France Impressions is a blog about my travels throughout France.
Travel is about embarking on journeys, discovering new places, its people, learning from others and in particular, learning about oneself. I believe travel is an art and I like to craft trips and tours around your personality, interests, desires and dreams. I undertake to open for you 'doors that are normally closed" thereby ensuring you gain access to exclusive experiences while introducing you to extraordinary personalities.
The French world of cuisine today is a bit sadden by the passing of Alain Senderens; one of the early proponent and founders of Nouvelle Cuisine. Chef Senderens like his fellow chefs, Paul Bocuse and others, shunt butter and cream -laden dishes, heavy sauces and longer cooking times, they said they would with Nouvelle Cuisine, breathe life into a cuisine that hadn't changed in decades.
BUT For me, as a classicist, today, its a cry from my heart as to the disappearance of the great French sauces. They were banished during the late 20th century when they were found to be guilty of dietary hearsay.
Today if a sauce is present in a dish at all,it is reduced to a few artistic-looking splashes or spots. To my mind, these 'spots' do not allow the sauce to fulfill its function of linking the different elements that make up a dish, where its main mission is to confer unity and heighten flavor. In the wonderful movie ' Who's killing the great chefs of Europe', One of the chefs whose is confronted by someone who is against sauces say "my sauces don't conceal, but reveal'. The superiority of French cooking was ( and is no more) its quest for perfection of flavor, which takes ( in my mind) the priority over a dishes appearance. Its because of the disappearance of the great French sauces that the cuisine today has become banal, save for good French country/regional cooking. I can go into length at what a sorry state of classical French cooking has been for the last few decades, but I'll stop, because I need to keep my blood pressure........... low. The sauce boat as well as the ladle has become a museum piece.
In London, in the St James area ( where I do most of my shopping for clothes) there are a few famous Hidden arcades that house all sorts of men's products. Arcades like The Burlington and Piccadilly. But Paris has its fair share, that most tourists are unaware of. One of my favorites is just behind the Louvre.
The Galerie Vero-Dodat is one of the smaller of the covered passages that remain in Paris, and I think probably the most charming of them all.
It was built in 1826 by Monsieurs Vero et Dodat, two pork butchers from neighboring streets who hoped to profit from the popularity of the nearby Palais Royal. It’s decorated in the neoclassical style, and is only 80 metres long – the impression of depth is given by the diagonal black and white floor tiles and the fact that all the shops have the same facades. It was also one of the first to be lit by gas lamps as soon as it opened, something of a novelty at the time. High end shops and local one of kind shops are found here
Most visitor just drive to the site of Mont Saint-Michael and visit the Abbaye, but why not experience it in a new way; in fact the way the ancient Pilgrims did, by walking across the low tides and sands to the Abbaye. We can offer with a local guide the many ways you can do this. Call us for more information or see www.cheminsdelabaie.com
First, there is the land itself. From Cape Finistere to the Riviera, via the Alps, The Dordogne and Provence…there is no more beautiful or varied landscape in the world. I drive regularly in France and have to always stop and get out and reassure myself that this is not a dream. It is unfair on the competition because it is at least six countries in one.
Its artistic legacy grows richer year by year. Just in one place, the Musee d’Orsay; one room after another with visions of such genius, that you wonder if it’s an optical illusion. Millet, Courbet, Degas, Cezanne, Monet, Renoir and on and on…hundreds and hundreds of serene works so deeply connected to the country that had produced them.
Within the countryside and depictions of it, there are the buildings. Versailles, The Sacre Coeur, Parisian townhouses or the great Provencal farmhouses with their turquoise-blue shutters are certainly admired. But I think if France is really in your blood you really have to love those undistinguished small villages and towns – The hotel de Ville with its black slate roof, the cobbled square, narrow shuttered streets –all somehow suggestive of intrigue and clandestine romance.
The wine of course, still remains the worlds best. The food, well what can I say..its the most important thing that attracts me to France; before, now and always.
But its greatest natural resource is of course, its people. They can be proud, they can be shy, they are almost always private and hard to get to know, but I have never laughed as much or found greater friendship or greater generosity of spirit than in France.
~ H.E. Lewis
Howard E. Lewis, CTC - Famed travel agent, raconteur,Edwardian in manner and spirit,gourmand, master BBQ Judge,hotel guest and man of leisure.
If you are interested in any of the areas/hotels that I have highlighted on this blog and/or wish to talk about France or anywhere else in the world ( hotels-cruises-tours) and what I and we at Protravel International can do to make your next tripmagical! , please don't hestiate to E Mail me (howard.lewis@protravelinc.com) or call me at 800-301-3993 ~ Howard
NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF THIS BLOG
Howard E. Lewis, CTC - Conde Nast Traveler magazine award Winner since 2003 for France
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