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~ A fairy-tale cottage by the Seine in Normandy

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Monthly Archives: April 2012

An Abbey in April

29 Sunday Apr 2012

Posted by chaumierelesiris in France, Normandy, Things to do

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Abbey, Benedictines, cycling, France, Jumieges, Le Bec-Hellouin, most beautiful villages in France, Norman Conquest, Normandy, Tooting Bec

We are lucky enough to live near three of Normandy’s important abbeys: the great ruins at Jumièges, and the Benedictine abbeys at St-Wandrille and Notre-Dame in Le Bec-Hellouin. This last is famous not only for its abbey and monastic community but for its situation in one of the most beautiful villages of France.

Le Bec Hellouin, Eure, NormandyLe Bec Hellouin, Eure, Normandy

We set out to visit Le Bec-Hellouin on the kind of drizzly grey April day that tries to make everything look depressed but just can’t seem to manage to wipe away the green blossominess of a Normandy April.

Le Bec Hellouin

As is so often the case in Normandy, the history of Bec starts out in France then gets knotted up with England. The abbey was founded in 1034 by a Norman knight, and quickly became an important intellectual centre for the Catholic church. A number of the monks from Bec went on to become Archbishops of Canterbury.

Le Bec Hellouin, Eure, NormandyBell tower, Le Bec Hellouin

After the Norman Conquest, the abbey was enriched with properties in England. The then village of Tooting Bec belonged, at one point, to the abbey, and was named after it. If you stand in the global-suburban-London bustle outside the Tooting Bec tube station today it’s hard to imagine any kind of connection to this quiet valley in northern France.

Abbey, Le Bec HellouinAbbey, Le Bec Hellouin

The abbey suffered after the Revolution, and only the medieval belltower remains. After the Revolution the abbey was used as a cavalry barracks, and elegant buildings were added in the eighteenth century. In 1948 the abbey was reinstated, and today it hosts an active Benedictine community.

Abbey, Le Bec HellouinStatue in the chapel, Abbey, Le Bec Hellouin

The monks sing vespers most Sunday evenings in the simple chapel. There is an excellent bookshop with Benedictine products including ceramics manufactured by the monks in residence.  It’s peaceful yet quietly active place, busy with visitors taking walks through the parkland, groups on spiritual retreat, and the monks in white-hooded robes going about their daily life.

Abbey, Le Bec HellouinCycle route, Le Bec Hellouin

For the best views of the abbey, it’s worth turning left out of the gates and across a little bridge towards the old railway station. Look back to the abbey accross the fields. At the old railway station there’s a cycle path running along the former railway line towards Evreux which seems a wonderful way to visit this countryside.

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Dinner by Michelin: Auberge Du Vieux Logis

21 Saturday Apr 2012

Posted by chaumierelesiris in Food, Normandy

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Conteville, Eric Boilay, Food, Michelin, Normandy, Pont-l'Évêque, restaurant, review

One afternoon last year we bought the Michelin Red Guide. We had finally settled in a corner of Normandy and were starting to explore the neighbourhood. As this is Normandy, to know the food is, in no small sense, to know the place.

Still, we wondered about our reasons for getting this particular guide. We’re in the wander-and-discover school of restaurant-finding, with little patience for deciphering the strange codes of the Michelin men. We’re not alone on this. Once the standard by which western restaurants were judged, the Michelin guide appears to have lost some of its resonance. In our casual culture, where food preparation is entertainment and originality counts, all those painstaking courses, tiresome and pricey wine lists, the gaunt-faced anonymous testers, feel a bit pointless. It’s Zagat, without pretentions to anything beyond the here and now, written by you and me and owned by Google, that seems the flavour of our age.

Fair enough, if you’re in Kyoto or Texas or anywhere that has a home-grown food culture. But if you’re in France, why not reconsider? After all, it’s the birthplace of the food culture that Michelin ratings were invented to measure. What good is the Michelin guide if you can’t use it in France?

And so we let the Michelin men tell us where to go. There are four starred restaurants within a 40-minute drive. Best known is Gilles Tournadre’s two-star Gill in Rouen. Also with two stars is Alexandre Bourdas’s fish restaurant Sa. Qua. Na. in Honfleur. Closer to home are business-smart Jean-Luc Tartarin in Le Havre, and Eric Boilay’s Auberge Du Vieux Logis in Conteville, each with one star.

Cows, Marais VernierChurch, Conteville, NormandyL'Auberge du Vieux Logis, Conteville, Normandy

We started with Conteville because it’s the closest, a 20 minute drive from the cottage. A last-minute booking was easy to make on a Wednesday in mid April. The drive through Marais Vernier was bucolic, the trees lacy with apple blossom and calves the size of large dogs trotting around the fields. Conteville is an attractive village close to Honfleur with a church and a few shops. The restaurant is the biggest show in town.

Auberge du Vieux Logis, Conteville

It’s an utterly traditional restaurant, half-timbered outside and all wooden beams, red curtains and upholstered chairs inside. The preparations were traditionally Norman too, apart from one sashimi amuse-bouche. Our waiter was proud to inform us that all the food we would eat was locally sourced. Only one cheese on the generous tray wasn’t local, and this fact was vigorously pointed out.

There were three set menus which seemed reasonably priced, and we both chose the middle priced option, four courses for just under 60 Euros per head. We started with Coquilles St Jacques scallops and and elaborate and generous plate of foie gras, followed by veal and lamb.  Between the two came a potent, brandy-laced Punch Normand, and after, a surprising Pont-l’Évêque cheese with a pepper caramel sauce. Normally Pont-l’Évêque has me thinking of laundry hampers,  but the caramel offset and transformed the taste and for the first time I appreciated this most local of cheeses. Desert was a moist and deeply delightful tarte tatin crumble.

Auberge Du Vieux Logis, Conteville

There were few diners that evening, and the empty tables and formal-rustic setting could have made for overly attentive service, but it didn’t; the service was perfect and just as attentive as it needed to be. The wine list felt expensive, and brought the overall price higher than we would have liked.

I’m happy to have l’Auberge du Vieux Logis as my Michelin-starred local. It’s a restaurant that’s excellent at what it does, cooking Norman ingredients as they’ve been cooked for centuries, with flair and care and a touch of surprise here and there. (You can see chef Eric Boilay at work here.) The food was rich, and there was too much of it, and that’s a fact I’m going to have to live with if we continue down this Michelin route. I’d like to go to Conteville again: I’m thinking a late lunch after a hearty cycle up from Point-Audemer first.

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Spring in Upper Normandy

18 Wednesday Apr 2012

Posted by chaumierelesiris in Les Iris, Normandy, Travel

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

chaumiere, Easter, Flowers, Le Havre, Normandy, photography, restaurant, Scarecrows, Spring, Travel, Vieux-Port

Normandy is just about my favourite place in the spring. Get there at the right moment, and the countryside is trimmed with white apple blossom, like lace on a Victorian bride. The sky is big and the light changeable and nuanced. No wonder the impressionists discovered light here.

I was lucky enough to spend last week in Upper Normandy. Here are some of my pictures.

Spring in the arboretum, Château d'HarcourtArboretum in bloom, Château d’Harcourt

ImageEvening, Auberge du Vieux Logis, Conteville

ImageSpring garden overlooking the Seine at Les Iris

ImageEaster bells, bunnies, chickens, at the central market in Le Havre

ImageScarecrows, near Harcourt

ImageLe Havre from the pier

ImageSunset, Vieux-Port

ImageSpring flowers and herb garden, Les Iris

ImageVieux-Port and the Seine

ImageYellow field near Sainte-Opportune-la-Mare

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If You Go Up To The Woods Today

06 Friday Apr 2012

Posted by chaumierelesiris in Normandy, Things to do, Travel

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Aizier, Archeology, France, History, Leper Colony, Leprosy, Romanesque, Walking

Vieux-PortThis is a post about a walk in the woods to a mysterious place not far from our cottage. From the village and from nearby Azier, there are signs pointing to the Chapelle Saint-Thomas, up in the hills. Follow the signs and you will find yourself climbing this wooded road.

Chapelle Saint-Thomas isn’t listed in the guidebooks yet. It’s been around since the 1200s, and was inhabited until the eighteenth century. Over the last decade, the site has been the subject of an archeological excavation to expose the foundations and history of the Leproserie de Saint-Thomas d’Aizier.

How did medieval lepers live? In Biblical society (it’s Holy Week, I’ve been thinking about the gospels), leprosy was a symbol of sin, and lepers were stigmatised and lived on the margins of civilisation. That’s why it’s a story worth telling when Jesus engages with lepers. Who would do that? You can’t imagine that wherever the Biblical or medieval lepers ended up living was much of a place.

Seine, from Vieux-Port

But here, overlooking a curve in the Seine (which is visible through the leafless trees in winter), is the loveliest place, all silvery birches and green velvet moss. There is an excellent set of display boards marking out the various areas of the settlement – the living and working areas, the Romanesque chapel, the cemetery. Not a slum at all, it seems, but rather a working, monastic-type community and hospital.

Chapelle Saint-Thomas 

People still come to think and pray in this peaceful, verdant spot. Lovers  knot branches which grow up in these strange curved shapes as the years go on.

Knotted wood, Chapelle Saint-Thomas

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