Sarlat day 1

We got up at a reasonable time, ate a nice breakfast of bread, cheese, sausage, and melon, and then hit the road. "Hitting the road" meant taking the Métro toward the Bastille to pick up our rental car at noon, as we'd arranged. Noon is maybe not a good time to get something done in Paris, since it's lunch time. There was only one guy at the counter, and it took forever, which is ultimately not all that surprising. (Anywhere you go, car rental shops are often inefficient, except sometimes in airports.) So it was 1pm by the time we hit the péripherique in our car (a cute little Toyota Yaris). But we made good time, despite a wrong turn approaching Brive (I thought the sign for the toll road would be the shorter route, but it turns out it's not). We arrived in Sarlat at 6:30.

Sarlat is an adorable medieval town like so many adorable medieval towns: well-preserved, pedestrian-friendly, loaded with tourists, and dotted with restaurants and regional specialty shops. The specialty of the Périgord region includes many things for which France is known in general: foie gras, confit de canard, and truffles. Périgord also produces black walnuts (and has an AOC for them).

We found a hotel room and checked in. We wandered about town a little, and then sat and drank some beers on the main square. While enjoying out beers an odd-looking man (a long patch of hair in the middle of the back of his head, and a crewcut elsewhere, and heavily tattooed arms, plus a sort of medieval punk edge to his clothes), along with a waifish woman, played medieval music: he with French bagpipes, she with a drum.

The hotel room is on the top floor – 4th, I think – of a building next to the main square. It's a very cute room, but it's only available for two nights, so we'll probably move on after that.

We passed by a few restaurants, including some recommended ones, looking for dinner. We settled on a place that had no recommendation, but which looked nice and faced the cathedral. It was really great. I had their salade sarladaise (with gésiers [gizzards], black walnuts, and something called "magret sec", a sort of duck proscuitto – the duck was delicious, the gésier good but a bit overpowering); confit de canard with pommes sarladaises and haricots verts (delicious! the duck was perfect; pommes sarladaises are potato slices cooked in duck or goose fat, and taste as good as they sound; the beans were overcooked, but I told Eric they were the best overcooked beans I'd ever had); and for dessert, a gateaux aux noix (I didn't need dessert, but I'd ordered the menu, and it came with it; the cake was tasty but a little dry and not exceptional). Eric had the terrine de foie gras de canard (yummy as always); magret de canard, sauce de miel and the same side dishes (also delicious – the honey sauce was especially good; not sweet, not overpowering, just a hint of that floral honey quality); Rocamadour AOC goat cheese (very nice); and for dessert a coupe de fraises (also nice and light, but not really exciting strawberries).

After dinner we strolled a bit, stopped for an Armagnac for Eric and San Pelligrino for Tony, and then turned in. Tired! And nearly midnight as I complete this.

Labels: france, journal

posted by Tony at 10:00 PM