10.29.08
Posted in Hollidays, Madagascar at 2:18 pm by tesstess
Wednesday the 29 October – Nosy be and Nosy Komba
We arrived at seven in the morning in Ambilobe where we had to change taxibrousee.
School taxi and banana shop.
Between Tana and Majunga the weather had changed from cold to hot. This time, on one night it was the natures turn to change - from brown and try to green and humid.
We took a boat out to nosy be. In Hell-Ville all prices are at least twice as expensive than we’ve seen before. We ate lunch in a restaurant, it was nice to relax after so many hours of bus, change of bus, and then the boat, not to forget the super-heavy bags we had with us. Full with climbing shoes, tent and sleeping bags… which in the end we didn’t use.We soon learnt that there were no boats out to Nosy Komba after lunch (our selected island which should be a bit less touristic than Nosy Be), because then the waves were becoming higher. We hurried down and found a small boat. It took us half an hour to negotiate a reasonable price. Only people and bags on this one, no furniture. Anthony was a bit worried when the waves got higher, but I felt safe. Once I got a wave up on my back and was all wet but what does that matter when the water is 27 degrees? We discussed with a student who knew both French and English, who came from the island.
Finally we arrived to our paradise island. White sand, turquoise water, pirogues along the village beach, smiling people, broderies hanging for sale, moving in the wind. And, the best of all – no cars, no electricity, no noise.
I guarded the bags on the beach while Anthony walked around in the village and watched the different rooms available. Unfortunately we didn’t find one with both see view and private duch/wc, so in the end we took a room in the middle of the village, it was the most fresh one.
Slowly a new feeling filled me. A feeling of calm. After 24 hours of traveling we were finally installed. We found a restaurant with sea view and one tourist in which we ate with and discussed all the evening. He had been traveling a lot in his life and had lots of stories to tell. We ate shrimps and fried vegetables. Delicious. And much less expensive. At lunch they had had 60 people eating (compared us three in the evening), it’s because the tourists comes out to the island from Nosy Be in the morning and returns in the afternoon. We actually saw them and their flashy plastic motor boats just leaving when we came in.
The house in the corner is our favourite restaurant and to the right is our favourite food shop. What do you need more than fruits and rum?
During the night I had problems to sleep, even though I was so tired. First it was the mice eating on the roof, then the fact of being so far from the civilization, surrounded by people and a culture you don’t know, and then a then a tropical thunderstorm with enormous amounts of rain.
Thursday the 30 October
A day in relax mode. Walking around in the village, eating some fruits, swimming a bit.
Nosy Komba is famous for it’s broderies, there were women sitting everywhere making those cloths.
Friday the 31 october – mountain trip on Nosy Komba
Yvonne is an old woman specialized in guiding the tourists up through the jungle to the top of the island, 600 in altitude. When asking someone in the village who to take as guide, everyone talks about Yvonne.
We had appointment 7.30 but we had put the alarm wrongly and left an hour later. Even in the morning it was killing hot outside. Imagine then the big mountain shoes, long pants and long sleeved shirt. We walked very slowly.
Every ten meters Yvonne stopped to show us a new plant and each one had different medical powers. She gave us a leave of this, a leave of that, some seeds and then lots of flowers in all possible colors. Our pockets and hands were completely full.
Every 100 meters she told us how high we were. Sometimes a breath of fresh air came, but most of the time it was only this heavy air.
Funny to think of Anthony going up so many thousands of meters on Alaska and here it was so hard to go up 600. In the end I was so tired and hungry that I could hardly walk or listen to the explanations.
Finally we reached a village, one of the cutest ones we’ve seen. There were chickens in all sizes, ducks and a cat walking around, all in a good health. We sat down at t table in the shadow and watched the whole village preparing us a meal.
No half fabricate here, no, all was from scratch: we saw them bring away one of the hens, then prepare it, take of feathers etc. They dipped the hen in boiling hot water to make the feathers etc.
An hour later the most fantastic meal was served, just for us two. The guide and the people of the village ate after us, next to the houses. For dessert they came with a whole ananas (that Yvonne had bought from a girl on the way up) and it was full of flowers in it’s ‘hat’. Taking of the hat it was an ‘ananas-papaye-soup’ inside. They had taken all the ananas out, prepared it and put it back again. It was very sweet, we thought they had added a lot of sugare but a day after, when tasting an ananas we opened ourselves we understood that they really are that sweet. Anthony was surprised I could eat so much of it, about two thirds. Mjam.
Then we started the way down. This time with more speed since we had started late in the morning. Yvonne still stopped often to explain things but right after she said ‘on avance’ and we had to go on.
Jackfruit (Jaquier in french and Jackfrukt in swedish), like chewing gum to eat. Ananas on his plant. It produces one ananas, then it dies.
Pepper and Vanilla.
Cacao trees.
Clove, (Girofle in french, Kryddnejlika in swedish).
Traveller’s Tree (Arbre a Voyageur, De Resandes Träd). There is always water inside, and from the leaves you can make a roof to protect you from weather and wind. The plant is originally from Madagascar and the latin name is Ravenala Madagascariensis. It’s often used to build roofs.
In a small shed, Yvonne called in a bell and two girls came to show us how they make syrup from sugar plants. We got to taste both the plant itself and the syrup. Very sweet, of course.
Further down we passed a village where they were preparing coffe and insects.
Down at the sea again we saw a nice school house. We tasted one of the funny big fruits. It was too dark to take a picture of the inside of it. It was like a chewing gum in taste and consistency, but quite good. We also saw our first lemurian.
The last part from the small village to our own village was with a boat with oars. There were no paths along the coast of this island, only up on the top and down from there to the different villages. The people took the boat like we in france take the car.
Tiering day, full of impressions. We ate crab for dinner.
Saturday the 1 November – Nosy Tanikile
Today we wanted to go around the island but Raymond-Papa was already taken. We started to ask for someone that could take us to Tanikile and at once there was a guy who took us across the village to another guy who proposed us to go with him and his boat for 60 000 Ar.
So peaceful and beautiful to be on the sea. Just before starting we bought a beach bag. In the shop I managed to be eaten five times on the legs by mosquitoes, didn’t expect to find them like that in the morning. They left big marks on my legs, very itching. We put cream on. Then when putting sun cream I avoided the bites to not remove the other cream – resulting in funny sun burns after…
It took maybe one hour with the boat. On the island we put our towel under a palm and went into the water with mask and feet. It was like an aquarium, full of fish and coral. We saw several sea turtles. One big bläckfisk. There were so many things to look at! The guide told us the fish hade been really tame before, eating bread directly from the hand but now there were people who were fishing illegally at night, so they went more wild.
We stayed all day, which is up to two, because then the waves get higher. We ate ananas and mango for lunch. The guide had brought a plate and he cut and prepared the fruit for us without asking, I found that nice.
Sunday the 2 November
We went on the blue plastic boat around the island. The first stop was not on a beach, but I and Anthony wanted to snorkel a bit from the boat. There were some coral but not a lot and not so many fishes.
We swam into a small, beautiful and completely empty beach, sat down for some minutes, then went back to the boat.
The second stop was on a big beach, here they told us we would eat. We went for a walk and visited the hotel “Jardin Vanille” which is also in the guide with a very good note. Guide says 65eur for half pension, but the price was 80eur in reality. Per person. Seemed like a really nice place and the view was magnifique.
Then we went snorkeling and found a really beautiful coral reef. Not as many fishes. There was a current sideways that went stronger later on in the day, so the next time we went in the water we only could swim in one direction. Didn’t feel dangerous though, we could always easily swim into land.
The tree guys we had with us didn’t talk much, I think they were young and shy, and not enough good in French. However they knew what they were doing when cooking. The meal they served us under a big tree was consisting of a salad carrot/mange/cucumber as starter, then rice cooked in coconut milk with prawns in sauce – which Anthony found as one of the best made things we’ve eaten in all our time on Mada. I agree with him that it was very tasty. And then they grilled fresh fish, also really good. Mini-bananas for desert.
We made some more snorkeling after having eaten, but this time we didn’t find the coral reef, it was gone, very strange. I think we were fooled by the tide and the current was so strong that we decided to stop searching. In the end Anthony held on to a ‘boy’ and me in Anthony and we were ‘flying’ like a flag… hm, not the clearest explanation there.
We stopped in a small village on the way back where they were constructing pirogues. Fun to see them from the very early steps, to half finished and finished boats.
10.23.08
Posted in Hollidays, Madagascar at 1:49 pm by tesstess
The vacation of this year was our trip to Madagascar. Three weeeks of adventure. I’ll split the story here in five parts: Tana/Majunga, Nosy Komba, Ankarana, Diego Suarez and then again Tana.
I kept a diary each day, it’s pretty detailed so you’re not obliged to read it all, it’s more for me and Anthony to remember our trip. But look at all the photos, they’re put on my photo site with start here.
Only the first day is in swedish, then the rest is in english. Probably with quite a lot of spelling misstakes since I was writing fast and here I’ve only copied what I wrote in my notebook along the way.
Torsdagen den 23 October
Det är tidig morgon, vi är på planet till Madagaskar. Si och så med sömnen när man sitter upp. Oj, nu kom en röd sol upp vid horisonten. Vi är förväntansfulla, speciellt jag, det är ju första gången jag besöker en så helt annorlunda kultur, fattig, afrikansk, vänliga vad jag hört. De malgasker vi sett på flygplatsen verkade i alla fall trevliga, öppna och glada.
Så himla kul igår på jobbet att säga hejdå, vi ses om tre veckor. Det är min första riktiga semester. När vi kommer tillbaks har Xavier lämnat teamet och Vincent är där istället, tredje teamleadern på ett år. Verkligen trist att mista Xavier, jag hade så mycket kvar att lära av honom, men Vincent är bra, det tvekar jag inte det minsta på.
Jag har med mig kapitel 3 till 7 av java certificate boken. Hoppas jag kan få mig till att läsa dem. Det första jag gjorde på flygplatsen i paris, mina första timmar av semestern var att göra en ritning på ett hus, det är att vara ledig, då har man inget viktigare att göra för stunden. Det blev ett sluttningshus med först ett plan, och sen två, och högt till tak i mitten med en liten bro mellan två delar på övervåningen. Anthony tyckte det var bättre att ha barnens rum på övervåningen så jag får nog göra om lite, ha föräldrarnas suite på entree-planet. Jag som hade löst det så bra med toaletter och badrum, som alltid är så vårt – Anthony vill ha föräldra-badrum med toa och dush, barnen ska ha sitt badrum, och sen då, gör man en tredje toa till gäster, och nära ytterdörren så man kan gå in med skor?
Nu är solen helt uppe, fullt av moln och vi ska snart landa.
Friday the 24 October
First day on Madagascar. The impression from the plane before landing was that the ground was brown, there were no trees and all was dry. How disappointing, we were expecting to see rainforest.
The visa was more expensive than we expected, and then the plane to Diego was full. But here we are, ready for the adventure! We fast changed the plan, instead of going by plane to Diego, the most northern city and slowly move down the west coast to Nosy Be, we would go the other way around, start by going by taxi brousse upwards, then taking the plane back down.
There were taxi drivers everywhere, trying to convince us to go with them. It was hard for us since we didn’t know how much was normal to pay.
A taxi took us to three hotels in our guide but all were full, at last we agreed on being brought to a hotel he knew (where he of course would get money for bringing us…). The street was dirty and we didn’t like the look of the people on it. The room was ugly and simple, but clean.
We spent the day walking around in Tana, sometimes taking a taxi.
Getting a taxi brousse for going to Majunga was a bit of an adventure, or more “cultural chock”. We took a taxi and said we wanted a taxi brousse for Manunga. He asked if we wanted to go through a collectif or not, we didn’t know… When arriving on the big taxibrousse street a man started running next to the car, put his head in the open window and then opening the door and jumping in, all without the car stopping. We thought it was someone crazy, but he discussed with the driver and we stopped. Then he begun dealing with us for taxibrousse, and first then we understood that he was actually a seller. We were confused but managed to get an ok price and then made him mark our names with pen in his bus plan (if not he can book many people on the same seats). The taxi took us back to the center.
All day we felt a bit uneasy with our deal, and when reading again the guide we saw names of more secure cooperatives, that would be safe and give you the three seats in the bus you paid for.
We decided to go back in the afternoon to find a better taxi. Also we wanted to travel daytime, we had heard there could be attacks on taxibrousses at night were all luggage could be stolen.
We found Vatsy, one of the cooperatives from the book and bought new tickets. Apparently all of them go at night so there we didn’t have a choice, but at least we felt more secure to have the three seats so we could lay down a bit.
In the evening we took a taxi to a restaurant from the guide (Guide du routard) and was very happy. The decoration was really nice, lots of colors, there was a live band playing traditional music. I bought a cd from them in the end. Me, I ate zebu steack rolled with foi gras inside. We took a taxi home direct to outside the hotel door, it didn’t feel safe to walk even five meters on that street, which was also confirmed by the taxi driver and the hotel receptionist.
Saturday the 25 October
We walked around in Tana. Discussed with a French man in a café who had been many times on Madagascar. Good to have some advice.
We found a small market and bought a watch (which we used a lot until Anthony swam with it two weeks later and the “waterproof” watch got filled with water and stopped). Other than that, the market was not very interesting, and on top it was starting to rain.
The taxibroussse travel took 10 hours, starting at 6 pm. At 8 it stopped so we could eat in a small road-restaurant. Lots of rice and chicken for 2500 per person – one euro.
I found it hard to sleep, I was so worried we would be attacked. Each time the bus slowed down or stopped I listened and expected to hear men shouting. Of course nothing happened. Anthony had also problems to sleep, but more because of lack of space, and because of the heat. It got more and more hot, the closer we came to the coast.
Sunday the 26 October
We arrived 4 am, and stayed to sleep a bit in the bus until the city began to wake up. Then we took a taxi to one of the hotels in the guide, some minutes outside the city center, which luckily had free rooms. We spent the day in a very relaxed mode, walking around in the city and sending some emails to say we survived so far.
A strange city, all empty. We called it a ghost city.
In the afternoon we took a taxi to a beach, about half an hour from Majunga. The firsta five minutes on a real road, then the rest on a dust road in very bad shape. For the driver and the taxi all afternoon we payed 33 000 Ar, about 15 eur.
When it was close to sunset we took a walk to the “cirque rouge” which was marked in the guide as something to see at sunset. We arrived a bit late but saw a bit of the warm colors. I didn’t find it that spectacular though.
Monday the 27 Majunga
A day full of impressions. We’re tired. Very happy to be back at hotel and take a shower (especially for the feet, but I’ll tell you about that later).
We started early. Crazy idea we thought when the alarm went off at six o’clock and we just wanted to sleep three more hours. It was after all the first night of this vacation in a place with slower pace than in Tana – a place more for relaxing (but not as Nosy Be of course).
Anyways. We went up, ate a ‘continental breakfast’: baguette (not very good, a bit dry), butter, mango ‘sauce’, and honey to put on bread, a small glass of good juice (abricot?) and hot chocolat/coffe. Ah, I have to not forgot to mention the sea view. Nice (but not exceptional).
We both thought that by going down on the bigger road we would directly find a taxi, there have up to now been taxis asking us if we want to go somewhere at any moment, so we didn’t ask the hotel to call for one. Misstake. Empty road and we started walking. It’s not very far to town, maybe a quarter, but then the boat-station is on the other side… luckily we found a taxi close to the baobab. We reached the boat station 7.35, boat should leave 7.30, boat gone. One of the ten men gathering around us explained it had left 7.15. Ok, seems people here are on time. Since there are only 2 boats a day we were disappointed. Hm, in fact I didn’t say yet what we wanted to do. Plan was to cross the channel to come to Katsepy, spend the day there and go back with the boat in the afternoon. The guide said there would be a nice walk to do to a light house and that one of the best restaurants in this region would be there. There would also be beaches, even if one of the guide books says it was not recommended to swim (because of the red water I think).
People around us suggested us to go with this or that small boat, for this or that price, special boat for us or boat that would leave when full. It seemed really expensive for a while, until we finally got a “vingt cinq mille ariar” from someone and everyone pointed towards a small boat and said we had to hurry. The boat was filled with people, bags, chairs and a table, just in some minutes. We got all a life vest each, and then we left. We were surprised but happy. In the end much more fun to do what the locals do, and in fact, there were only locals on the boat.
45 minutes later the boat touched the beach on the other side, before the big boat had arrived. We were waiting for people to get of so we could go off, but in fact they were so fast to change that the new ones were already in place. We walked in the water up on the sand, then on into the village. Difficult place to describe, don’t think I took it in picture since it was quite ugly. Small houses with openings where people sold small things, food etc. It was dirty, I didn’t see any fridges. Two minutes of walk and we were out of the village on the only road leading away from there, most people and cars on the big boat went this way directly towards other villages further away.
We asked an old man how far it was to the light house, he estimated it to 8 km. Pah, a bit long. We turned around and went along the beach instead, hoping it would be shorter.
The sea was red from the beach and ten meters out so we didn’t felt so invited to swim. It was getting hot. We found a tree under which we ate our two mangos. We saw a tiny bird, black I think with a bent beak, funny with animals that you never saw before.
We passed two women picking mussles, Anthony went to talk to them, to see what they were doing but I don’t think they spoke French because they just looked down shyly and continued. So we continued as well. It started to get really hot and we wondered how far it would be still…
A lady came with a basket with two fishes and two big langoustes, so beautiful with lots of colors. She didn’t speak many words French, she wanted to sell the langousts to us and we wanted to have them. Anthony tried to make a meeting with her at midday in Katsepy, one hour from then, but the only thing she said was “trop tard” and “madame chabeau”, which is the restaurant.
We continued. There were some houses next to the beach, well houses I don’t know, rather leave huts… we asked a woman how far it was to the light house, she didn’t speak French at all, but she made us follow her in a fast walk away from the beach, in the direction of the light house. It showed out to be still very far, and we showed her that it was to far, that we were hungry and wanted to go to Katsepy. She showed us where the path were, we gave her some money and started walking.
The light house can be seen on the first picture, tiny and close to the horizon.
The path led away from the sea. We were worried we would get lost but calculated that we would sooner or later end up on the bigger road to the light house. Which we did. We drank the last drops of water and walked as fast as we could back.
We were almost dead when we arrived. We met actually the lady with langoustes again, but she couldn’t communicate how to do, where to cook them, so we went to Madame Chabeau and ate. Clean, good looking place. Very calm. Only one other couple eating there, and only one man in the kitchen. The fish he made us was delicious, with algae, haricot verts and rice. And grean fresh pepper on top! We drank a big bottle of coca cola and one of water, and slowly we came back into life.
Anthony took pictures of flowers and lizards. Since there seemed to be nothing else to see or do in this village we stayed there reading our guidebooks for some hours.
On the way back we took a pirogue. It was a wonderful experience. Very funny boat! The wind in the big sail made it go fast, we were back in 30 min. We payed 15000Ar = 7 eur.
Just when we thought the adventure was over for this day we saw that the guys of course had to park the boat on a beach – that is, not in the harbour… the beach was in a zone of poor people. Me, not being very clever took a picture of the boat. Not clever to show these people we have a big camera. There came a man with a ’skalbagge’ on his hand, he said it was rare and that we could sell it expensive in france. We said no, and went after the guys from the boat to have some company out of the zone. Suddenly there was water on the road. Dirty water. Not only red, filled with all what a household doesn’t want. When the sea is high it goes in there. So it was only to keep the shoes on (no chance we’d walk barefoot in there) and keep walking. After several sections of the road like this, 15 meters each and half a meter deep, we came out on normal roads again. I’ve never felt so dirty in my life. But we survived.
After, we took a ‘pousse pousse’ to a toursit agency to ask the price to go down the river in boat. Far too expensive. We decided to skip it. We took a taxi to the bus station, decided to go to Nosy Be instead of first going to Diego, and then same taxi back to the hotel.
And here I am, writing, hungry.
Tuesday the 28 – market and taxi brousse
This was meant to be a market day since there is a lot of nice artisanal in Majunga. We had heard about beautiful jewelry, semi-precisous stones etc.
We slept late, ate breakfast, packed and planned a bit, then we left to the bus station to pay. Hungry, time for lunch. Hot. We stayed long in the shadow of the small restaurant.
Only an hour left for shopping, but we found some nice things (but no jewelry).
In the bus station the bags got up directly on the roof of a mini bus. While waiting we talked to a guy and he wanted to try our sudoko. He had a funny tactic, only matching one square of nine at a time. We showed him how to do it with the right rules and some techniques. He was happy, we gave him a page with sudoko to solve from our book.
In the bus we had three places, next to the last row, just like last time. Less places for the legs though, Anthony could not have them straight forward.
Behind us were four people of which one was an old and very sick man, and one had an infant. In the row infront of us there were three adults and two children.
In the beginning of the journey there was a long section without asphalt and the bus had to go slow, impossible to sleep, but after that we managed to sleep quite well (one on the top of the other).
We ate around eight in a strange but cheap restaurant. When asking for the toilet they show you the ditch outside of the house.
We understand now why they go by night, it should be too hot daytime.
10.13.08
Posted in Land&House at 10:55 pm by tesstess
We have been dreaming of this for two years. Anthony probably longer. Today the dream is realized: new bar and storage, new working surfaces, new fridge - and last, but not least new oven and induction stove.
Here is my hardworking man. Can you imagine how scared we were when we saw this note coming with the stove:
And we had of course the combination on the bottom right in the kitchen… aaaa! It took almost a day of help from my dad, anthony going to a shop to ask and then messuring with a tool Anthony got from his grand dad. Finally we realized that it was not three phase we had, but one of the others, don’t ask me which, I only know it’s working.
And watch this final look. It’s heating really fast! Yesterday when we had installed the oven I made a quiche lorraine, and tried one of the funny built in modes for paj that the oven has. It also has a mode called ‘Intelligent Cocking System’, but when I wanted to run it the oven told me that it was already warm (I grilled bacon for having in the paj just before) and then he didn’t want to cook with that program for me. I’m a bit sceptic about it’s intelligence, we’ll see if he can prove me wrong.
I’ll take more pictures of the kitchen when we cleaned up a bit.
10.05.08
Posted in Hollidays, Friends, Route du Vin at 10:05 pm by tesstess
This year it was time to get to know Bordeaux. Me and Anthony took one week vacation, borrowed the car of Sebastien and set out on a loong drive, friday after work, all the way to Cahors where we stayed two nights. We visited some producers around there, very good wine, not too expensive. And very nice people, me and Anthony really loved this region, we want to move there, it’s just that there are no jobs for us.
It’s hard not to fall in love with this place.
This is how to appriciate good wine!
Anthony, picking chestnuts directly from the tree. All this region is completely full of these trees, just like olive trees back where we live.
We went swimming in the river, extremely cold, but very funny. It wasn’t planned so we went in completely naked. Believing that noone could see us.
We went on a walk to see the roads next to the river where the animals were dragging the boats some hundred years ago, until they built the railway. An artist had made sculptures in the wall.
We took the car on to one of the most sweet villages we’ve ever seen: “St Circque La Pauppie”. Medieveal village without cars, and with this splendid view:
They even had binoculars up there on the cliff. With which you got a good view on the river. And one of the places you could see… was our beach where we had gone in swimming… Imagine the children seeing us, calling out to their parents “mama, mama, look, there are people in the water, and they are naked!”.
Here is Cahors, a village surrounded by the river.
We visited the famous market, bought some fruits, tea and newbaked bread. We would give a lot to live close enough to this market to be able to buy our vegetables there each week. Then we went up on the hill next to the village and ate a picknick in the sun with the crazy beautiful view of the village.
The comming days we spent without wine where we visited the region. One of Anthonys best freinds, Philippe, and his girlfriend Gaelle came down from Paris on the monday to visit with us.
We visited medieval villages, ate good food and had a really nice time together.
Three nights we stayed in this wonderful farm. They produce their own products, we ate one evening there and it was delicious. In the morning you see them take out the birds. We took a morning swim in the covered swimming pool, what a feeling.
Cayaking down the Dordogne. So calm, a little bit of current so that the paddeling itself was easy, five impressive castles along the shores, and then a nice picnick with wine from Cahors, cheese from Roccamadour and terrine from the farm where we stayed.
The second part of the week we went on to Bordeaux. Here we catched Seb, coming with the train from Antibes.
Five happy wine-lovers.
We visited the three wine areas of Bordeaux: Le Medoc, Le Libournais and Les Graves.
In the middle we changed bed & breakfast, charging Sebs car with all the wine and five people. It was completely full, we had wine everywhere and we had to go slowly. It was funny to see the face of the owners in the new place. We asked if we could put our wine somewhere (to not carry it up the stairs to our rooms), and he said yes, no problem, but when he saw the quantity… their hallway was almost blocked by wine.
I’ll finish with some food pictures. It’s really one of the best things with this region, the food. A lot of food, cheap compared to where we live, and so delicious. The best one I ate is ont the top left. It’s not the best looking one though. It’s fish with crumble of hazel nutts on top, and then foi gras (gåslever) and potatoes at the side.
That’s it for this year. Our both wine fridges are overfull, the economy below zero and us already looking forward to the ‘route du vin’ of next year. We think it will be Alsace.