Very nearly a year ago, Olivier and Penny gave us a lovely, lovely gift: a voucher for a getaway package at one of hundreds of lovely hotels around France. Foolishly, I believed that this meant that we would now feel compelled to explore our adopted country, but after one attempt to use the voucher fell flat and we got a second dog, the idea got shelved. For a really, really long time.
Except that on Thursday Nick drove his very own company car home for the first time, and I–hardly daring to look–pulled the voucher out of its sleeve, expecting the worst.
Valid through October 31, 2008.
Hm.
So on Friday I took Juliette to get her bandage off (finally! she’s so, so happy), and then started making some phone calls. Which is never any fun, because whenever Jolie hears a French-speaking voice through the phone she freaks out and starts racing around the apartment looking for the person while whining, grunting, and, on occasion, squealing.
You got that? French-speaking. And on the phone. No other combination does it. Loon.
So I alternately locked the dogs in and out of the bedroom, and I made a bunch of calls, and by Saturday morning we were ready to go.
We packed the baffled dogs into the car (on my old NYU blanket; we’ve learned a thing or two), and drove them out to the kennel that usually picks them up when we travel. It was nice to finally get to see it, and reassuring, too: it was clean and spacious with a big staff of cheerful young people, and Jolie dragged us unerringly down the path after one of them until we got to the private kennel reserved for our little monsters.
And then we veered southwest into Burgundy and discovered…you know. The rest of France. In case you’re curious, it looks something like this:
There are also, as it turns out, about a trillion charming tiny towns:
They even have dogs:
And, adorably, a Pizza Hut…or, at least, a pizza hut:
Oh, and the hotel was amazing. “Our version of your package also includes a massage for each of you,” the man on the phone had informed me after rattling off pretty much everything else that was in our version of our package. “But…oh, dear. Our masseuse is away this weekend.”
Easy come, easy go, I figured, but no: “No, no, no. This is what you should have; we will find something else to make it up.” And when we arrived, we discovered that they had, in fact, found us a suite. The suite from the brochure, even. And the hotel makes their own jam on the premises (including the onion-and-radish version that came with my foie gras at our phenomenal dinner), and is home to my new favorite sommelier.
Because we made so many little stops along the way that by the time we found the more winery-heavy areas, they were all beginning to close, and nothing would be open on Sunday, and how do you go to Burgundy with an empty car trunk and not come back with any wine? But the bottle that was recommended to us for dinner was delicious–and from one of those small regional producers who don’t ship much to Paris at all.
“If I were looking for a place to buy some wine like this one tomorrow–Sunday–around this area, where would I go?” I asked the sommelier after a third of the bottle had shored up my language skills.
“Sunday…no. But I can sell you some,” he murmured, “at cost–or close. I’m not sure how much, but find me at breakfast, and we’ll talk.”
So we came home with a mixed case of four local wines (and careful instructions for each), the dogs were dropped off the next morning, and we’re just going to have to do this again and again and again.