SWC path Day 2: Branscombe to Lyme Regis

Day 2!  Boots on reluctant feet, huge amounts of carbs consumed for breakfast, and up the first hill.  Today would be shorter in distance, but no less lovely.    

 Leaving Branscombe, I didn't have to climb to the top of the first big hill (the SWC trail goes lower!) but I felt like I should.

The top of the cliff was pretty amazing.  This whole area under the cliff was a landslip a couple hundred years ago.  The cliff collapsed into the sea after a storm, and the whole area became wilderness as plants and trees took over.  The birdsong coming from that patch of forest was deafening.  And the sea....when the light hit it just right, it looked somewhat more tropical than England.

 Just in time for second breakfast, we hit the town of Beer.  Naturally, a pub stop was in order.  This place was an adorable tourist and fishing town, perched right next to a pretty harbor and beautiful old buildings.  Beer was known for its victorian lacemaking, and there was a lace shop here, but it was closed.  I got a pasty and sat down on a bench overlooking the beach.

 Spring is my favorite time to be outside.  There's just so much going on- people are shedding their winter layers, birds are returning from far-away lands to create a symphony of song.  Winter can be just awful, but that first burst of bright green before it is faded by the sun is pure magic.

One thing I find adorable about English seaside towns are the little cabins you can rent along the beach.  People really keep them tidy and painted, and lots of people were busy getting them ready for the season.  A place to stash your beach chairs and shade tent, to get out of the wind and occasionally foul weather.  I spied in a few of them and people had kettles and little propane fridges tucked in them as well.  I love this.

Our afternoon was interrupted by news of a land slip diverting the trail.  I had known about this, but was hoping they somehow was able to re-build a footpath around the dodgy cliff by the time we arrived.  No such luck.  The sign by the trail told us, "Go back to Seaton and take a bus to Lyme Regis!", and not feeling for that, we started a six mile go-around that took us well inland.

Walking the quickest way into Lyme Regis meant walking along a very busy A-road without a pavement or easy path to follow, so we kept going and took some country roads to get around.

It was pleasant enough, but most of it being on pavement, my feet and shins started to complain after 6 miles.  I ignored them.

When we finally re-joined the coast path, we had lovely views of what was to come.  We had crossed from Devon and we were now in Dorset.

Like Branscombe, Lyme Regis was in a valley by the sea.  Instead of cows on the hillside, there were houses, as this was a much bigger town.  Our stop for the evening was far up at the top of the hill, so we dropped off our stuff and showered before donning clean shirts and our flip-flops to check out Lyme.

It was a really lovely town, with a river running through the middle and a gussied-up flour mill and brewery, a museum and theater.  They had built a very expensive sea wall to protect the cliff-side real estate, and it made for a pleasant evening to stroll around.

Added bonus:  I found a vegetarian restaurant called Terra Kitchen right by the waterfront.  This was a real treat.  I try and eat healthy on the trail, but a lot of times the only option at pubs is a very sad afterthought of mushy boiled vege and wilted lettuce, which makes me say, "I'll have the bacon-wrapped lamb shank, please".  To have a real vegetarian place on the trail was bliss.

This is another cutesy coastal town I wouldn't mind spending more time in.  It's a noted fossil-hunting hot spot.  When a storm batters the cliffs, landslips cause new layers of fossils to appear overnight, and the beach is littered with them at low tide.  

Salon de l'Agriculture

I'm so lucky to live in a place that takes so much pride in their food products. There are countless regional specialties, all of them traditional products rooted deeply in the earth (or the sea) of that certain place.

As you wander around markets and groceries around France, you notice products with this label:

Every year at the Salon de l'Agriculture, more than 17,000 food products are judged, and a select few in each category are awarded a medal from the all-important Concours Général Agricole. Despite taste being completely subjective, the judges are usually spot-on with their awards and you can be pretty sure you are getting a superior product.

I have been looking forward to the Salon de l'Agriculture for months now. Not only do I love wandering around the livestock barns, but I really had no idea how much good food I was about to expérience.

Like artisanal limousin sausage and onion sandwich. J' heart sandwich!

The convention center at Porte du Versailles is enormous, and the fair took up several buildings. The food floors were nothing short of one of the Wonders of the World. Each region of France had their own area, and great fun was to be had darting between all the neighborhoods.

It was a fantastic way to sample a ton of really interesting good food, and meet the people who actually make them.

A beautiful wall of honey, from a Producer in Bourgeone, a region I have yet to really explore:

I couldn't make it through without stopping at a couple oyster bars. Oh, they were good.

There were lots of wine, Champagne, cider, cognac and beer vendors as well. People seemed to be doing more than just tasting- a lot of people were pretty jovial early on in the day.

Mmmm... saucisson cones...

The french love their hams and saucisson. It seemed like the lion's share of vendors seemed to deal with preserved meats, and not just beef or pork. Donkey, lamb, horse, rabbit, wild boar and all sorts of wild game make appearances.

It was delightful. All of it, except for the crowds, which got kind of pushy and full of small children and baby buggys at times. I had a fantastic Kouign Amann at one of the Bretton stands, and there was just so much cheese from small producers that we're not lucky enough to get in Paris. The fair is going on until 3 March, so go if you can. The Metro ticket to Porte de Versailles and the 13 Euro price tag at the gate is a lot cheaper than a tour de France to try and track down all these producers on their own.

There were lots of other really amazing things to see as well, and I'm going back for round two at some point. I'll have more posts about this event soon!

Suds

The expat crowd here in Paris is a fairly tight group.

We commiserate, we comfort, we pull out all the contents of our homes to open our very own Duty Free shop.

Hilarity ensues.

The beer drinkers here bemoan the lack of good hoppy brews though. Not being ones to sit around and bitch and moan without offering a solution, plans were made. Grand plans.

A small brewery's worth of equipment was purchased from the UK, and hops and grains and yeasts were ordered from far away places. The Brooklyn idea of DIY beermaking has yet to take hold in France. There are a handful of hobby brewers in Paris and they have the same issues with getting supplies. We're considering this to be the start of the Brooklynification of Paris. Hopefully we will soon be able to take a hog-butchering class, and then make our own letterpress labels for our home brew.

While the first brew was not easy and fraught with small disasters such as THE WATER BEING TURNED OFF and much time spent hauling buckets from 2 floors up, and a few minor issues with UK to French voltage being converted, but the brew has not suffered. All 15 gallons of it is currently in the fermenters, bubbling away as I type as the yeast turns sugar into alcohol for us.

We will see if the ultra-hard water in Paris yields good results. Softners had to be added, but part of the charms of homebrewing is the characteristics of the local water. This is purely theoretical to me as I am still a fan of the grape, and if we distilled the brew I would probably drink that as well. I keep trying it, but I just don't like la bière.

Another week before it is ready to be bottled. I'll get my letter press skills fired up.

More of Bruges

Brugge at night...

It's very quiet at night. The streets are more or less deserted, and it doesn't really seem like too many people actually live in the city center. It didn't feel unsafe at all- the worst we saw the whole trip was dog poo on the sidewalk, and other than that it was a squeaky clean place.

Amusingly, at 4am I got woken up by a loud, drunk American who was outside my window asking the world where is hotel was. It's easy to get lost in Brugges. If you like beer, it's also really easy to get drunk.

Bruges was important port city for ages. Here, there was a huge cloth and textiles industry. They still make really gorgeous lace and needlework in the traditional way.

Some of the interiors were incredible. While the churches aren't as flashy and huge as those in France, they made up for it in the detail and liberal application of color.

There was also fantastic food to be had. Aside from wonderful mussels and perfectly cooked frites, they had some very good restaurants to choose from. Lots of very fresh seafood and french-inspired cooking.