The French Journal

Beyond the usual in Poitiers and Béziers with Peregrine

In reseaching items for this blog over the past two years, I have learned to anticipate articles by Anthony Peregrine, who contributes to a number of English newspapers. A chief reason for my appreciation: he doesn't cover the usual spots.

For example, this morning I'll line up two of his articles from The Times (U.K.). The first is a visit to Poitiers, in Poitou-Charentes. This town is not the least bit trendy; its moment in the sun was several hundred years ago. Yet from that time as a medieval center, when Eleanor of Aquitaine ruled, much remains to do and see. And as Peregrine notes, for lovers of France, there's no greater pleasure than being in a French town, early in the morning, watching it come to life, "...as people open up food shops, swab pavements, take a first coffee of the day and leg it for work. There’s a rooted sense of purpose abroad."

About a month ago, Peregrine wrote another consideration, one of the town of Béziers and the Languedoc. New airplane routes to Béziers have made it a starting point for a tour of the region. Peregrine guides tourists around local ports, beaches, ruins, parks, vineyards; this is a "great place for wandering." A favorite stop is the city of Sète: "There’s a salty atmosphere of honest labour and, as in all ports, shadowy skulduggery...(T)ourism has added sprightlier shops and blow-up dolphins to the mix of ships’ chandlers, classic frontages, cranes and fish soup. ...(Y)ou’ll bump into memories of Georges Brassens, moustachio’d chansonnier and Sète’s most famous son. Say you like him or face the consequences."

Spirits#3: Post-prandial sips of Calvados, Cognac, and Armagnac

For our final round, what's better than a French brandy? Forgive the coarse over-simplification of that designation. As an antidote, Anthony Peregrine of The Telegraph (U.K.) offers this tour of three areas where distilled spirits are made in France:

• Calvados: Made in Normandy, "(i)t is the best thing you can do with the fruit by a country mile. It bestows a glow, and is also good for you. One glassful contains seven apples; consistent drinking will keep the medical corps at bay indefinitely."
• Cognac: "The four major companies - Hennessy, Courvoisier, Rémy Martin, Martell ...control 80 per cent of production...The French drink less than five per cent of Cognac produced. Ponder this over an XO after dinner. Then pick up the tab, and you will understand why." This section contains the informational nugget that Dutch traders called the drink "brandwijn" (burned wine), which English-speakers converted into "brandy."
• Armagnac: "Armagnac is, like Cognac, a grape spirit, but it is distilled once in a single, continuous process, as opposed to Cognac's double distillation. People say this gives it a down-home, rustic flavour, in contrast to Cognac's "superbness". But the claim is out of date...Even Russians don't pay £6,000 for "down-home rustic."

Travel information abounds. 

Cognac karma

It's an icy winter morning, and the anticipation of chilly nights must be in the northern hemisphere, because there are three articles (plus extras) floating around the web about Cognac, the town and the liquor. Just the thought of the aroma of cognac is usually enough to make my head swim. But if fears of a massive hangover on a Monday morning don't deter you, let's ramble around a medieval town and sample its most famous product. Think of it as a way to warm you up.

We start with an article from Good Life about the small city which produces 160,000,000 bottles of this drink each year. Every one who lives there seems to be connected to the business in some way, working for one of the big producers like Rémy Martin or Hennesey, or coopering, or growing grapes. But the drink isn't the only attraction. You can walk around the old town and see sites such as the Château des Valois where François I was born. Salamanders, an emblem of this king, are a motif in Cognac.

Next, there's L'Ecole des Cognacs. A visitor from The Times (London) has the opportunity to taste 22 different cognacs over two days as a way to educate his palate. Even though he does the wise thing and spits, if the article is any indication, the process makes him loopy. For learning of one's own, the school's site has plenty of information. (But no way to taste cognac virtually, alas...the next cyber frontier, Mr. Jobs?)

Then a news article from AFP via The Tocqueville Connection suggests that if demand rises, there'll be a shortage of cognac in two years. Production was cut back a few years ago when demand dropped in Japan; now, after a disappointing grape harvest this year, there may not be enough cognac in stock should the popularity of the liquor continue to grow at its current rate. I'm probably not going to lose sleep over this possibility. This strikes me as a way to hike current prices, just like oil. On a different note, here's a helpful hint for you: "In cognac terminology, a Very Special (VS) cognac denotes a minimum of two years aging, Very Superior Old Pale (VSOP) four years minimum, and Extra Old (XO) a minimum of six."

I hope this discussion isn't making you as woozy as it's making me.

Trucs: More dusty items

Continuing to clean house, with a little bit of been there, done that, and a disaster in the making:

• 48 hours in Paris: These articles pop up now and again, so I don't publish them all to avoid redundancy. Here's The Independent (U.K.)'s guide for a whirlwind tour of the City of Light.
• Unless you're a party person: in which case, The Independent offers these suggestions for eating, drinking, bar-hopping, and dancing in that same city.
• Again, to the Île de Ré: Since I had featured an item about this resort recently, I didn't write a post about an article from The Edmonton Journal which details a Canadian family's home exchange with someone from the island. (If this is your interest, please check also out Polly-Vous Français's account of her recent visit.)
• Another resort - Biarritz: The thinking man's alternative to the Côte d'Azur? Maybe. Here's a brief guide for a visitor, courtesy of The Telegraph (U.K.)
• Is the world ending? Britney Spears may move to France. (MSNBC)

NYT #1: Layfayette sails again!

In the interest of catching up, I'm going to crank out a few quick items, all from the NYTimes/International Herald Tribune duet. First up, as a symbol of American - French friend"ship," and in the light of M. Sarkozy's possible visit, there's the story of the village of Rochefort, where a replica of the boat that carried General Lafayette to America in 1780 is being built (reg. req'd). A dozen craftsmen are working on the "Hermione," with the hope of completing it four years hence. If you need any further proof of French goodwill toward our country, here it is, complete with special associations and a fund-raising effort of almost $30-million.

A weekend escape to La Rochelle and the Île de Rés

La Rochelle

As someone who scans the web to find articles about France, one of my chief pleasures is discovering information about a place I'd never heard of. Thus I offer a humble French Journal word of gratitude to the folks over at The Times (UK) for a story about a weekend visit to La Rochelle, an old port city of moderate size in the Pitou-Charentes region, which I haven't had any pretext for covering up till now. The paper recommends a two day visit, one to meander the La Rochelle's well-preserved streets, and a second to go off shore to the nearby Île de Rés, a "sleepy" island with beaches and bike paths.

Because I'm pressed for time today, I'll just let the article speak:

"Why should I go? Two reasons. First, La Rochelle itself: one of the best-preserved port towns in France, with a clutch of handsome 18th-century streets crowding around the impressive fortified harbour of the Vieux Port, and a mouthwatering array of restaurants and cafes.

"Second is the Ile de Ré, a sunny, sandy scrap of land just a couple of miles offshore, where hopping on a bike and flopping on a beach are both equally tempting."

For armchair travellers, there's a new La Rochelle tourism site to explore.