We got up and had a Continental breakfast at Hotel Lichen,
with the wonderful apple compote tht is packed in small plastic containers that
are about the same size as a small 5 oz. yogurt container and then drove to
Rennes in about 2 ½ hours from Batz Sur Mer.
When we arrived at the airport at round 11:00 am, we parked
our car and took our big box and three suitcases into the airport, which was a
little extra exercise that I would have wished.
Apparently there are no baggage handlers at the small regional airports.
There was only a small restaurant in the airport and it was
crowded with the usual cross section of travelers ordering coffee, tea, champagne
and sandwiches and pastries. I asked the
lady if lunch would be served and she said, “Yes, at around 12:00 noon.” So we waited at a table for a while, but
finally broke down and decided to have a champagne each. Then at around 12:15 I could wait no longer
and ordered two Croque Monsiers, which in this case were two pieces of thick
white bread with a piece of ham and cheese between the two slices and some grated
Gruyere cheese sprinkled on the top of the top slice and then toasted for
several minutes to melt everything. The result
was a brittle edge of toasted bread wherever there was no cheese. Not very appealing, but we still had a little
of our wedge of our lovely cheese we had bought in St. George and we spread
that on the inside and top of the sandwich and the sandwich was so hot that it
melted into the sandwich, and made the sandwich edible, especially with our glass
of champagne.
After lunch we checked in with Flybe (our Air France
regional carrier) and checked in our big box for an extra 37 Euros (about
$50.00), which made our purchases of wine and salt a little bit more expensive. Then at around 2:00 p.m. we finally boarded
for the 45 minute flight to Southampton, England. It is always fun flying across the
channel. I was able to see St. Malo and
Dinard as we left Brittany and the Channel Islands and then the white chalk
cliffs of England pretty well because the smaller prop plane flew only about 8
or 10,000 feet above the water.
When we arrived in Southampton, we took a cab to the Hilton
Hotel where we had a reservation. The
Hilton is located near both the airport and the Cunard (Queen Elizabeth II) (ship)
Quay. It was around 4:30 when we got
settled in. We asked the Maitre D’ when
dinner would be served and he said beginning at 6:00 p.m., so we went for a walk
around the property, which did not have large gardened but was in a densely
wooded area and had lot parking areas surrounded by woods so you could get the
feeling of seeing some nature. Quite
frankly, we did not want to get very deep into the woods, which were very dense
and because it was drizzling a bit. For
those who live in New Mexico, it is hard to understand how green England is. It rains quite a lot and the foliage is dense
and very green. The closest thing I can
compare it to in the U.S. is a Deep South forest covered with vines of green
foliage, like kudzu.
We were hungry after our meager lunch, so showed up a few
minutes before 6:00 pm. And were graciously shown to a table at the window
overlooking the forest and near a corner of the large dining room. The menu was typically British, but we
ordered a fixe prix dinner. I can only
recall the paté, which was like the pork liverwurst we buy in the U.S. rather
than the lovely French duck liver pate.
I think I had a flounder that was lovely and I forget Suzette’s appetizer
and entree and our desserts.
After dinner we retired to the lounge next to the restaurant
and I wrote some blogs while Suzette worked on her phone and read. The bar was shoulder to shoulder and the
lounge next to the bar was filled with about 100 conventioneers. This Hilton Hotel was quite large, with
meeting rooms, a coffee bar, a full service bar, extensive sitting areas and
the large dining room. I pushed myself through
the gayly mixing crowd of conventioneers to the bar and ordered a draw of apple
cider. British bars and pubs always seem
to have at least one apple cider on tap and they usually serve it in pint
glasses just like beer for approximately the same price (around 3.5 pounds or $5-6.00). They often also serve bottled apple and pear
ciders, if you have a favorite, like Bulmers’.
I did not get much typing done because there was a Premier League soccer
game being broadcast on the large screen T.V. in the lounge and several persons
were watching it. A perfect ending to
our first day back in England; a pint of
proper English cider and a soccer game.
Bon Appetit
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