Some sights in Devon.

We have just returned from a trip to the UK, visiting the county of Devon and Somerset in the southwest of the country, a first for both of us. Would you be leave that in twelve days there it only rained once, I think,that was a first also.

Our first night, The White Horse Pub, about an hours drive from Bristol airport.

The Bar

The menu. The perfect place to stay for our first night back,in England, pub grub and real ale, well I had real ale, as we were in Somerset Ruth decided to have the local brew, draft cider.

The North Devon coast, quite spectacular. The South Wales coast can just be seen in the distance.

Caught sight of this lovely old Morris 1000 Traveler in one of the many villages we drove through.

Now in South Devon one of the many islands just of the coast at Torquay.

Looking north towards the Dorset coast.

Old double decker bus doing the tourist bit round Toquay.

Tajine.

L Sunday lunch, being Father's Day I got to choose the menu, Moroccan tajine  followed by some really good smelly French fromage and a bottle of Portuguese wine. An international meal if ever there was one. Getting my little Moroccan bbq up to speed.

On the boil, takes about an hour. Inside the tajine-lamb,onions,raisins, tajine spices ( that's the secret bit and Ruth will fight to the death to keep it) and a few minuits before you take it off the heat you add a handful of dried apricots

At the table, the fromage is Pave - rich and creamy, Camembert - the smelly one and Cantal which is the nearest we can get to a good English hard cheese ( one of the few things in the food line where British is better than French is hard cheese )

 

Lid off and ready to serve.

Wish you could smell this "wonderful"

Served on a bed of couscous. Normal service may be somewhat delayed, I want at least 2 helpings of this.

Some more fortified and hilltop villages in southwest France.

Over the last few weeks we have been driving around South West France, sight seeing with our visitors from Canada and the UK. We have visited and driven past quite a few Bastides (fortified villages) castles and towns perched on hillsides.

This castle on the road to Cucugnan another beautiful hilltop village,  Chateau Queribus a fortified Cathar Castle.

The Carthars were a breakaway group from the Church of Rome during the 12th. and 13th centuries

The church were non to pleased with this and persecuted the Carthars for the best part of 150 years. Queribus was the last stronghold and fell to the Popes army in 1244.

The windmill at Cucugnan.

Minerve another Cartheir stronghold, in the department of the Herault. The Cartars held out against Simon de Montfort and his crusaders for 5 months in 1210 before jumping into a fire, coveniently provided for them by the crusaders.

The town of Cordes sur Ciel in the department of the Tarn.

Two views of Rocamador in the department of the Lot. Perhaps the most stunning of all the hillside villages.

This castle we caught site of on the road from Rocamador to Sarlet, I have no idea what it's called

St. Jean de Cole Flower Festival.

PmA few kilometres from Brantome in the Dordogne, France is the village of St. Jean de Cole, a village so beautiful it's hard to believe, every year it seems it's in the finals of the prettiest village in France. In the early part of May each year they have a flower festival. The streets are taken over by gardeners showing off and selling their flowers and plants.

The medieval bridge over the river Cole.

A couple of pics of the Main Street with the Chateau in the background

Another of the old streets , to narrow for the flower venders.

Part of the Chateau.

The local people decorate the church each year for the festival, this years theme was peace - brought on by all the tragedies of the last year, here in in France and every where.

                       

    Love and peace.

La Cuisine de Victoria - Victoria's kitchen, a cookery course with a difference.

P'MlPp    My eldest daughter Victoria has for many years run a catering business and restaurant in Collioure called The Cuisine de Comptoir (an old French name for a counter in a store where you could have a drink, as long as it came with something to eat) this year as well as serving food and drink in her restaurant she has decided to give cookery lessons with a difference. In the cuisine (kitchen) of her own home she is demonstrating how to prepare a meal, then the paying guests prepare, cook and eat the meal, this being France with lots of different wines.

This was the dessert we prepared Tart aux Blettes In English and French

The "students" hard at work we only used the leaves of the Blette. I think in English Blette is called Swiss Chard.

Shelling beans here for a salad. Ruth and my cousin Steve (in real life a retired upholsterer) wife Jill beside him.

Have you ever wondered what happens to all the wine bottles after we have drunk the wine, here they are recycled as rolling pins.

The bean salad taking shape, beans, Jambon de Iberica from Spain and then afterwards a little twist before it was served , which was my contribution between taking photos. 

The special tomatoes for making pan tomate which is toast rubbed with the inside of the skin of the tomatoes. The seed part of the tomatoe will be used in another dish - salt cod salad.

Jill and Steve preparing the salt cod salad, the cod is soaked in water overnight and rinsed through a couple or three changes of water and then served.

The finished dish Salad de Morue, with roasted red onion slivers, the insides of the tomatoes, a slug of olive oil and freshly ground pepper.

The bean salad with the twist, two slices of toasted Jambon de Sorano.

Pan tomatoe with a slice of Spanish Omelet, which consisted of 18 eggs and 18 potatoes sliced, cooked in olive oil, add the whisked eggs and bake untill you think it's done.

 The star of the meal - Tarte aux Blettes.

Victoria - hope you all enjoyed that - Lunch Tuesday and Thursday, dinner Friday and Saturday.  English and French spoken.

Castelnau de Montmirail

A couple of weeks ago we took a sight seeing trip around southern France with friends from Vancouver Island, Canada. This little village in the Tarn departement was one of the the places we visited. A spectacular beautiful village.  A Bastide - fortified - Village built on top of a small hill, with 360° views of the surrounding countryside.

This is the Main Street into the central place - square - of the village.

Place des Arcdes, our hotel behind the central arch, our friend Kees sitting in the shade watching the world go by - very slowly here, no rush.

Timber frame buildings with bricks between the framing called Colombage in France. These buildings are hundreds of years old.

The views.

A mixture here stone built house with Colombage on the first floor.

A street of stone houses, the one with the sign is the Post Office - La Poste.

Another stile of house, Colombage with a plaster type rendering called crepi.

View of the Place from our bedroom window.

 

Ceret and Colloure

Ceret in the foot hills of the Pyrenees is one of our favorite places, we always enjoy our visits, lots of higily pigily streets, huge plantain trees and  any amount of sidewalk cafe's

 One of Ceret claim to fame is this was the first home of Picasso after he left Spain.  Lots of other painters spent time here resulting in a great art scene.

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A few kilometres away on the coast is the town of Colloure evan better known than Ceret as a painters hangout, made famous by Mattise and Degain and their paintings of the buildings, fishing boats and inhabitants in the early 20th. century

One of the little streets, all the houses painted vivid colours. The streets are very steep with lots of steps, not wheelchair friendly I'afraid.

A street with cobblestones, you don't see many of these anymore.

Another typical Colloure street.

These tomatoes were harvested last year, they are a special Spanish type for making pain tomat, more on that in a future post, they are hanging in my daughter Victoria's restaurant waiting for the coming together with the pain to become pain tomat.