Through the Auvergne





 
An other beautiful day in the south of France. We rode through a hilly sunny landscape over the Route Bleu to Roanne. On our way we visited the Chateau of Palisse and Le Château de la Roche at St-Priest-la-Roche which due to a dam lies now in the middle of water.
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At Troisgros in Roanne














 
How much food can you eat? How many dishes in one menu? It seems the more stars restaurants have - the more you have to get. Well at Troisgros they have 3 stars for more then 40 years now and the food is more then enough... :-) - they have about 20 chefs in the kitchen so staff to prepare it all.
Luckily it is immense tasteful and while we celebrated Eddie's birthday it was very suitable as well!
As usual whenever we riding our motorbikes we have plenty of people addressing us about the bikes - Michel Troisgros was no exception and he proved to be an passionate bike rider.
This is what we had (pardon my french ;-) ):
Menu de Printemps
  •  Asperge landaise, ivre de vin
  • Gnochettis d'artichaut à la sadine fumée
  • Mezzalune de petits pois et amandes fraîches
  • Cuisses de grenouilles poêlées, un satay d'épices
  • Sole à la cioulette
  • Homard bleu rivière de janvier
  • Canette de Challans caramélisée aux cerises
  • La tradion de fromages fermiers, frais & affinés
  • Douceur de lait et caramel, gelée de casis
  • Tarte sublime au chocolat, à la poire
  • Rhubarbe et fraises des bois a l'estragon
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Cute (gay) Mc Donald's ad in France: Venez comme vous êtes...

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Sommerset Maughan revisited

Selina Hastings (who wrote earlier about Mitford and Waugh) wrote a new biography, “The Secret Lives of Somerset Maugham”which is available on the kindle (and so iPad). As I like reading books more in de kindle app then in de the iBooks app (better usability, better selection and... lower prices...). Strangely enough not many people read Maugham books or plays anymore and that while he was for much of his (very long) life “the most famous writer in the world.” - and one of the best selling.
So while I am am reading Selina's book I am planning to reread “Of Human Bondage," and “The Moon and Sixpence” both published in early part of the twentieth century. Let's see if Sommerset stands the attack of time.
PS If you were wondering what the secret life of Sommerset was all about: he was married but spend most of his time with young guys at his estate in the Provence ;-)
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Moulins





Rain and Sunshine were alternating today - which gave strange and beautiful skies (and sometimes a wet suit). We had a very short ride to Moulins - but we absolutely wanted to see the triptych of the "Maitre de Moulins" in the Gothic Cathedral. You can only see it on request and it is a private showing in which the guard will open the triptych especially for you. It was stunning how well it is preserved with stunning colors and an immense detail.
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South!

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Sweet! II

Le Negus caramel toffees from Negus De Nevers.
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Between the Loire and the Seine



Slowly we are riding down the N7 south and we take ample of time to see the many things around us. As the 7 locks of the canal between the Loire and the Seine at Rogny Les Sept Ecluses and the Castle of Saint Fargeau.
We stayed at the Auberge Des Templiers in and had our first "proper" gourmand meal  Foie Gras with rhubarbe. Yummy!
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Sweet!

Chocolate almonds (Praslines) from Mazet De Montargis.
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We asked for a save trip... and we got it!

At the Notre Dame De La Route - the special chapel for the N7 we asked for a guidance and as the sun broke through the clouds at that moment, I guess we got it :-)
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The french like good clothes - also for their dogs...

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Fontainebleau - city of the emperors







As we couldn't stay at the Chateau, we stayed in the next best thing across it: the Aigle Noir ;-) AS usual parking the motor bikes was easy - in front of the entrance...
Because it is still early in the holiday season, it was very quiet while visiting the Chateau, which was nice because we had a good chance to see everything at our own convenience. I liked especially the Diane Gallery with its library and globes. The garden park was immaculate and looked very fresh - the weather nice. So a perfect beginning our our trip in France.
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Reims

On our way we stopped at Reims - always nice to see the Cathedral. It has been renovated as long as I can remember - but they are making progress (at last!).
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The Route Imperiales no 1

We started our holiday today! We will follow the old Route Imperiales no 1 which later became the Route Nationale 7 (the old Route the Soleil) to the Italian Border and then ride through Switzerland and Germany back to home.
There is a lot of (Roman)history, chateaux, castles, old villages along the road and of course many, many 2 and 3 star Michelin Restaurants ;-))
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How Ban Ki-Moon became my hero

Ban Ki-moon ordered the president of Malawi (Mr Mutharika) the release the gay couple that was convicted of"of gross indecency and unnatural acts". "This outdated penal code should be reformed wherever it may exist," he said.  Hurray! and thank you Ban :-)

Steven Monjeza(26) and Tiwonge Chimbalanga(20) were given 14-year jail after celebrating their engagement late December.  The two men were convicted under a law dating back to colonial rule by Britain. Main while Uganda is thinking of strengthen the laws to include the death penalty for gay people... No holiday to Uganda this year...
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On the Road

Our first stop is Dinant in the Belgian Ardennes at the Meusse.
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Great T-Shirt Jake!

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Although it has been 26 years since  To The Manor Born aired on the BBC, it has been selected to be our official holiday TV series. I still have fond memories of Penelope Keith and Peter Bowles and we will follow their story right trough Europe. A special mention for Brabinger of course: It was he whom gave name to Eddies Brabinger BV...
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The GOP primary in CA: a playground for the wealthy?

With two wealthy Silicon Valley GOP candidates for CA  governor — Meg Whitman and Steve Poizner — spending more than $100 million just to win the right to spend tens of millions more in the fall the California primary is getting out of hand. An (even for Republicans) unusual amount of negative political ads accusing candidates of doing everything short of sleeping with a rent boy.
The main theme of Whitman ads is that Poizner is not to be trusted because his political track record reveals that he's a secret liberal.  

Meanwhile Poizner is hitting back: His main theme is that Whitman is — you guessed it — a secret liberal...

Maybe we better make this GOP primary an EBAY auction...
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Cute new Media iPad aps

Some new exiting media apps came to the iPad these last days:
The PressReader app (free, paid-for content) offers digital editions of newspapers and magazines from around the world. You can flick through pages, zoom in to read them as they were printed, or bring up easier-on-the-eyes text versions of stories. For now you can even enjoy the content for free!

Zinio (free, paid-for content) similarly displays glossy magazines and has much the same functionality but with a slicker interface; crucially, it turns printed weblinks into interactive ones. A simple kind of app  - but they have a very extensive magazine collection  and even better: they will make my Zinio back catalog available on the iPad!

I loved the Wired app (£2.99), which adds iPad-only content to the magazine. Funny thing only is that some advertisers don't seem to get it and don't have interactive ads... (By The Way: ads... In a magazine you can easier skip those then on an iPad ;-) )

The Financial Times' app is an excellent  way to access (free for now) FT content.
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Inner Bags

To make our upcoming motor trip even more convenient and efficient we bought inner bags for our panniers. It will save dismounting the boxes every time.
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Breakfast

French Yogurt, Quaker Full Fiber Granola, Wall nuts, Strawberries, Pistachio, Raisins, Oranges (Squeezed) and Banana (blended).  Oh: and Fish Oil, Multi Vitamin and such of course...
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