Clermont Ferrand

We got an Uber to Lyon station to pick up our rental car and tentatively make our way out of Lyon. Getting used to driving on the other side of the road isn't too bad as long as you don't have to go around a corner 🤔 but we got onto the A6 and the A89 to Clermont Ferrand with only one near miss. Once we were on the motorway, it was a pretty straightforward 2-hour drive to our destination. The toll roads were very good and the old-fashioned take a ticket and pay when you exit system is much easier than the pfaff of electronic toll roads.

The weather was closing in, and so we arrived in a wet Clermont Ferrand, which made the black stone cathedral even more imposing! With no parking at our 17th century accommodation (where's the future-proof design there?), we put the car in a nearby multi-story carpark and went in search of lunch. We found somewhere still serving and tucked into a truffade, a local dish of potatoes cooked in cheese, served with ham (what's not to like?).

With the weather not ideal for wandering about and our stomachs full from all that potato and cheese, we decided to retrieve our bags, grab some provisions, and head for our accommodation. Our accommodation was in a hôtel particulier, a private urban mansion built for one family and their servants in the 17th century, but now divided into apartments (very sensible staircase to the first floor this time). You couldn't help but wonder about what those dark walls had seen and who had lived there in the last 350 years or so. The apartment was about the size of ours in Adelaide, opulently decorated in dark colours with floor to ceiling windows and a huge gilt mirror over an ornate fireplace, with a modern kitchen to make life today easier, so we settled in for a cosy night in.

Being Sunday the next day, everything was closed (the French take their day of rest very seriously). We cooked some scrambled eggs and smoked salmon for breakfast and then went out for a walk as Sunday Mass was getting out of the cathedral. Clermont Ferrand is one of the oldest cities in France and, as it is surrounded by volcanoes, most of its buildings are built out of black volcanic rock (as a side note, one of the main attractions is a train into a volcano - Puy de Dôme - but it is closed temporarily due to a safety incident. What are the chances?). The city has a maze of narrow streets, with a whopping great black cathedral wedged in the middle (those 17th century Catholics really knew how to put their stamp on a place). We wandered about for an hour or so, taking in the interesting architecture, which is different from what we've seen elsewhere, and passing a small Sunday food market before retreating back to the warmth of our lovely apartment.

We headed out to the square in front of the Cathedral and went into one of the bistros around it. We were an hour early for the kitchen being open dinner (what were we thinking at 6.00?) and so we sat and had some drinks overlooking the square (but inside because it was cold). When the time to order food arrived, I chose duck and Adrian the lovely aged beef that was hanging in a cabinet in the restaurant. Much to our surprise, it came with a side of truffade (twice the size of either cuts of meat), it is the local speciality after all and theirs was famous, apparently. So, more potato and cheese it was!

On the move again tomorrow to Saint Emillion - which is hopefully not famous for a potato and cheese dish!Читать далее