First Virgin Aircraft in Lyon
Morzine in January
Restaurant Recommendations
I wanted to give a shout-out to a couple of great restaurants that we discovered on our recent trip to France.
The first is the KV&B, in Bandol, on the south coast between Marseille and Toulon. It’s on a small street, just back from the seafront, so you probably wouldn’t find it unless you knew where to look. The menu is small, but perfectly formed, and is a great improvement on some of the pizza joints in the area. The bill was in the order of €30 a head without wine. They must be doing well, they’ve got another restaurant in the same street.
Bandol
France
Rue Saint-Jacques
75005 Paris, France
The second one is a lovely bistro in Paris. It’s called the Restaurant Perraudin and it’s on Rue Saint Jacques in the heart of Paris near the Boulevard Saint-Germain. I had a delicious entrocôte steak and frites. Book if you want a table in the front of the restaurant – red and white checked tableclothes and everything.
When Should I Tack?
Any sailing wizzes out there who can answer this?
I’m wondering whether I’m leaving it too late to tack, and thereby covering more ground.
Our Best Day’s Sailing
(I posted this on posterous last week but hang-out was down so it didn’t appear here.)
22 September – our best day’s sailing – 39 miles from Bandol to Hyeres, all on the sail. Force 4 to 6 winds gave us 6 to 7 knots most of the time. Great fun!
Paris
End of the Holiday
The site’s back up after a few days’ offline. I don’t know whether it was hacked or whether my host fixed it, but something managed to bring it back up.
The sailing holiday’s over. We drove from Bormes-Les-Mimosas to Morzine, had a day there, then spent the following night in Beaune. Yesterday we drove up to Paris and found a lovely hotel, Le Petit Paris, in Saint Germain. Tonight we’ll be on the ferry back to Portsmouth and then it’s back to work 🙁
There are some new photos on Flickr, more here next week.
Il Pleut Toujours
It’s still raining.
Today’s forecast was showers and Force 2 to 4. We decided to sail from Île de Porquerolles to Sanary, between Toulon and Marseille. Half an hour after slipping out of the harbour the rain started. There was a big, stationary, thunderstorm to the west of our track and we were catching the edge of its rain. A couple of hours later it was still raining and it didn’t make any sense to continue to Sanary so we diverted north to St Mandrier-sur-Mer, just south of Toulon.
We’re now in a café blogging, drinking pression, and staying dry for a change!
Saint-Mandrier-sur-Mer
France
Back in Cavalaire-sur-Mer
It’s been raining for three days now. We’ve been told it’s the first rain here since May – it’s certainly making up for it.
After a windy night in Port Grimaud we decided to make a run for it back to Cavalaire-sur-Mer. It took three hours, and the weather wasn’t as bad as forecast, but the decision was sound as we’ve got a much more sheltered mooring in the marina here and it was blowing Force 7-8 last night.
So today is shopping, drying clothes and generally chilling. If it’s better tomorrow we’ll try for the island of Porquerolles.
Cavalaire-sur-Mer
France
Beaulieu-sur-Mer
Cavalaire-sur-Mer
Rendezvous in Paris
Update: The video doesn’t seem to be on YouTube any more but a copy can still be seen on this website.
On an August morning in 1978, French filmmaker Claude Lelouch mounted a gyro-stabilized camera to the bumper of a Ferrari 275 GTB and had a friend, a professional Formula 1 racer, drive at breakneck speed through the heart of Paris.
The film was limited for technical reasons to 10 minutes; the course was from Porte Dauphine, through the Louvre, to the Basilica of Sacre Coeur. No streets were closed, for Lelouch was unable to obtain a permit. The driver completed the course in about 9 minutes, reaching nearly 140 mph in some stretches. The footage reveals him running real red lights, nearly hitting real pedestrians and driving the wrong way up real one-way streets.
Wikipedia entry