The France & Spain Tour 2011 - Day 2

As sure as most of the world will end up following Stephen Fry on Twitter, Day 2 followed Day 1 and we found ourselves coming down to a breakfast fit for royalty. As they never turned up, we scoffed it instead and boy was it good.

There were plain and chocolate filled croissants, bread rolls, jams of all flavours, fruit cocktail, orange juice, chocolate spread, 8 large crepes, oranges, apples, peaches and other fresh fruit and, at our request, hot chocolate and coffee to drink.




As you can hopefully see from the last photo, the chocolate and coffee drinks were served up in a rather interesting way. The 'pots' came in two parts with the top section containing the liquids and the bottom parts being the drinking vessels.

Tres bon, n'est pas ?

The plan was that if we liked this first b&b, we'd try and book it again for the return trip. Well we certainly liked the room, the breakfast and the price so we did just that and booked it. Madame and Monsieur had to juggle some other guests around it seemed but after a few minutes with their planning book, they said all was ok.

Well they might have said all was ok if they spoke any English but they didn't and so they said it in French instead. Their country, their rules. Fair enough.

Full of stomach and only €55 lighter of pocket, we headed off to continue our grand adventure. Our next port of call was to be with our friends Graham & Christine who run a stunning b&b in Montreal (pronounced Maw-Ree-Al) in Burgundy. 249 miles and €38.70 in tolls later, we arrived at Maison Creme Anglais about a year to the day since our last visit. Our hosts had again kindly given up their own bedroom for us and soon we were relaxing in the glorious surrounding of their home. After a while I went off to take almost the same photos as last time but with my new camera so I just had to, didn't I ?

I went out into the medieval streets and again found photographic opportunities everywhere.

Speaking of the new camera, I'd only had it a couple of weeks before we set off and so I'd not had the chance to 'use' a lot of the settings. There was one called the 'pet portrait' setting and yes, I'm not joking. When on this setting and the camera detects the face of a cat or dog (sorry goldfish and gerbils), it focuses on the face, tracks the animal and automatically takes photos continuously without the shutter having to be pressed.

Graham and Christine's cat was a good subject as it never stayed still and here is one of the many photos taken on the 'pet portrait' setting. Not too shabby.

Later that evening we sat down for a lovely meal with their other guests in their huge converted barn. They were from France, Germany, Switzerland and The Netherlands so it was quite an international gathering.

Yes I know they're not at the table in that photo but as I've not asked permission, I'd better not show them in case.......well just in case. Maybe they should've been in their offices or something....who knows and I'm not risking a law suit.

So just enjoy the table.

All in all it had been a great Day 2 and as next up was to be a 4 day stopover in Provence, we went up the tall tower to bed that night as excited as Will Ferrell getting a laugh.

Yes the experience would be new for us too !