We just got back from one of the best holidays of the year. (Sorry, no offense to the family/friends companions of the summer, we loved being with you all! But if you had come with us to Annecy, you'd understand when I favor it to the rest! Can we still be friends?)
When I booked this apartment, little did I know that we'd be staying in Paradise, Gerard's perfect nickname for his villa in Menthon Saint Bernard. I thought I had simply booked a lovely little apartment not far from the lake and conveniently located near the shops of Menthon. What we discovered upon our arrival, thanks to Monique's generous offer to pick us up from the train station and avoid a 2.5 hour layover in Annecy after a 3.5 hour train ride, (HUGE!! Thanks Monique!), is that we truly landed in Paradise. The perfect little apartment opened onto a fabulous patio and garden, a garden that they openly shared with us and invited us to feast on all it's products. We started with one of the biggest zucchini's I'd ever seen in my life and continued munching on tomatoes all week. Add in fresh basil, parsley, purple spinach, beets, peppers, potatoes, and the most fabulous of all, zucchini flowers! A southern France delicacy, the male zucchini flowers is a very special treat. Gerard dipped them in crepe batter and fried them up for us on the second night as a delicious aperitif. A new, fantastic gastronomic adventure that we went back for the following night. Why not? There was left over batter and lots of flowers!
I could go on and write a novel about the week of a lifetime in Paradise, but in the interest of keeping my audience interested, the few and the loyal, and getting outside to blow some bubbles with the ladies, I'm going to throw down a list of the top adventures of the day and upload some pictures. Not the best blog entry of my life, but there are bubbles to be blown! Here's our week in Paradise in a nutshell:
- Amazing dinners from the garden. Sometimes close to 100% fresh! (too bad you can't "grow" cheese and baguettes)
Celia munches on spinach salad with tomato bread after picking our own carrots and spinach! Amazing!
- Sitting on a hammock
Hiking and climbing...eating wild mushrooms and drinking water from a mountain stream
Visiting "Cinderella's" Castle
- Seeing Mars as close to the moon as it's been in YEARS! Ahhh, to be out in the nature again! No trams, buses, trains, alarms! It was fabulous! (BTW, the picture below is our backyard! We shared the area with the horses...)
Reading!!! (books without pictures!!!)- Picking mushrooms and cooking them up for another fabulous treat! Oh yes, we ate wild mushrooms picked from the earth a few hours before. It was amazing!
- Ice Cream and floatees!
Hiking in and out of rain although I would have to say I prefer the hikes sans la pluie!
Being naked in your own backyard...(although you could probably pull that off in Paris too! :)
Happy Labor Day!
That is the perfect spot! Michael and I are definitely planning to come back.
ReplyDeleteI love reading your posts; will look at the other photos later.