Cherbourg Ferme le Lundi

Harbourside view towards Cherbourg

This afternoon I had to take Aurianne for a walk to make sure that she had a long nap. As she needed to sleep for about 2 hours, I thought that it would be worth actually doing something/going somewhere so decided to walk to Cité de la Mer as I've yet to visit the biggest (only) attraction in Cherbourg.

We set off at 1:30pm, and Aurianne was asleep before I'd even done the buggy straps up! It's about a 40 minute walk to Cité de la Mer and so as I needed to be back for 4:45pm, I'd get just over 1.5hours to explore the exhibitions (which I anticipated would be plenty of time, but if not I could always go again).

Irish Ferries, Ferry is called 'Oscar Wilde'

I arrived at Cité de la Mer and thought 'hmm, not many cars in the car park, it must be a quiet day today'. But when I got to the doors I realised it was shut. It doesn't even shut every Monday, just random Mondays between November and May. The annual schedule makes no sense.

Cité de la Me

I was pretty annoyed - we'd walked much further than I would have liked to, for absolutely no reason!

As I didn't want to completely waste the trip, I wandered around on that side of the harbour for a while. I came across a memorial for fishermen lost at sea which was quite interesting.

After about 20 minutes of wandering, I started to head back in the direction of home thinking I could sit in a café and eat cake in town. However, when I got into town, I realised that it was largely desserted. This is because it was Monday.

Absurd opening times of Cité de la Mer

People in Cherbourg (and across France for that matter) refuse to work more than 35 hours a week, and insist on having two days off.

As the town centre is retail area, many people actually want to go shopping on Saturdays when they're home from their office jobs etc. Therefore, most shops and cafés will close on Monday to make up for this 'lost day off'.

It is very annoying.

View out to sea

Memorial for Fishermen lost at Sea

This meant that I couldn't sit in a café and get cake because there weren't many open! Instead, I went to the Petit Jean street bakery and bought myself a Cherbourgeois and a Pepité au Chocolat (which Marc had yesterday - there's also the option of 'Pepititée' or something, which is the same thing but with a chocolate topping too).

By this point it was about 3:15, but Aurianne was still asleep (she clearly needed it) so I went home via Parc Liais and sat on a bench eating my chocolatey goodness.

I got back home at around 3:45pm and then had to sit in the foyer waiting for Aurianne to wake up, which she finally did at about 4:05pm! A very long nap for Aurianne, and very tired legs for me!

Harbourside view

Cherbourgeois
(wasn't as good as last time)

Pepité au Chocolat
(sweet bread with chocolate chips, and folded into
three with Creme Patisserie in the middle. Yum.)

Mercredi = Gâteau

Mini Cakes from Maison Toulorge bakery

Don't forget, Wednesday means Cake!

Not only did I have cake to look forward to in the afternoon, but Fran also went to Maison Toulorge and bought these little cakes as a treat for lunch. The were like little sponge cakes with chocolate drops and chocolate icing on top. I'm a bit annoyed as with the kids and trying to sort out dinner and the house and getting ready to go out, I didn't actually have one, which meant that they were all gone by the time I had got home.

This week, we didn't have somewhere in mind for cake so decided to just wander until we found somewhere.

Cake Wednesdays at Café Pompon
Flan (left), Foret Noir (right),
and Chocolate Chaud for me

This would have worked much better if we knew roughly where a nice little Café was, but we didn't so we wandered around for about half an hour before settling on Café Pompon (the same one we went to a couple of weeks ago).

We decided to do the same as always, and get two desserts to share. This time we went for 'Flan' and 'Foret Noir' (Black forest cake). The Flan was really good. The black forest cake was also very nice, but very rich and strong so I struggled to finish it!

I still think Café Pompon is very nice, but we're hoping to find somewhere new for next week!

If you've been to Cherbourg and know of any good places for afternoon cake eating, do let me know!

Le Mercredi est Jour de Gâteau

The Apple Garden Café on Rue Gambetta

So this week, Allison and I decided to check out a new café she'd walked past with her host family. It was called 'Apple Garden Café'on Rue Gambetta. We went on Wednesday afternoon (fast becoming cake day), while Aurianne was asleep in the pram.

It was a lovely little café. Very clean and bright, with artwork in English and a bookshelf with lots of English books on it.

At first, we were a bit confused as to whether we ordered from the table or the counter (most cafés seem to be from the table), but no one came over and there was no menu... Also, all the cakes were in one of those glass display cases so we had to go up and have a look. We just ordered while we were over there.

The Apple Garden Café
(I believe that's the owner stood to
the right of the counter - Google tells me
his name is Derek Smith)

They didn't have quite the selection that some of the patisseries and cafés have, but it was more similar to a British café with a small selection (although the selection was more desserts than your custom shortbread and cakes that one might find in a café in the UK).

We went for 'Cheesecake Chocolat Blanc' and 'Panna Cotta Chocolat Noir'. They also had New York Cheesecake, which Allison (an American, albeit West Coast) had never heard of. Perhaps that's something we've created and given an American name? Like French toast - no one in France knows what French toast is supposed to be! Allison had also never heard of Panna Cotta, so I tried to explain that it was like a set custard cream dessert, probably from Italy (I got the origin right, but it's cream, egg white and honey according to Wikipedia!)

It was a good choice, (Allison was sad to realise they also had cookies but that we couldn't see them).

Dark Chocolate Panna Cotta (left)
and White Chocolate Cheesecake (right)

Aurianne isn't very well at the moment, and she woke up coughing after about 10 mins of sleep - not ideal, especially as she hadn't had a nap that morning. I then spent an hour trying to get her back to sleep (during which time she was fed cheesecake), and then she finally went back sleep again.

The (we think) owner came over to ask us how everything was - in English!! Allison didn't notice he was speaking English at first, but he was very nice. He had a (I think) French Canadian accent, so that would probably explain the English decor, and name of the Café. It was a very nice place though - it even has an outdoor patio (which lots of school kids went out to) which would be quite nice in the Summer!

Une Excursion d'une Journée à Caen

On Sunday 28th September, I spent the day in the French City called 'Caen'. The main reason I haven't actually written this until now is because I tend to do these using photos as a reminder of what I did, meaning I have to go through them, discard the blurred/hand/floor photos, pick and choose the good ones, and rotate about a third or more before I can even think about writing.

During my trip to Caen, I somehow managed to take 442 photos, so naturally it's taken me a while to get around to going through them. I've got it down to 180...

Anyway, here's a selection of the photos!

Cherbourg Train Station

A tower in Caen City Centre

There's a big market in Caen on Sunday mornings.
I arrived just before the end of it.

Flower Market

A French/British Restaurant, called 'Dolly's too'.
The Menu was in both French and English.

Fish and Chips!! First one I've found in France.
Rather more Salad/Coleslaw than a traditional British Fish & Chips,
but I'll let it slide this time.

Caen Castle from the outside

Caen Castle from the inside - more of a fort than a castle
(probably was bombed in the war or something)

View of the Cathedral and city from Caen Castle

Caen Castle and some beautiful blue skies

The Cathedral through the Castle gates

I think this was a museum - there were two here

The other Museum/Library

Very strange sculptures -  Mythical creatures made from metal on wooden posts...

The Statues from behind

Gate with steps leading downwards...

Caen Cathedral

A very old building (16th Century) on one of the high streets.
The Americans were amazed - American history isn't very old
so they're probably lucky to find anything from the 18th Century in the USA.

Plaque on the very old building

Little Café (Le 101) where we stopped for an afternoon snack.

Very tasty Chocolate Fondant Cake. Yum!

I feel like all my visits to foreign cities are dictated by the need to find toilets.
We finally found some free toilets - they looked quite nice on the outside...

Or not...

BRISTOL!

More Toilets. This time in Subway, and much much nicer!

A Memorial with a golden angel statue on top.
Looked very pretty with the oncoming sunset.

Another large church

A World War II Memorial Plaque with Fresh Flowers.

"Here lies the ashes gathered from the Nazi Camps"

Café Pompon

Very nice Hot Chocolate
(This was supposed to be 'Grand'...)

On Wednesday I met up with my new American friend, Allison.

We decided to meet up for coffee and cake at a Café in Cherbourg while Aurianne had her afternoon nap in the pushchair.

I found this (rather brightly coloured) Café called 'Café Pompon', just opposite the Carrefour Cité. It was lime green and lilac - I thought that would make it easier to spot!

I had a 'Grand Maison Chocolat' (Hot chocolate) which came with some little egg custard petit four thing. It was very nice but I have yet to find out what it actually was!

When Allison arrived, we ordered a 'Tarte au Citron' (Lemon Tart) and a 'Croquant au Chocolat'.

We weren't sure what a 'Croquant au Chocolat' was when we ordered it (they just had cakes and tarts in one of those glass cakes and thought it looked good). It turned out it was a kind of chocolate praline mousse cake with crunchy wafer bits in. Very tasty!

I thought I'd taken a picture of these too, but looks like I didn't. Must have been too distracted by eating it... oops! Maybe I'll go back again soon!

La Dernière Ligne Droite

Thankfully, we were woken up by Helene at 8, not 6. She said ‘we are very late and have to leave immediately’. She wasn’t joking about wanting to leave immediately. I barely had time to throw clothes on before she was back to tell us that we had to go!

The journey was awful as ever, although finally someone had the idea that maybe I should sit by the door and not in the smallest seat in the entire car given that I was the 2^nd biggest person in the car… After that it was a bit more comfortable but the kids were still completely unaware of the concept of personal space.

We arrived at a Service station to pick up some breakfast at around 10am. My headphones were broken by Hermine (she yanked them out of my laptop on the ferry) so when I went in to go to the toilet I made a very speedy stop in the shop to buy some more. Helene came in to tell me that they were very late and now they were waiting for me I was wasting their time. I tried to hurry up but not much I could have done faster. I went back out to the car to find everyone sat on the grass eating, and definitely not waiting for me!

At some point we went past Avignon and the famous bridge – I meant to take a picture but I didn’t have a window seat at the time so didn’t get a chance.

Cat at the Train
station Car park

At about 1.30pm Helene told me they’d changed where Alienor would be getting the train. She was supposed to be getting a train from Bourges (I think) which was completely the wrong direction to where we were actually going, and instead she was dropped off at the train station in a town called ‘Beaune’. The family used to live there apparently so Helene was familiar with the roads – just as well as we entered Beaune with apparently just 8 minutes to go until the train, the satnav said 15 minutes, and they apparently hadn’t bought the ticket yet…

View from Beaune Train Station steps

Beaune was quite nice. Very french, naturally. Helene told me it’s a very old town with a wall going all the way around it. When we got to the train station they rushed in to get Alienor on the train, which must have left about a minute after they got there but somehow I think she managed to get on it. I was left in the car with the children – I don’t remember what they were doing exactly but they weren’t being very nice. Helene came back about 20 mins later and asked if I’d taken my medicine. Obviously I hadn’t as we’d left immediately in the morning and so I hadn’t had a chance. She started shouting at me telling me the reason she’d been gone so long was so that I would have time to take my medicine. I tried to explain that I couldn’t just take it in the car and needed to use a toilet. She then told me she would take the children away and I could go and find a restaurant and use the toilet in there and that she’d be gone for as long as I needed. When she asked how long I’d need I told her I’d need at least an hour – I only needed about 15 mins but I was pretty fed up of her and the kids and wanted a break!

More views of Beaune

I found a little pub just opposite the train station. Helene had suggested I go to some other restaurant over the road but it looked quite posh and the type of place you can’t just go in to have a drink and use the loo! The people in the pub were quite friendly. I ordered an orange juice and then sat there having a nice time for about 40 mins, and then went to take nasty medicine in the toilet. I’d taken the little plastic cups from the toilet at the hostel and had ‘borrowed’ a teaspoon from the Ferry so I could mash up tablets.

Lots of old buildings in Beaune

When I was done I texted Helene to tell her I’d wait at the train station. While I was waiting I decided to pick up my Railcard - a very good idea because I don’t know when I would have had another opportunity to get it! Helene returned at least 20 mins after that, during which time I just sat on the station steps and watched a cat wandering about in the car park.

Now that Alienor had gone I was able to sit in the front seat! Much more room so much more comfortable! I was also able to talk to Helene – the first time we actually had a proper conversation since I’d arrived in Corsica. I was very annoyed to find out then that there was no internet at the house in Vosges!