June 25, 2022 — Paris/Bayeux, France

Yesterday and today were very long travel days spent in train stations.  I won’t bore you with the details, but it ended up being a very long evening, yesterday and a long day today.  Thankfully, with the help of the ticket counter officer in Paris at the Saint Lazare station, he was able to get me to Bayeux today.  I’m happy to be out of the big cities and into the French countryside.  I simply chose Bayeux from a conversation I had with someone who suggested it, plus it is a town close to Mont Saint Michele, where I’ll be going on Tuesday.  I arrived in Bayeux during a heavy downpour, but as soon as my Taxi driver dropped me off at the AirBnB, it stopped raining, so I had a little while to explore just right around my accommodations and had dinner at the corner Cafe called Chez Paulette.

Oh France, you have huge expectations now if this is what you are offering up as my first visit outside of Paris!  Here are some pictures.  The Cathedral is literally outside my door and is called Notre Dam of Bayeux.  I’ll write a bit more about Bayeux and the Cathedral tomorrow after a good night’s sleep.

Over the last few weeks, I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed Haggis in Scotland, Irish Stew is wonderfully filling, and I’m glad I got to have a Scotch Egg and Pork Pie in England.  High Tea at Kensington Palace was a highlight of all my culinary adventures in the UK with a food/mission story from the doctor.  I’m still saving that story for another time.

But tonight’s dinner at Chez Paulette in Bayeux, France was magnificent.  I had a Gazpacho Melon Soup for an appetizer.

An enormous salad of crab, pickled onions, cabbage, corn, peas, roasted potatoes, carrots, and green apples over Bibb lettuce.  It was so good and so fresh.  

What made it even more amazing was the dressing.  I asked the waitress what was in it using a translation app on my phone.  Here was her response, which she typed out on my phone.  LOL

I then had dessert.  It was a very dense chocolate cake with white chocolate ganache on top.  Even though the chocolate cake was dense, it wasn’t overpowering.  Again, I asked her about it and asked if there were nuts in it, as it tasted of Almonds.  It was a chocolate cake made with almond flour.  So good!

Can’t wait to go to church tomorrow to listen to a mass in French - I’ll have NO idea what’s going on, but still…. And then to explore.