Tuesday night around 8:30 we went to a restaurant named Le Chope, which is a very good French Seafood restaurant that we had found on Trip Advisor (our bible when we travel). Fun pretty fancy place with virtually no English ("a leetil, Madam") but most of deciphering the menu was up to us. They did have an English menu, but not the specials, so we took a breath and took a chance.
The wine was from the Loire Valley, so good we ordered another. Kind of a light Bordeaux, perfect for the 4 of us. DeeAnn, David and I had "Le Menu" which is a fixed price for 3 courses. The Entree (we would call it the Appetizer or first course) was little baby shrimps in a wonderful sauce.
They were whole shrimp, heads and tails and shells on, so we couldn't decide if one should just pop them in your mouth, or peel away. Since there were 30-40 of them, peeling them was an arduous task, but DeeAnn peeled every one of the little suckers. I ate half with shells and half without, and David gave up after 4 or 5 and just ate them. I fiannaly asked one of the waiters who spoke a little English what we were supposed to do. He shrugged that it was up to us. He didn't care!
Jerry had the fresh oysters on the half shell which were amazing.
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To start - Baby Shrimps with heads and shells on.
To eat or not to eat? That is the question |
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| Little bitty shrimps |
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| Oysters on the half shell |
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| For the Plat (main course) We had the Black Cod with leek sauce |
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| Jerry had the Dover Sole. Very good! |
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| Then came the desserts. For Dee A cereal bowl full of Dark Chocolate Mousse! |
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| David had the Apple Tart |
We came back to the hotel and slept and slept. (Well, I slept all night, Jerry some, Dave all night, and Dee not so much).
In all our trips to Europe we have had 1 or 2 rainy days out of hundreds here. Yesterday and today were both just Rainy Rainy Days. Ugh! Persistant, cold, rain. But we had umbrellas, puffer coats, rain gear, & hoods and while it wasn't pleasant, we soldiered on. .
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| Breakfast first! the Patisserie for Croissant and Cafe au Lait and hot chocolate |
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| Drinking Hot Cocoa in the rain |
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| Tour's Saint Gatien Cathedral built in 1160-1547. |
Then off to see a cathedral. If you are new to our trips, Jerry and I spend an inordinate amount of time in cathedrals considering we are not the least bit religious. Maybe it will wear off on us somehow.
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| Gothic Church with rounded ceilings |
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| Beautiful Transept |
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| I lit a candle in the Mary Chapel for my dear friend Patty. |
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| Truly Gothic, wonderful stained glass windows |
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| The pipe organ |
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| Saint Gatien Cathedral |
When we left it was pouring rain, so we came back to the hotel and had a rest and a bath. Around 4:00 we went out in search of food. Now an interesting thing happens in Europe, France in particularly and even more so in smallish cities like Tours. Restaurants, cafes etc close from 2:00 until 7:00 or so, then reopen for the dinner hour which begins around 7:30 or 8. We couldn't find any food. Well, we found some, but David was looking for FOOD and we found little snack finger food. Totally soaked and full of "snacks" we came back to hotel, hoping for sunshine tomorrow. We take off for Sarlat la Caneda tomorrow at 11:17 AM. It will take most of the day to get there by train. We go first to Bordeaux and then transfer trains to Sarlat. I will post tomorrow evening that we made it.
A bientot!
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| Flatbread to share - Too early to get REAL food |
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| Bar is empty except for us Americans |
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| Not really what he was thinking. But there was wine at each place. |
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| The French eat late and do not snack in-between meals. |
