Aboard the Rennaissance, Western Burgundy

 July 3, 2023--Western Burgundy, France--We are aboard the Renaissance, a large luxurious barge for a week of wine tasting and excellent food as we navigate the canals of western Burgundy.  This is our third barge trip in France, all described in blogs from 2010 and 2018,. This barge is by far the most luxurious.  We have a king-size bed and a huge bathroom. There is an enormous salon-dining room, as well as a hot tub on the outside deck.  We will call this home till we leave France and return to Washington.

We met up with friends Jane and Peter, David and Andy, and new friend Valerie at the Hotel Westminster on Saturday afternoon, it now being Monday.  We had arranged to have dinner at a restaurant recommended by previous hosts John and Eric, L'Agrume, near the Sorbonne.  So we bundled into taxis to the Left Bank to find the place closed--perhaps because of the rioting after the police--killing of the 17 year old boy Nahel in his car in Nanterre, a Paris suburb.   After some walking in the neighborhood we found an excellent restaurant, with a Chinese chef married to a caucasian French owner, the Mortensen on Blvd. St. Marc.  It turned out to have five stars from many reviewers.  They managed a table for seven with alacrity.

Ben ordered a Sancerre and a red Burgundy.  Our menu choices were excellent, ranging from pleurottes and artichauts, to smoked haddock, tuna steak, vegetable pasta.  It was a true find considering that our original restaurant choice was closed up. 

We spent a lovely afternoon on Sunday walking through the Tuileries and sitting on the quay on the Seine watching the people go by and boats move up and down the river.  A plus was watching a movie being shot.  Not a big deal but a bit different.  John got to see one of his favorite cars, a late 1930s Citroën Traction Avant.

The Hotel Westminster where we stayed was expensive.  Although the staff was good, the place was overpriced. Our room was small, less than four meters (13 feet+/-) square, with what John considered racially objectionable wallpaper in the hall entryway, and a tatty amount of bashed paint work.  The window looked out to an airshaft and was covered with translucent sticky paper.  But, the bed and wifi were good and staff was helpful.   

As mentioned, many cities in France had been rocked for the two nights previous with riots that did significant damage to smaller town centers and looting in parts of Paris, including the exclusive rue Rivoli, over the death of a youth.  This particular shot shows where a car had been burned in Montargis and store windows covered with plywood.

One effect was that our barge began its voyage not in Montargis as expected, but in a quiet sheltered part of the Canal de Briare away from the town center.  We are now moving down the canal on the way to Fontainebleau, one of the royal chateaus in the region.

Last night we had appertif of chablis (white burgundy) followed by an excellent dinner  prepared by the English chef, Hannah. She is from London and the partner of the French captain, Hadrian.  The starter was a stuffed mushroom in a cream sauce served with a white burgundy followed by a main course of coq au vin, then three cheeses all local, and the dessert an apple crumble topped with vanilla ice cream and a strawberry.