A few days in Anjou

So, finally, after a very satisfying road trip, we arrived in Angers. It felt nice to spend a few days relaxing and enjoying Francoise’s excellent cooking, and other activities we just don’t seem to get around to doing a lot at home: like reading, doing Sudoku, watching “un diner presque parfait” (er, actually, that one we never miss out on…). But sitting about, doing nothing is not really our thing. So after a chilled out Monday, we decided to go for a walk the next day, since the weather forecast was predicting sunny weather and blue skies – a nice change to the dodgy and rainy weather we had experienced over the last few days…

Having gone through the various options in the numerous books Joel and Francoise have, we decided to do a walk not far from Angers, around Saint-Lambert-La Potherie. After visiting the pretty village church (typically Angevine – which is to say quite different from what we’re used to on the cote d’Azur – a lot less baroque), we set out on the walk. It was a pleasant enough stroll, amidst the green Anjou countryside. As on our walk last Christmas, we were struck by the contrast between the landscapes here in Anjou compared to the Cote d’Azur. Certainly the landscapes are less dramatic (one could say flat), but at the same time it’s nice to walk amids real farms and real countryside, rather than villas and swimming pools ;-). We decided to do a little detour to visit a nearby chateau. It was impressive enough; typical for the region (Angers is near the Loire Valley, which means there is probably a higher concentration of castles here, than anywhere else in France, or the world…). This one had been converted to some kind of a youth centre though (I guess they have enough castles to keep the tourists happy as it is…). Anyway, all in all, it was a pleasant way to spend a sunny morning – and we even made it back to the house in time for lunch :-) In the evening we went to see “Harvey Milk” at the excellent 400 coups cinema at Angers. Not a bad biopic from Gus Van Sant and Sean Penn – although maybe I expected a bit more, considering all the hype and Oscar nominations.

The following day, we were once more blessed with sunshine and blue skies, so we again figured it was really the perfect weather to go for a hike. This time we chose a slightly longer walk than the one we’d done the day before – around Savennieres. Savennieres is famous for its vineyards – in particular its white wine is well known. We started off the walk with a quick walk around town – Savennieres is a charming Anjou village, and has an older feel to it than Saint-Lambert-La Potherie which we visited the day before. The walk itself was very pleasant as well, starting off by taking us down to the Loire River for a good while. The Loire River is obviously the main defining feature of the Anjou area, so is kind of an integral part of a walk in this part of the country.

From there we carried up towards and through the charming village of Epire (which of course has it’s own chateau and historic church). The footpath then made its way back towards Savennieres, taking in the prosperous vinyards for which the area is known for. All in all, it was a very pleasant walk, which show-cases most of the aspects the area has to offer: the Loire River, nice vinyards, charming villages, and of course a chateau. And we just missed the rain, which hit us just as we were driving back to Angers.

For Thursday evening, Delphine and Christophe had kindly invited us for dinner. So we spent Wednesday evening (and night!) preparing a desert – a panna cotta, which I had manged to prepare with some success a few weeks ago. This time, however, things went less smoothly, since we got all ambitious and tried to make a multilayered version (the panna cotta alternating with strawberry jelly). The panna cotta behaved the way it was supposed to – ie. solidified – but the strawberry “jelly” didn’t (we ended up with strawberry jam with bits of gelatine in it instead of strawberry jelly). So the final result looked, mmm, interesting. The dinner was great – the theme was Italian, and I also I love what Delphine and Christophe have done to their house (which is conveniently located near the town centre, and endowed with a rather large garden). As far as the theme was concerned our desert was spot on – and the taste might've been as well if it wasn’t for that less-than-perfect strawberry “substance” (the panna cotta bits were good!).

On Friday, it was time to hit the road for Paris, after a very nice lunch (Boeuf Bourgignon) at the house, which Joel was thankfully able to join us for!