Category Archives: 2) Frequent Destinations

May 2, 2010 · 8:14 pm

Dordogne again: takemewithyou

The small oil paintings we bought in Sarlat four years ago now hang on the wall in our kitchen and lo and behold, the name of the artist and the address of her studio are on the back of the paintings. So for my brother and his wife, when in Sarlat I hope you can find her: Her name is S. (Sophie)  Noellet and her studio is at 6 rue Fenelon, which as I recall is one of the streets where a lot of artists’ studios are.

Actually, I found Sophie’s website – of course – and looks like she’s moved her studio to 4-6, rue Albéric Cahuet (in the center of town if my french translation is right.)

Here’s one of her paintings that’s akin to the veggie paintings we have http://www.sophienoellet.com/peintures.php

More on the Dordogne tomorrow.

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May 1, 2010 · 8:16 pm

Paris – takemewithyou

Everyone seems to be going to France. Now my friends Art and Nell are heading to Paris – so here’s some restaurant and hotel and neighborhood suggestions…. Be sure to book the restaurants well in advance. It certainly was necessary when we were last in Paris four years ago.

We stayed at the Hotel du Palais Bourbon, 49 rue de Bourgogne – small comfortable affordable hotel,  good location on the Left Bank near the Rodin Museum.

As for restaurants, here are two that my dear friend Johnny Apple suggested for us –  L’Epi Dupin, a small gourmet place (www.zagat.com/Verticals/PropertyDetails.aspx?VID=8&R=69318); and La Coupole, a famous old bustling art deco brassiere (great steak tartar, oysters and other seafood on ice. It’s a huge place and we had a great table right in the middle of the crowded dining room where the waiters prepare the steak tartar with great flourish). Looks like you can book online at  http://www.lacoupoleparis.com.

As far as what to see/do  it’s good to hit some of the tourist hotspots during your first trip to Paris. Visit the Musee d’Orsay – home of  my favorite painting by Manet i — “Olympia” ; Notre Dame; the Tuileries et. al.

My favorite thing is to to pick a neighborhood and walk – the Left Bank (where the hotel is); the Isle St. Louis (a small village on an island in the middle of Paris, with great ice cream at Berthillon), Montmartre and the Marais, a neighborhood we hadn’t explored much before our last trip. The Marais  has a fantastic free museum of Paris history (Carnavalet Museum)and a Jewish neighborhood complete with delis and synagogues. Sort of like a French version of NYC’s lower east side. Also well worth a visit are:   Victor Hugo’s house and the lovely Place des Vosges .

In the Bastille area, we  went to a great farmers market – the Bastille Market, an indoor and outdoor place loaded with cheese, tapenade, bread, pastries. Next time, I’ll use some of those bikes now available on Parisien  streets. see: http://www.parisdigest.com/museums/museecarnavalet.htm

On the posh right bank, do not miss La duree Royale, at 16 rue Royale, a 19th century tea salon, one of the prettiest places to each some of the world’s best macaroons. It always reminds me of my mom, who first took me there in,um, 1978 or so.

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April 30, 2010 · 11:32 pm

Loire Valley – takemewithyou

Yes, I know I was going to share more info on Dordogne – and I will eventually – but my brother is in need of Loire Valley info so here goes. We stayed in the village of Chenonceau at a very pretty and affordable hotel called La Roseraie, http://www.hotel-chenonceau.com/again with a good restaurant.  (There was a fancier hotel across the street but we liked our’s just fine.)

The hotel was in the shadow of the amazing Chenonceaux chateau (www.chenonceau.com) which we toured. There are many chateaux (don’t know the plural form) to visit and after careful consideration, for reasons I can’t remember now, we chose this one and it was spectacular, built right into a river, complete with a moat, gorgeous formal gardens and a long entrance lined with ancient Sycamore trees.

We picked in a nearby tiny village called Sache (i think). Also went to the town of Chinon which has a lovely Medieval section with half-timbered buildings and a castle (natch) with high ramparts. Also liked the town of Amboise.

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April 29, 2010 · 10:49 pm

France’s Dordogne region – takemewithyou

My lucky brother and his wife are looking for suggestions for visiting the Dordogne region of France, a fairy tale land of villages built into high cliffs of golden rock, with castles and chateau rising out of the cliffs and dotting the green valley which the Dordogne River glides through.  So here are some tips from my journal entries during our 2006 visit:

-We stayed in the town of La Roque Gageac at the Hotel Belle Etoile. Beautiful old limestone hotel with good restaurant but town is touristy and the hotel is set back from a sometimes busy road, albeit with a pretty view of the river. Here’s some good photos: http://www.tripadvisor.com/LocationPhotos-g657817-d673346-Hotel_La_Belle_Etoile-La_Roque_Gageac_Dordogne_Region_Aquitaine.html#18003187

I’d stick with the great place  Dad found last year in Sarlat.

– Speaking of Sarlat, it’s the biggest town we visited but don’t let that put you off. There’s actually street life – especially on the market day(s). Don’t miss the market(s) where you’ll find all kinds of local delicacies – fois gras (politically incorrect, I know, but delicious), bread, pastries,  strawberries, goat cheese (cabe nous is what I wrote in my journal for some reason). Sarlat also has lots of artists and you can visit their studios/galleries, with help from a map we got from somewhere or other that gave us a studio/gallery walking route. We bought some lovely small oil paintings of vegetables that now hang in our Iowa kitchen. Pretty well-kept Medieval buildings along the open square where the market is held and narrow streets lined with oft-interesting shops.

– With our Sarlat goodies, we picnicked at a spectacular garden in Vezac (see: http://www.marqueyssac.com)   that was surprisingly empty. It’s high on a hill with stunning views of the river valley –  the fortress of Castelnaud, the château de Fayrac; and the Roman chapel of Saint-Julien de Cénac. (I found this description on a knowledgeable-sounding website. http://www.frenchgardening.com/visitez.html?pid=31162916853519)

MORE TOMORROW.

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April 28, 2010 · 10:24 pm

Thinking about the Dordogne

It’s time to pull out my journal from four years ago – or was it five? – when D and I went to the Dordogne region of France during a trip to visit D’s daughter who was doing a junior year abroad in Bordeaux. My brother and his new wife (still getting used to that phrase) are hoping to go their on their honeymoon after a visit to Provence. The only name that jumps out at me right now is the lovely market town of Sarlat – but fortunately I was pretty good about writing done specifics in my journal, safely stowed in a packed-to-the-gills  fireproof filing cabinet.

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April 23, 2010 · 1:11 am

In and out of Indy

Quick trip to Indianapolis for a writing project and I had just enough time to wander around for a few hours in the Mass Ave Arts & Theater District which is still fledgling but has potential. Kind of makes the East Village in Des Moines seem like a long-established hip neighborhood by comparison. It dawned on me today – and I don’t know why it didn’t earlier – that I’m drawn to these revived neighborhoods where small entrepreneurs open up little galleries, boutiques, cafes and restaurants in old renovated brick buildings because my mom and dad did the very same thing in the 1960s when they opened their gallery in a then-very-unhip Royal Oak, Mi. (The hipness there came, alas, after they moved the gallery.)

Anyway, it was a gorgeous day in Indy – in the 70s and sunny so fun to walk the few blocks down Mass Ave. I stopped at a good gift shop – Silver in the city – and bought some tchotkes for friends; then ate at Yat’s, a hippie dippie fast food creole/Cajun restaurant. It had a line out the door at noon – and better yet a fast moving line – so I joined the crowd. Didn’t care much for the jambalaya (where’s the sausage?) but liked the moch chous or macque choux (or”mock shoe”) a lot – a sweet spicy  cajun dish made w/carmelized onions, sweet corn and chicken. Also found a cute cupcake store and great old shoe store. I wished I had a bike to ride around some of the residential streets just west of Mass Ave which looked like they were filled with restored wood frame houses re-painted in lovely bright colors. Next time.

Walked past the amazing Soldiers and Sailors Monument/fountain downtown which was full of sunbathing office workers lounging on the steps leading to the tall ornate tower erected in the 1860s to honors Hoosiers who fought in various wars. Reminded me a bit of Nelson’s Column in Trafalgar Square – so I got some postcards of it to send my London pals.

I stayed overnight at The Canterbury Hotel – (yes, someone else was paying ) a lovely boutique hotel right downtown. I had a tiny room on the 12th floor – the door looked like it would open right into the wardrobe but narrowly missed smashing it.   I had a great view of downtown. Ate dinner at 14 West Restaurant – nice ambiance, so-so food – too much mayo-or-cream inspired sauces on things. Word to wise – instead of paying $39 for a cab to the airport (which we did on the trip into town) the best deal around is the $7 airport shuttle which stops near various hotels including mine.

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April 15, 2010 · 10:50 pm

Healthy Deli?

Yes, it seems like a contradiction in terms – healthy deli – but apparently some Jewish delicatessens are making a stab at providing more healthful food – some even going so far as to ban salami. (Say it’s not so.) A story in the NYTimes about this featured several delis I’ve been at or near recently, including Kenny & Zuke’s, a deli we visited for breakfast last month in Portland. Apparently the thing to have there is the specially-made pastrami – we came close. We ordered a corned beef sandwich which we happily shared – it was huge – in the Denver airport during our trip home.

The story also mentioned Zingerman’s in Ann Arbor which we visited last summer – who knew they made their own cream cheese although I wasn’t surprised they made their own rye bread. (I think we were supposed to have pastrami there too – again, we had the corned beef. Noticing a trend here?)

And earlier this month, we were on the lower East Side of Manhattan, standing outside of Katz’ s deli debating whether to join a long, albeit fast-moving, line at Saturday  lunchtime. We decided not – and I guess this is good since the article seemed to single out old-school delis like Katz’s as, of course, serving stuff that’s not good for us (even if it tastes good.)

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April 14, 2010 · 11:06 pm

New Iowa B&B? (or maybe just new to me)

The DM Register’s story on Iowa B&Bs today mentioned some I hadn’t heard of before. One in particular caught my eye because it’s in a town I  like to visit –  the pretty Northeast Iowa river town of McGregor. The place is Stauer House Bed & Breakfast.

In McGregor, we’ve had good luck with the Little Switzerland Inn.  Two summers ago, I stayed there with a friend from London and we got the   entire upper floor of the inn, complete with a full kitchen and balcony looking out on the Mississippi. In the past, we’ve rented the 1850’s cabin next to the Inn’s regular building, which is perfect for a family with kids – even if it’s a little strange being in a cabin smack dab on the busy Main Street. (The cabin was relocated, presumably from a more rural location where a cabin would more likely be built.)

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April 11, 2010 · 9:26 pm

Home-cooked meals in Italy – how to find them

I have had the good fortune to visit Italy several times (although not, alas, during  the past 20 years) – and some of the best food I had there (which is saying a lot) was during  a 1982 visit  when I spent the week cooking and eating with a family in Rome.  This was not planned. I was supposed to spend that Easter week with our family friends Hugo and Romano but they were called away – far away –  when Hugo’s mother died in Cuba.

I was taken in by the upstairs neighbors  in Hugo’s modern apartment block – Rudy, Franca and their adorable young daughters Francesca and Veronica. I spoke very little Italian and Rudy was the only one who could speak some English but  the family member I saw the least. Instead, I spent much of my time with Franca in the kitchen and at the family table and I could swear we had conversations – even if we didn’t converse in the same language. I knew a little about Italian cooking – she knew a lot more – and that’s what we did together.  Cooked. And ate. The result, thanks to Franca (not me) was invariably delicious.

Now comes word in today’s NYTimes travel section that visitors to Italy can find a home-cooked meal via an outfit called Home Food (www.homefood.it) which appears to match tourists with locals cooking amazing home-cooked meals. (The writer had the good sense to pursue this adventure with someone who spoke near-fluent Italian.) The story also mentions agriturismo –  ag-themed hotels that are apparently the  the Italian version of agri-tourism, something we know a thing or two about here in Iowa.

When I return to Italy (and I swear I will), I am sad to say that I can no longer dine with Rudy and Franca as I did not only in Rome but during two later trips when they lived in Pantigliate,  a modern suburb outside Milan. (“Roma bella! Pantigliate brutto!” lamented Franca  – and I understood her perfectly.) They are no longer alive. But maybe a Home Food experience will be the next best thing.

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April 9, 2010 · 11:02 pm

searching for that cottage up north part 2

So far, I’ve very impressed with visitupnorth.com – which I’ve been using to find a place to rent in northern Michigan this summer. Within a day of emailing the website, a very helpful woman emailed me back – asked a few more questions and prompted produced several viable ideas (both a place that rents by the week and options if we want to stay just a few days) and valuable information (like how far such-and-such a cottage is from town and a public beach).

What did we do before the Internet? Actually I know what we – or I – did. Fifteen-or-so years ago when I was first looking for a place to rent with friends in upstate New York, I called the local newspaper to see what their want-ads offered and I looked at tourism information brochures. The one place I rented came virtually sight unseen – the owner sent me some fuzzy photographs. What a change.

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