Flowering broom
Oct. 26th, 2007 08:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shewhomustWe found Les Genêts Fleuris in our old Routard Hotels guide: I don't know whether it was ever more like a hotel than it is now, but I note that in the current editions, it's a bed & breakfast. Which is closer to the truth, though it also has something of the hikers' hostel about it. We'd have found it more easily if we'd known this, and not been looking out for a hotel; you leave the motorway, turn off just before the town and follow the river past the village on the hilltop, and on to a scattered hamlet - and if you keep your eyes open, then on your second circuit you may see the little fingerpost pointing to Les Genêts Fleuris.
It's an old farm: have a look at the picture on their web site, though there's more to it than this. Opposite the building shown is another similar block (of which you can just see the steps on the right of the picture). The steps on the left lead up to the large room - dining room, common room, reading room and bookshop - and the kitchen where the proprietor (Joël Parrot, though we didn't know that at the time) was making jam when we arrived. At the far end of the grassy courtyard a building - half barn, half chalet - runs between the two houses, and behind it the hillside rises to the meadow where the donkey lives.
We arrived late, and were given this annex, which had the disadvantage of some very irregular steps to negotiate to and from the dining room in the dark, but the advantage of independence. The wallpaper was patterned with Egyptian figures, and a soapstone sphinx sat on a shelf in front of a photograph of one of the local, very conical, volcanoes: it seemed to fit.
Our first night there was Saturday, and there was a full house at the table d'hôte, which was rather daunting; it was a relief when conversation shifted from the English to the Belgians. But the food was excellent - our host is a serious cook. He enjoys challenging his guests to identify the ingredients of everything, and I was delighted when the house aperitif was decoded by the most retiring person at table, the elderly mother of one of our fellow-guests. It was a mixture - on the lines of kir - of wine (rosé, on this occasion) and chestnut liqueur, for we were in chestnut country. The following morning, there was chestnut jam for breakfast, also apricot, mirabelle and quince, all home-made, as were the bread and the pains au chocolat.
Sunday evening was more relaxed, as it seemed for a while that we would be the only guests. By now we were old friends, and Joël had taken to addressing us as "tu" (I'm embarrassed at how difficult I found this: clearly I don't do nearly enough talking French to friends), and when another couple arrived, very late and rather desperate, we became positively conspiratorial.
It's an old farm: have a look at the picture on their web site, though there's more to it than this. Opposite the building shown is another similar block (of which you can just see the steps on the right of the picture). The steps on the left lead up to the large room - dining room, common room, reading room and bookshop - and the kitchen where the proprietor (Joël Parrot, though we didn't know that at the time) was making jam when we arrived. At the far end of the grassy courtyard a building - half barn, half chalet - runs between the two houses, and behind it the hillside rises to the meadow where the donkey lives.
We arrived late, and were given this annex, which had the disadvantage of some very irregular steps to negotiate to and from the dining room in the dark, but the advantage of independence. The wallpaper was patterned with Egyptian figures, and a soapstone sphinx sat on a shelf in front of a photograph of one of the local, very conical, volcanoes: it seemed to fit.
Our first night there was Saturday, and there was a full house at the table d'hôte, which was rather daunting; it was a relief when conversation shifted from the English to the Belgians. But the food was excellent - our host is a serious cook. He enjoys challenging his guests to identify the ingredients of everything, and I was delighted when the house aperitif was decoded by the most retiring person at table, the elderly mother of one of our fellow-guests. It was a mixture - on the lines of kir - of wine (rosé, on this occasion) and chestnut liqueur, for we were in chestnut country. The following morning, there was chestnut jam for breakfast, also apricot, mirabelle and quince, all home-made, as were the bread and the pains au chocolat.
Sunday evening was more relaxed, as it seemed for a while that we would be the only guests. By now we were old friends, and Joël had taken to addressing us as "tu" (I'm embarrassed at how difficult I found this: clearly I don't do nearly enough talking French to friends), and when another couple arrived, very late and rather desperate, we became positively conspiratorial.
