In Thiers

A nice lie today, no riding. I eventually got up to ring home but the bloody Internet isn't working, most disappointing. Paul went out and got some breakfast, while I showered and did my laundry. Then we had the demi baguette, a quarter each, with a slab of cheese from yesterday, very tasty and very filling. All topped off with the pain au raison of course.

We eventually wandered into town around 11 am. We walked back down through the medieval part of the town, long, windy, steep roads. We visited the 11th century church which even had a printed English guide! Then further down to another church, closed, and in the end all the way to the bottom where a lot of old industries used to be, all water powered or water users we think. We then, alas, had to make our way all the way back up to the top of the town. Naturally we were in need of some sustenance then so we had lunch at a place we had picked yesterday.


In view of our plans for this evening we decided not to get too much for lunch so we only got a two course lunch with a soft drink. The main was a piece of fish with a nice sauce, although the fish was maybe a bit over done. Dessert was either rice cream, which I had, or a fruit compote, which Paul had. The meal was also served with think slices of a very tough crusty bread, we didn't even finish it all!


Then we walked back up through the main street of the old town and Paul bought a cork screw, quite nice and only 12.50 Euro, although we suspect not from this town. Then we went back to the room for a rest and to check out the maps. Then I caught up on the diary and Paul went and bought two cakes we had selected earlier today for afternoon tea. Delicious. One was formed to look like a chocolate ice cream, very rich, the other was a raspberry and chocolate cake, also very rich. Yummy.


In no time at all it was Paul's favourite time of day, dinner! I forced Paul to wait until 7.26 pm as the booking was for 7.30. The restaurant was fairly full with a quite nice décor, yellow wallpaper and dim lighting. The table next to us had their poodle with them, and he even got a meal provided! We had a Kir as an aperitif before the meal and while we studied the menu that we had already studied twice outside the restaurant :) I had a very nice duck salad for my entree while Paul had fresh foie gras which had been fried in a pan with butter. The foie gras was nicely done but in this form it is a bit too much like liver, I think I prefer the preserved form that we normally get, interesting to try it once though. For the main I had lamb and Paul had steak. They both came with exactly the same set of vegetables, spinach and cheese, zuccini and a potato thing. Everything was surrounded by a lovely meaty sauce, delicious. We had a very nice bottle of red Beaujolais, a 2007. This was our first full bottle of wine this tour! Next there was a cheese course, they brought around a cheese table with 8 different cheeses on it and you could have whatever you wanted. Of course 5 of them were yucky stinky blue cheeses or a goat cheese, so we both just had 2 slices of the harder cheeses. (Not that we could eat much more either.)

Finally there was the dessert and we had selected the restaurants speciality, a Volcan de Theirs. It was a huge serve, a large meringue on the bottom, three scoops of ice cream in the middle, and a small meringue on top, in a sea of chocolate sauce. I couldn't finish mine, just too much :)

After that all we could do was waddled back up to the room to watch TV.