Leah & Julian in The World

Although we did not visit one of the bigger châteaux, we saw about half-a-dozen smaller ones without even trying.

Château de Tours and St Gatien Cathedral

We had some wet, stormy weather in Tours but it made for some interesting photos of the sky.  (And we had a much needed rest).

Our  wine tour promised cheese but did not deliver   Nonetheless, it was a good opportunity to learn about French wines and visit a vineyard in each of the Bourgueil and Chinon regions.  In Europe, it is the region (and not the grape) that is usually marked on the bottle.  So if you don’t know which grapes are grown where, then you’re basically just deciding between  red and white!

Château de La Grille winery, Chinon region, Loire Valley

In contrast to the Australian cellar door tasting  experience where you line up at least half-a-dozen varieties of grape from whites to reds, here it is half-a-dozen vintages of the one variety.  Both vineyards we visited grew only Cabernet Franc vines but the weather and soil conditions the different vintage grapes were exposed to produced a very wide range of tastes in the final wines.

35-year old Cabernet Franc vines at Château de La Grille

In other news,  the EU elections were held on the weekend.  Although we’ve seen a lot of advertising for the elections in various countries, they had the lowest voter turn-out ever of 43%.  The Swedish Pirate Party actually won a seat!  Arrr!  (Not that type of piracy )

Tagines cooking at La Maison Arabe

The cooking class with La Maison Arabe is listed as the #1 thing to do in Marrakech by TripAdvisor.  Our host at our Riad also advised us that the class came highly recommended.  It is so popular normally that we weren’t sure we would be able to get in. Luck was on our side, and we were booked in for the Thursday, our last full day in Marrakech.

The class is conducted at the hotel’s “country club,” which has excellent facilities.  The class takes a maximum of 8 people, but on our day there were only 4 in total – us and another couple.  Our translator was Mohammed, who spoke excellent English and gave us a briefing on the basics of Moroccan cookery.

The facilities and the chef

Spice mix (before ground)

Moroccan food relies heavily on spices and dried fruit, which is unsurprising given the desert-like climate.  The main spices are salt, pepper, saffron, tumeric and dried ginger (for savoury foods).  Sometimes cinnamon and Ras-el-Hanout are added.  Ras-el-Hanout is a spice mix, bought premixed from a spice merchant.  It can have up to 24 spices included, and each vendor will have his own version.

We prepared a 3 course Moroccan meal.  Firstly, a Moroccan raw salad, which is just tomato, green capsicum and red onion, mixed with a little oil, white wine vinegar, cumin and salt.

Moroccan salad

The main course was a tagine – chicken with preserved lemon and olives.  It has salt, pepper, tumeric and saffron, plus coriander and parsley.  You serve it in the tagine, with the skin of the preserved lemon artfully arranged over the chicken.

Tagine of chicken with preserved lemons and olives

Finally, a simple Moroccan dessert – oranges with icing sugar and cinnamon. It’s simple, but it’s delicious!

Simple but delicious!

Overall, the experience was well worth doing – the setting is beautiful, the translator and chef are lovely and there’s something very satisfying about cooking the meal yourself.

Happy customers!

Ten things to do in Marrakech

1. Experience the souks with all their chaos and diversity.  Be sure to bargain with a stall owner (but only when you really want the item in question).

Spices in the souks

2. Visit le Jardin de Majorelle, wander through the cacti and be inspired by the bold blues and greens, like a Henri Matisse painting.

Majorelle Gardens

3.  Visit Jamaa el Fna and buy an orange juice from one of the vendors.

Orange juice vendors on the square

4.  Still on Jamaa el Fna, avoid the dentist with his array of molars, the men dressed in red and crazy hats who follow you playing cymbals and the men who try to put their mangy monkeys on your shoulders.

The square at dusk

5.  Take a break from the hectic crowds and heat and return to your Riad – an oasis in the medina.

Riad de lÓrientale

6.  Eat tagine – lots of it.

Tagine with preserved lemons and olives

7.  Drink mint tea – lots of it.  It tastes like chewing gum and is served with lots of sugar!

Minty fresh!

8.  Visit the mosques that dot the skyline (although you are not allowed inside unless you are Moslim).

Mosque

9.  Buy a pair of babouches, if you can get them down to a reasonable price!

Babouches

10. Take the cooking class offered byLa Maison Arabe, and learn some of the secrets of Moroccan cooking.

Cooking at La Maison Arabe

The fast AVE train from Barcelona delivered us in Madrid in under three hours.  There were unfortunately some avian casualties noted on the nose of the train after the 700km journey.

Art outside the Prado Museum

The Prado Museum is free on Sunday evenings so we visited to view some Spanish art along with Bosch’s ‘Garden of Delights’ and Velázquez’s ‘Las Meninas.’  Outside the museum there had been a painting competition during the day – the courtyard was full of easels displaying locally-themed works in many styles.

Spanish vegetarian

We sampled the vegetarian cuisine at Restaurante Integral Artemisa – eggplant lasagne, vegetarian paella, catalan-style spinach and yummo fried zucchini balls.  The second night we ate very cheaply at Puerto Rico Restaurante – two courses and drinks for two for €15.

Kermit plays for us in Puerta del Sol

Gaudí's Sagrada Família

We arrived in Barcelona a day after (fortunately or unfortunately?) the big parade that followed Barcelona FC’s victory in the Champions League Final.

Football aside, we’re in Spain!  Tapas,  sangria, paella and… hot chocolate ?  Not ’til 10pm though, if you can get there without starving!

We had excellent tapas at Nou Candanchu – pa amb tomaquet (a Catalan specialty – bread topped with crushed tomato and olive oil), grilled mushrooms, fried whitebait, garlic prawns, croquettes and fried potatoes with hot sauce.

Pa amb tomaquet

Paella marinara, washed down with sangría

This hot chocolate is like molten chocolate with churros to dip.

Of course no visit to Barcelona would be complete without some  Gaudí.  In fact, you probably can’t avoid it unless you walk around with your eyes closed.  The Sagrada Família church is one place we expected to see scaffolding!  It is a massive construction project that began in 1882 and due for completion (yeah, right) in 2026.  Our admission fees went towards the €18m required to fund the work (that’s just 2009′s budget!)

View of Barcelona from Sagrada Família

So apart from being the most intricate, extravagent, over-the-top, ridiculous church you’ve ever seen, it is quite amazing to see the construction process in action from the floor up to the spires (we caught the lift up and walked down one of them).

Sagrada Família

Parc Güell is also home to more of Gaudí’s work.

Parc Güell, Barcelona

Parc Güell, Barcelona

La Boheme

Where to begin?

Perhaps with our first 3 course meal.  We ate lunch at La Boheme, and we were so full for the rest of the day that we had a very light dinner!

Julian had the Menu Provencal and I had the Menu Vegetarian.  My entree was a huge salad, with olives, zucchini, semi-dried tomatoes and marinated mozzarella.  I’m not normally a big fan of mozzarella (a bit too bland for my liking) but marinated like this it was lovely.  My only complaint with this salad was the dressing – a bit too lemony for my liking.

My first French salad

Julian’s entree was an Assortment de charcuteries de Provence – basically an assortment of Provencal meats, including a very tasty chorizo like sausage.

Mini ravioli

For my main, I actually ordered the Tian de legumes de salson a la creme de basilic.  For some reason I ended up with Ravioles croquandres sar sa compotive de tomates fraiches, which was like miniture ravioli, filled with some kind of cheese and maybe basil(?) in a tomato sauce.  Despite the mix-up it was still incredibly tasty.

Julian's tagine

Meat-loving Julian had the Tajine de taureau aux fruits socs – despite the fact we are going to Morroco in a week!  We saw quite a few African inspired dishes on Provencal menus, so obviously the cultural influence has worked in both directions.  FYI, taureau is bull, a regional speciality.

The creme de la creme!

Finally, dessert.  I had the dessert du jour (dessert of the day) which was creme caramel.  It was divine – the perfect combination of sweet caramel sauce and smooth custard.  Mum, you would have loved it!  Julian had the Sabayon aux fruits de salsons, which he tells me was quite tasty, but he probably wouldn’t order it again.

I won’t bore you with details of our other meals, but I thought you might enjoy this snapshot of Provencal food – the reputation for robust, simple, flavourful food is well deserved.

At the markets

Sadly not a year in Provence, like Peter Mayle!

We spent 3 nights in Arles and did a day trip to Avignon.

Typical provencal street

Arles is small (25,000) but picturesque.  It has some fantastic Roman ruins, is known for its bullfights (although the season hasn’t started yet) and it’s where Van Gogh painted some of his best pieces, including one of my personal favourites, Starry Night over the Rhone.

Not quite Van Gogh...

We had to go to the farmer’s markets on Wednesday morning, which are apparently some of the biggest in the region.  Although the produce looked excellent, they weren’t the best markets we’ve seen – they would be better if we were locals or were able to cook whilst here.

Tomatoes at the farmer's market

Avignon was a small and unimportant town until the French Pope moved the papal seat here.  For nearly 30 years there were 2 separate Popes – on at the Vatican and one in Avignon.  For nearly a century after the papacy was restored to Rome, Avignonians spoke Italian.

St Benezet Bridge, Avignon