Middles of Nowheres

This weekend, the last of the summer, my DB and I decided to head for the hills, to the most deserted parts of France - Lozère and Ardèche. There is a (fairly small) part of me that would quite like to live in a remote spot with a huge freezer and grow veggies rather than rely on third or fourth parties for my food supply. The rest of me however, would go nuts without my friends and easy access to all the fun of the city.

Hamlet in the middle of nowhere, but with lots of trees

We liked the look of Mende though - small (just over 12000 inhabitants), and with no air link to Paris which must keep out the snotty Parisians and other undesirables nicely. We ended up in Vals les Bains on Saturday, a spa town where you cannot get a cup of coffee on a Sunday morning before 10.30am, so if you don't want to pay €10 for a hotel breakfast, you're fucked. I'm sure they're in cahoots, the hotels and bars.

Cabin where you can take the waters behind random sculptures of horses not taking the waters

The place was packed but we found a room in the Hotel du Lyon in the centre of town. A quick look on Trip Advisor and a couple of phone calls later and we realised that the restaurants were all full. Even our hotel, and if there's one thing that pisses me off it's not being able to eat in the hotel where we're staying. But, wait a minute, perhaps a table would free up a bit later, said the lady. Not ones to sit idly wasting an opportunity for an apero, we went in search of a spot to try the local brew - Bourganel beer, which came in a number of flavours including chestnut, and nougat!

Beer aux chestnuts plus gnat's pee lager

The chestnut one was pleasant enough but lacked body, sort of beer for the squeamish, suitable for spa town visitors on a bender between cures. The nougat one had a strong sweet smell and a definite nougat taste which was too much for me and could only be sold to the ever-renewing hoards of suckers game to try it for the novelty value. Yes, like us...

After our apero, we went back to the hotel to see if the table was free. It wasn't, so we popped over the road to wait for a table at the restaurant there. We sat outside with a glass of local rosé each and exchanged merry banter with the chaotic but laid back guy in charge who would have trouble organising his way out of a paper bag. We were directly opposite the hotel. If the lady there had popped her head outside the door she'd have seen us. She told us later that 5 mins after she sent us away, three tables became free and she was searching for us high and low. In the hotel. She didn't find us cos we were over the road, 5 metres away, waiting for a table there. There's something bizarre about spa town folk...

Eventually we were invited in to the restaurant and got a table on the terrace overlooking the river. Good thing we weren't in a hurry because the restaurant service was as haphazard as the bar service. Good thing it was worth waiting for too - lovely fresh food, not vacuum packed or frozen. There was no choice - they were chaotic but bossy - rillettes de poisson followed by duck breast in a creamy sauce with cracked wheat, courgettes and carrots in tidy piles. We got a bottle of a different rosé and were not charged for the first two glasses, not sure if they just forgot (probably), or were making a peace-offering.

Next morning, my DB wanted to go down to move his motorbike, but couldn't open the door at the bottom of our stairs - the handle had fallen off on the other side. He returned to our room to call reception, and they came up to rescue us without being too bothered by the fact that we could have all been burnt in our beds. I suppose we could have nipped out onto the roof and fallen through the tiles or lost our footing and gone rolling off to land with a splat onto the pavement below as alternative to a fiery demise. They charged us only €70 for the room instead of €76, giving us the €6 off for danger money I expect.

We left, thankful to be alive, hungry, and amused at the parallel universe nature of those spa town folks.