingly.  50+5+12+17+7=91.

 

My first dish was an artichoke salad.  Then Cristina and I both ordered a Ravioli de Gambas (prawns) and then we each ordered filets of St. Pierre (John Dory) but done differently.

The artichoke salad was a revelation.  White artichokes, sliced thinly mixed with rocket salad greens and a light dressing with truffle oil.  Cristina didn't want to share the dish but did want to try it.  Once she did, she ended up eating more than I did!  The artichokes were firm and crunchy but thin enough to work just perfectly.  The flavours complemented each other and this dish was both simple and the combination created complex flavours.

 

The Ravioli de Gambas was two large raviolis in a shrimp foam sauce that was light and exciting to the taste buds.  I used the large spoon provided to pick up as much as I could and wiped the bowl with bread to leave nothing for the plongeurs (dishwashers).

 

My St. Pierre filet was plated with a mash of candied orange peel with citric fruits  and vegetables that brought out the taste of this delicious white flaky fish but was not acidic enough to compete with it.  Cristina's was served with a chanterelle sauce with whole mushrooms placed on top.  Very good but didn't provide the counterpoint that was so well provided by my version.  Cristina thought mine was the better choice although she enjoyed hers too.

 

I highly recommend Bistrot Gourmand which clearly deserves its one Michelin star and offers a very good value for this kind of quality restaurant in France.