Eating and drinking our way through southern France

Wednesday evening we hopped on an overnight train to go visit our friends who live on the southern coast of France. Being on a French train and all, we had a couple of unscheduled delays, but in the end we were content to arrive at our destination a mere two hours late (yay, no strikes). We spent these extra two hours talking about how much we love Swiss trains, and vowing to never leave our country again.

Things only improved from there. Our friends picked us up at the train station and whisked us back to their home by the sea in St. Pierre la Mer, a tiny village of 500 inhabitants which swells to 100,000 during the tourist invasion of the summer vacation months. We spent the morning wandering the outdoor market by the beach, marveling at treats such as fresh almonds (which had furry green coats) and baby artichokes.

The afternoon was spent hopping from winery to winery, sampling everything the region had to offer.

The next day started with a decadent breakfast of homemade baklava and macarons, after which we headed to Narbonne to explore the town. We wandered through the indoor food market, the cathedral, and the winding cobblestone streets that made up the town center. I picked up some truffle oil (which I haven’t been able to find in Zurich) at a small oil boutique run by a loquacious old man who seemed convinced I could speak French (I have mastered the art of laughing and nodding at the right points in a conversation even when I have no idea what’s going on). We had a sumptuous lunch at an adorable little wine shop/deli/cooking school/pastry shop and then wandered around some more.

The afternoon was filled with more wineries and wine tastings. As we drove through the winding, hilly roads, we often came up behind slow-moving farm vehicles hauling loads of freshly-harvested grapes. We briefly considered getting jobs as day laborers and helping out with the harvest, but quickly came to our senses when we realized that there would be no I-love-Lucy-style grape stomping involved.

On Saturday we woke up before dawn and piled into the car for the drive out to our friends’ top-secret mushrooming spot. Thanks to the damp weather of the past few days, we found more ceps (similar to porcini) than we could carry. Back at the sea house, we cleaned the mushrooms and lunched on fresh mushroom omelets.

We then frittered away the afternoon walking barefoot on the beach. I was a little disappointed that it was too cold to swim, but it was nice to be able to enjoy the beach without oppressive sun and heat or throngs of tourists. Despite my aversions to sun and crowds, I really love beaches.

For dinner we headed to a restaurant at one of the wineries we had visited earlier. We had to special-order a vegetarian meal for me in advance (apparently French chefs require ample preparation time before slapping some vegetable side-dishes on a plate without meat). The food was decent, but the real star of the evening was the all-you-can-drink wine bar which was included with the meal. The desserts weren’t bad, either.

Stuffed from our three-course dinners, we decided to wait until the next morning to eat the decadent chocolate peanut butter cupcakes that Riana had made. We enjoyed them in the car on the way to Montpelier, where Riana and Benji dropped us at the train station and sent us on our way to Lyon.