Eurostar re-launched at St Pancras, London! A Big day for Anglo-Franco tourism!

The Big Day has arrived! 14 November 2007, and the new terminal for the Eurostar train service at St Pancras in London has opened -- bringing with it a range of improvements and special services, one of which is a good 20 minute reduction on the London-Paris route!

For more details, read the blog entry of 10 November 2007 and by all means, click on the link above for the Eurostar website -- it is impressive -- and sure the whet your appetite! You can also subscribe to their newsletter by simply filling in your email address at the bottom -- and it is well worth your while as I see there are already very exciting special offers available in fares!

What a pity they did not think about combining the first Paris-London-Paris trip with the midnight appearance of the 2007 Beaujolais Nouveau -- a few hours and it could have been the event of the decade!.........But -- nothing stops you from booking your ticket straight-away and coming down to the Dordogne anyway to come marvel at the exquisite autumn colours in this region, enjoy an excellent meal of foie gras, confit de canard and pommes sarladaise, and of course, a bottle of 2007 Beaujolais Nouveau!

See you there!


Click on Link:

Chateau Lalinde : The perfect venue for your event

Relocation Orientation in France

The new Eurostar High Speed : London to Bordeaux in a 5 hour train ride !

On 14 November 2007 the new Eurostar High Speed service will be launched from the magnificent new Eurostar station in London, at St Pancras International. London and Bordeaux are now a short distance apart!
Closer to the patisseries of Paris! Nearer to the best beers of Brussels!
It will be possible to travel from the state of the art railway terminal in the centre of London, or from the second new terminal at Ebbsfleet International, in the north of Kent, near the Bluewater Shopping Centre (opens on 19 November) from as little as €77 (special offer) to around €250 return to the centre of Bordeaux from next month! (Allow for change over time and cost in Paris from Gare du Nord to Montparnasse station, where you change to the fast TGV).
What a pleasure! Luxury and excellent service, the best possible way to travel (I love train travel -- don't you?) sipping champagne, no long waits at airports -- in fact, no long journeys to airports as train travel takes you from city centre to city centre -- and in much quicker time than any airline can get you there:

Paris – London : 2h15 (instead of 2h35)
Lille – London : 1h20 (instead of 1h40)
Bruxelles – London : 1h51 (instead of 2h15)
London - Bordeaux : 5h45 (including change between stations)
Bordeaux to Lalinde: 1h30

The High Speed will be the first British fast train of its kind to link up with the already existing high speed trains of Europe. The Channel Tunnel Rail Link (CTRL)will now, for the first time, be able to reach the same speed as the French trains -- that of 300 km/h

St Pancras, with its neo-Gothic Victorian facade, was first inaugurated in 1868 -- and the new International terminal will keep the same style, although daringly modernised to cater for the 400 meter long Eurostar trains and the highly demanding tastes of its passengers.

There will be a wide range of shops, bars and restaurants, an international brasserie, the longest champagne bar in Europe and a daily fresh produce market. First Class and Business Class lounges and WiFi connections -- everything a discerning traveler of 2007 demands.
St Pancras International links up with six tube lines, and seven rail companies -- and King's Cross and Euston are only one tube station away -- convenient and comfortable!

So, the question now remains: Did Harry Potter really travel from St Pancras? Well, yes! Although he was supposed to have traveled from platform no.9¾ in Kings Cross, the film version shows him traveling from St Pancras, where the superb architecture and neo-Gothic Victorian style forms the perfect backdrop for this all-time favourite!






Click on Link:

Chateau Lalinde : The perfect venue for your event

Relocation Orientation in France

Why the Brits (don't) come to the Dordogne............. A smile for Expats

Photo: Clare
Recently in The Telegraph, Jim White listed -- tongue in cheek -- 30 reasons why Britons say that Britons stay in Britain ---

The Great Brit Exodus: British citizens are starting new lives abroad at the rate of one every three minutes. With 385,000 people emigrating in the 12 months to July 2006, we're witnessing the biggest exodus for a generation - which has reignited the debate about what exactly is wrong with our country.

These are the reasons why the readers of Tne Telegraph think the Britons who are still in Britain, stay in Britain:

1 There's never a problem getting a Polish plumber.

2 The walk from Solva to Whitesands Bay, round St David's Head in Pembrokeshire - probably the world's most scenic stroll.

3 Barbecuing in the rain.

4 Somewhere in virtually every British television schedule, there still lies a gem: Armando Iannucci's The Thick of It, Andrew Marr's A History of Modern Britain, David Attenborough's Planet Earth series…

5 London's revitalised Southbank. Art, architecture, design, culture and a big wheel all in one astonishing, two-mile-long strip. Try finding something to match that in Perth.

6 This summer, there has been no need to ring the neighbours to see if they'd remembered to water your garden while you were on holiday…

7…Or any worries about suffering from sunburn.

8…Or any fear of being snitched on for putting the sprinkler on your lawn at three in the morning (that's if the sprinkler hasn't rusted up under the swell).

9 Not having to spend four hours traipsing round town looking for a bar that might be showing the Rugby League cup final.

10 Teeing off at the first at Wentworth. Forget bungee jumping in New Zealand, hang-gliding in the Himalayas or croc-taming in Oz, there is no experience on Earth that gives an adrenalin rush quite like that. Absolutely terrifying.

11 You can't get a decent chicken tikka masala anywhere else.

12 Meeting up with an old mate in the pub, rather than sending an email to make an appointment to be at the computer at the same time so you can talk via Skype for five minutes before losing the link.

13 The rail journey from Plymouth to Penzance.

14 Where else can you pay £150 for the privilege of wading thigh-deep in sewage-laced mud before sitting in a sodden tent, unable to get to sleep at four in the morning because the bloke in the next door tent has decided to regale the world with his atonal version of Redemption Song? And do it every weekend, all summer long, anywhere from Loch Lomond, via Glastonbury, to the Isle of Wight?

15 Cheese-rolling in Gloucestershire, bog-snorkelling in Llanwrtyd Wells, barrel-burning in Lewes: no one does bonkers traditions like they do here.

16 Some of the best French, Italian, Indian, Chinese, Vietnamese, Spanish and Thai restaurants in the world.

17 Here, you can walk on pavements where dog owners clear up after their mutts, unlike much of France, which is close to being buried under a rising brown drift.

18 The view from the top of Mount Snowdon.

19 Being able to watch great Shakespearian actors, who the rest of the world only get to see on the movie screen as they bolster their pensions in ropey Hollywood blockbusters, performing Shakespeare on stage. And doing it so well, it makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up.

20 Not having to pay to be stuck in a five-mile jam on the motorway.

21 Blackberries the size of ping-pong balls.

22 The announcements to passengers on First Great Western trains. Where else can you find anything to match the invention ("The delay was caused by the effects of sunshine on signals"), the self-righteousness ("We are held up behind a slow-running train operated by another operator") and the complete lack of self-awareness ("This is a special announcement for those passengers waiting for the special to London Paddington. This special train has been cancelled")?

23 Going for a swim in the sea without fear of being assaulted by anything larger than a passing condom.

24 Listening to The Archers omnibus on the radio while preparing Sunday lunch - rather than via the internet in your study at 11 o'clock at night.

25 The drive from Glasgow to Oban.

26 Never having to worry that you might catch a chill from the air conditioning on public transport.

27 The Edinburgh Festival: you don't often get to see Hungarian stilt walkers performing a comedy mime version of Macbeth in Puerto Banus.

28 A day at Lord's, the most civilised sporting venue in the world.

29 John Humphrys, the Matt cartoon, Sky Plus, Alan Green, Fighting Talk, Mark Radcliffe, Private Eye, Craig Brown, The Spectator, Chris Morris, Jeremy Paxman, and all those other media delights whose output we casually consume every day. Nowhere else in the world can begin to match strength like that.

30 Plus, at least here, unlike in the Dordogne and southern Spain, you're not surrounded the whole time by other bloody Brits.




Click on Link:

Chateau Lalinde : The perfect venue for your event

Relocation Orientation in France

Food writing that leaves a bitter after taste...

In an article he titles "When food tribes go abroad", Jay Rayner of the Observer Food Monthly, gives a somewhat bitter and twisted view of any- and everyone who ventures across the channel to come and enjoy the different lifestyle of life in La Belle France.

He starts off well --- "Holiday eating is like holiday sex: nowhere near as exotic as you think it's going to be but just as risky. You can pick up a dose of something very nasty doing both. My parents, siblings and I still talk fondly of the violent food poisoning we acquired in some dodgy cantina on Ibiza. We were all taken out by it, one by one, within hours. Oh, how we laughed."

He continues to make an astute remark: "These things happen, of course - but they carry such significance on holiday because our expectations are so damn high. We insist that everything be wondrously lovely and this makes us behave very oddly indeed where food is concerned. The meal at the end of a day is an expression of who we are, of how we like to imagine our true selves to be."

But then his not-so-sub-conscious envy of all who have the good fortune to come to this part of the world to sample the gastronomic delights -- and disasters -- of a foreign and different culture, bubbles to the top and forms an unsightly and distasteful scum which completely covers any other possible tasty bits that may still have been underneath -- and as much as I tried to skim it off, hoping to reveal something that would reveal a tongue-in-cheek soupcon of dry humour, even if somewhat twisted, there was none. Just a bitter brew -- with a strong flavour of sour grapes.

"After some rigorous research, I have been able to sort the modern British gastro-traveller into five distinct, and equally irritating, categories. And they start with ...

1. The Dordogne Bore

Dordogne Bores have been holidaying in crumbling gites around Bergerac for the last two decades. They insist on calling it Périgord, and throw around words like 'paysanne' and 'terroir' to bolster their foodie credentials. They also claim to have a handful of their own 'secret' little places where they go to eat; restaurants so far off the beaten track that their location is known only by 23,000 other people from Dorking, Guildford and Cheltenham.

What the DB will never recognise is that every single restaurant in the region serves exactly the same bloody food: duck confit, foie gras, more duck confit, herb omelettes, duck confit and more duck bloody confit. What's more, 85 per cent of the restaurants will serve mediocre versions of these dishes, though the DB will either not notice or not acknowledge this. Usually this is because they are plastered on cheap wine, arguing that you don't have to spend big money 'down here' to get good wine. This, too, is nonsense. No matter; they will praise the 'civilised' French attitude to drinking, while failing to recognise that France has one of the highest rates of alcohol-induced liver disease in Europe.
Most likely to be found in: the Dordogne, natch; the Lot and Garonne; Tuscany.

2. The Authenticity Addicts

The AA is convinced that only by eating exactly what the locals eat can they really connect with the culture they are visiting. This means they end up consuming some of the nastiest food items ever devised, though they will always claim to really, really like them: stews made from goat intestines; braised cow's udder; pressed pig's ear in vinegar. What the AA fails to recognise is that renowned local dishes like these are almost always the product of poverty, and therefore generally more a matter of necessity than tastiness.
Most likely to be found in: India; China; Thailand; and the more wretched, typhus-sodden corners of the former Soviet Union.

3. The Anything-with-a-View Crew

Everybody knows that the worst restaurants in any fishing town are the ones right on the water, where the smell of food is undercut by the foul stench of the stagnant sea-bilge lip-lapping at the harbourside. The owners of these prime pitches know that the punters will come solely for the location, so they don't have to worry about the quality of the food, plus they can also charge the suckers roughly double what those places a street back are charging.

The AWAVC will happily leave the beach at five in the afternoon to drive two hours into the mountains to this 'fabulous little bistro with the most fantastic view of the sunset', forgetting that, after the first half hour, the sun will have indeed set and that they will then be eating their mediocre dinner in total darkness.
Most likely to be found in: the Greek islands; Provence; Sardinia.

4. The Gastro Tourist

The GT regards a holiday as an eating opportunity, and time spent on the beach between lunch and dinner as an irritating distraction. The GT needs only one holiday read - the Michelin Guide, and will tick off restaurants as they go. But few of the meals they pay astronomical sums for will meet with their approval, as the GT has shockingly high standards and cannot be conned by gastronomic smoke and mirrors.
Most likely to be found in: Burgundy; around Lyon; northern Spain near San Sebastian; Catalonia.

5. The Market Kings

Market Kings stay in villas or gites and never eat out because, as they insist, loudly and often, 'really, why would you when the produce in the markets here is so fabulous, I mean look at the tomatoes nothing like the flavourless rubbish you get back home and the peppers are so sweet you could eat them for dessert. Here try some of the bread - it's made by a local man who's 103, blind, incontinent and crippled by arthritis but he's still got the touch ...'
The MK gets up every morning at six to go to the local village to buy their produce (even though exactly the same stuff is available at half the price at Carrefour nearby).
Most likely to be found in: Tuscany; Dordogne; Provence."

The Observer Food Monthly would do well to send Mr Rayner on one of our excellent Relocation Orientation courses at the Chateau Lalinde before allowing him to write another article about something he knows so little about or on which he holds such prejudiced -- or should I say, 'jaundiced' views; and Jay Rayner would do well to forget about the frissons of 'risky sex' in Ibiza and rather come enjoy a heavenly few days in -- yes! the Périgord, also known as the Dordogne, and soon officially to be known as Dordogne Périgord -- where we will initiate him into the true pleasures of life -- which I can guarantee will exclude anything boring, but include a fair few pleasurable hours of fine dining with interesting people and stimulating conversation.

POST SCRIPT: See Jay Rayner's response in comments below.

Click on Link:

Chateau Lalinde : The perfect venue for your event

Relocation Orientation in France

Summer in the Dordogne

In summer the Dordogne comes alive with music and cultural activities - so much so that it is impossible to attend even a fraction of what is available.

Last Saturday the street theatre came to Lalinde with a quality performance in the village square that would have drawn crowds in Broadway. A simple story told through music and song, characters on ten-foot high stilts and on mono-cycles, fairy lights and fire eaters, jugglers and contortionists. A veritable feast for the eye and the soul!

More food for the soul on Sunday night when three young local men performed to far too few in the Lalinde church -- a magnificent accoustical venue in which to present the combination of organ and two trumpets. Bach at his spine chilling best and Purcell to die for!

Last night I attended the second of three music recitals in the achingly beautiful Abbey church in Paunat.This church in Paunat is one of a handful of churches in the area that was consecrated in the first millennium - namely in 991 -- but its construction dates back even further --- to 804. Again, the natural stone and uneven surfaces of the very high walls, provided a perfect accoustical chamber for any music, and the gleaming black Bechstein looked quite at home in the soft golden glow of the cherch last night. Roger Muraro was the pianist who regaled us with his lively and animated interpretation of Mozart, Liszt and Chopin. Muraro is best know for his mastery of Messianen's work, and as this composer was so strongly influenced by the delicacy and refined harmonic work of Chopin, it is probably not surprising that Muraro was able to present a fresh and different approach to Chopin's Funereal Sonata opus 25 and the ever-delightful Andante spianato et Grande Polonaire. The last time I had heard this piece was in the open air of Chopin Park in Warsaw and at the time I thought one should never play this piece in any other setting. Hearing it again last night in the ancient abbey church of Paunat, made me change my mind on that one!
Reading up on Muraro was interesting -- almost everything written about him all over the world is positive and complimentary -- especially where it concerns his knowledge and expertise in Messianen's work, but for his interpretation of Chopin, Liszt and his vaast repertoire of other work as well -- that is -- everything and everywhere -- except in the British press.
We also suffered from Roger Muraro, a pianist known in Britain only for having his past Ravel recordings purloined for use under Joyce Hatto’s name in that sad hoax. One might brush off Muraro’s metallic lamé jacket as a
French eccentricity. Far harder to excuse the thumping dullness of his Ravel Concerto for the Left Hand., writes Geoff Brown on Muraro's preformance at the Proms at the Albert Hall last week. Listening to the Brits in the audience last night -- all distinctly dressed in their English-in-the-french-countryside uniform of pale pastel linens for the women and the obiquitous jumper-over-the-shoulders for the men -- I could not help but wonder whether they had all done their homework before the recital and read the same Geoff Brown crit in The Times of last week. Almost the exact words were heard - sounding oh so knowledgeable and erudite, but with nowhere a reference, acknowledgement or a quotation mark in evidence. I shuddered and for a moment thought I had landed back in the counties amongst the Landrover, cashmere and Harrow/Charter House coterie. But how could that have been? Never in Surrey or any of the shires did we enjoy this kind of cultural feast and this quality and variety of entertainment and enjoyment as the French are so good at offering! I was so tempted to mutter out loud the lovely Robert Auden observation about the Brits ---
Let us honour if we can
The vertical man,
Though we value none
But the horizontal one.

Tonight I join a group of friends for a completely different experience - A Blues and Gospel evening in the main market square of the beautiful medieval bastide town of Monpazier -- and Monday night it is back to Paunat for a magical evening of six of the best cellists in France, performing together under the masterful direction of Roland Pidoux. Could anything be more beautiful than an ensemble of 6 cellos? -- Let's hear what the Brits have to criticise there!....

Oh -- and forget not to come join us this weekend in Lalinde for the Annual Wine Fair as well as the musical street party on Saturday night! -- and remember to bring your own cutlery and crockery!

See you there!









Click on Link:

Chateau Lalinde : The perfect venue for your event

Relocation Orientation in France

Americans in France

In my recent article for the Expatica.com website, I made a few observations about why Americans go to Paris and the British come to the Dordogne. This article caused quite a storm in the big tea cup of the cyber world, and in that stormy process, I discovered a number of blogs and sites where similar issues are addressed.

One such blog,
Americans in France, writes in particular about the Americans in France. Although his statistics seem a little suspect -- they are vastly different from the official current numbers of 700 000 Brits and 165 000 Americans in France - of which 50 000 in Paris, and this always makes then wonder about the rest of the article, I did find it an interesting read. This is what he has to say:

"Although your first thought might be that Americans in France would end up, for the most part, in the same areas of France as the Brits, this isn’t actually the case so funnily enough there is very little interaction between the two communities.

Generally speaking, the Brits end up in Brittany/Normandy, Dordogne/Loire, and Provence with the Americans largely confined to Paris, though obviously there are a lot of exceptions to this.

One of the more complete sites is Americans in France which seems to be a fairly complete reference guide for Americans aiming to move over here. Interestingly for me is that they still need to declare their income to the US tax authorities.

Of interest to the parents amongst us is the list of bilingual schools. You might think that the list on the site “must” be too short. There are bound to be more bilingual schools in France, aren’t there? Well, there might be a few more but there aren’t an awful lot more which is something you may want to factor in when you’re considering where in France you might want to settle. If you don’t arrange bilingual teaching for your children from about age 11-18, they will not be fluent English speakers and that will set them at a major disadvantage in their future life.

Not listed on the site are the international schools though there aren’t many of these either and bilingual is the way to go. International schools don’t raise children to fluency in both languages as you might expect.

Anyway, lots to see on the site."


Click on Link:

Chateau Lalinde : The perfect venue for your event

Relocation Orientation in France