John Linton After our amazing day of visits yesterday we finished up our Burgundy visit by dining at the Beaune district's only three star restaurant in a small town called Chagny about a thirty minute drive from our hotel called Maison Lamelois. There is no doubt, in my mind, that it was the best meal I have had in my quite long life to date. Again, less theatrical, but the food defies my ability to describe the flavour and texture combinations and the service was simply perfect and the sommelier, like all we have encountered so far, very happy to match a wine to the main dish from the hundreds of choices without trying to maximise the price of his recommendation. The restaurant itself was a series of small rooms containing three or four tables so ambient noise was low and an intimate atmosphere was maintained - much appreciated by a US 'honeymoon couple' sitting behind us. So, a fitting end to our brief visit to France and a trip I will never forget.
Despite feeling like just tumbling in to bed when we returned to the hotel we packed last night and caught the 9 am train from Beaune to Dijon this morning. We negotiated the change over at Dijon locating the platform indicator in the least likely position and arrived in Paris 20 minutes early (not bad on a two hour trip). No problem with the taxi trip between Gare de Lyon and Gare du Nord with only the long wait (exacerbated by the early arrival of the train from Dijon) being an 'inconvenience'. I slept for most of the trip from Paris to St Pancras and my opinion is that the French train system is something we could really do with in Australia. But, I suppose we will never have things that the French take for granted and will remain believing that Australia has the best of everything.
We walked off the EuroStar and in to the reception area of our hotel which was the convenience that determined our choice and it is a big bonus. Strangely the hotel's TV has no live soccer on a Saturday afternoon - the all powerful Murdoch empire seems to be denying the British working man access to the national sport. We have a comfortable amount of time to recover from the travel and prepare to take Catherine out to dinner for her birthday and see how London measures up to France in the amazing food stakes. We are going to a London restaurant (obviously) but they have a French chef....it will be an interesting evening after the standards achieved last night.
I caught up with my email and was surprised to notice that I hadn't turned the computer on for almost 24 hours - must be something of a record for me. I still can't be bothered to check on telecommunications happenings in Australia or anywhere else for that matter but I did check the rugby, tennis and cricket happenings. Of course I had been texted the AFL result on Friday night and was disappointed that the Swans undeservedly are still playing a part in the finals - they play a really bad version of AFL. Maybe this will turn out to be a better holiday than usual?
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