Well, we had a lukewarm response to La Maison Courtine. Our table was fine. There was a white cloth and proper linen serviettes and we were seated promptly. The food was good. Peter had escargot - the first time this trip - and they were delicious. I had tiger prawns in batter with a lobster purée. Three prawns and a tablespoon of purée and a tiny bit of nondescript salad and a bit of diced mango. It was 'nice' but not outstanding. Then we both had calves liver which was excellent and came with a light parsnip and potato purée. Peter had cheese to follow - again, not very special. I had a deconstructed plum tart with a blob of cassis ice cream which was very sharp and didn't really complement the plums. Vanilla ice cream would have been better....à mon avis! The dining room was rather dreary and the service was professional but unsmiling, almost to the point of unfriendly. I seem to have turned into a restaurant critic, and not a very good one at that.
And so to today, Saturday 1st November and very warm. The weather is amazing. We got up early and negotiated our way to the Gare St. Lazare which is immense and labyrinthine. With help we located the ticket machines and then had to have more help to get the tickets. Even the ticket machines are bureaucratic! It asked for an incredible amount of information and then seemed to ignore it. Then Peter instructed me to RUN for the train, which I did, running straight into a woman who moved the wrong way. We missed the train. Fortunately it turned out that our tickets are good for a week, so we are going to try again tomorrow. Our destination is Monet's house at Giverny where there is an exhibition of Belgian impressionists. We were last there with Bob and Mary!
 |
| Printemps |
So, we wandered out of the Gare St. Lazare and went in search of a brasserie for lunch, admiring the Printemps store on the way.
 |
| Exhibition poster |
After omelettes and chips etc. we found a bus that would take us to the Luxembourg gardens where we walked the wrong way but eventually came to the entrance of the Musée de Luxembourg where there was an exhibition of....wait for it...impressionists! This time, the collection, subsequently dispersed and brought together again for the exhibition, of one Paul Durand-Ruel. It was small but had some lovely pictures. Then back out into the sunshine of the Jardins de Luxembourg and into a couple of chairs facing the sunshine where Peter did the crossword and I had 40 winks! The gardens were very busy. There were chess players, a children's playground with people queueing to get in, it looked anything but fun inside, and boules players. We were amused to see the terrain for boules is equipped with coat racks. And then people everywhere reading books.
 |
| The crowded children's area |
 |
| What a moustache! |
 |
| Boules |
 |
| View through the trees |
We struggled a bit with the bus home, wandering at first in the wrong direction but eventually made it.
No comments:
Post a Comment