Hmm, if I had an Instagram search history it would be 50% cows, 25% gardening/farming, 20% percent cooking/recipes and 5% random thoughts, LOL. No, not true, about 1% would be college football, as the local college, Ferris State University, won the D2 National Football Championship for the 3rd time in 4 years. (I think).

I really like DD's sweater, the rat is very cute. It looks like it's ready to jump in and stir with that stick! The sandwich looks far too fresh to be McD's, and it looks like it's maybe chicken, but with actual chicken and fresh lettuce. Of course, McD's in France is probably better than it is here. I refuse to eat their food, but I did stop there to get an occasional treat for the dogs, when they were still alive.

I'm glad to see DD is still cooking and taking pictures, keeping us apprised. And, coincidentally, I made candy today with Amanda. I might have some chips here too, so I'll just join John.

My favorite car ever was an MG Midget. It was unreliable and difficult to have repaired, but it was more fun than anything else I've ever owned except the Jeep Wrangler, which was much sturdier, LOL.

Annie

Lancia made the holy trinity of Italian rally cars. Fulvia, 037, and Stratos. And the Delta, but it’s ugleeee. I don’t know why the Instagram algorithm started showing them to me, but I keep looking, so it continues.

By the way, did you know rats can learn to drive little toy electric cars? I looked, and now I see that a lot too. But I will not be truly impressed until I see one piloting a motorcycle. Then my childhood fantasies, spurred by Beverly Clearly’s ”The Mouse And The Motorcycle”, will take full flight.

There’s a subgenre of literature about anthromorphized mice. “Despereaux”, “Stuart Little”, “Mrs Tittlemouse”, “The Rescuers”, the Mickey Mouse dynasty, “If You Give A Mouse A Cookie”, innumerable Beatrix Potter stories . . . Rats, though, are always the slimy evil villains - well, except for the tragic Algernon - and I think that’s quite unfair.

Back when we lived in Berkeley, we had a white rat named Squeakers, also saved from the same vivarium that Al and Simo escaped. Squeakers had free run of the house, but he most liked riding on shoulders. He died on the journey to Portland, and is buried in the same area of the garden as Al.

Around the time we had Squeakers, we experimented with hamsters, mice, borrowed a guinea pig for a sleepover, and checked out our friends’ rabbits. All of those rodents were found lacking. They were fine, but none have the curiosity and inventiveness of rats. But they have so much better PR. I mean, how can you compete with “Watership Down”?

Well, now we have the Instagram algo promoting rats like crazy, with all these rat-girls on Youtube, and I like to think that rats are having their moment. If they could co-exist with cats, that would be perfect - but it’s not the rats putting the kibosh on that.

Granted, our cat hasn’t tried too hard to consume the ratties, but she’s also 20 years old with plenty of wild rats to her credit, and now prefers laying on people to vigorous exercise.

P.S. I forgot, there *is* one story centered on rat-as-cute-relatable-hero: the Pixar movie ”Ratatouille”. It was directed by a friend who then moved from Berkeley to Portland about when we did, and now lives in Germany where he heads an animation school. I wonder whither that profession, in the AI age.

That forgetion caused me to search harder for similar rat-hero stories, but this wiki page reveals few. Almost all of the rat characters are evil, secondary, or forbidding, mystic, or strange. Similarly for movies. Although I vaguely recall “The Rats of NIMH“ being a positive portrayal but the central character was a - you guessed it, a mouse.

Compare to the mouse-lauding stories and the unfairness is just glaring.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fictional_rodents_in_literature

People are warm, ergo cats like sitting on people. :) So, I think it's often the case that the intelligent beings are labelled ”evil”. I have limited experience, but it does seem that while bunnies are cuddlier (or maybe just freeze in fear and accept being mauled by humans), rats are more clever.

A friend of the family wanted nothing more than a Lancia when we were young. I think she got it. I was infatuated with a bronze colored E-type Jag and got a twice handed down American tank. One couldn't make a right turn without nearly stopping, but it was precise and perfect at Autobahn speeds. I used to see a lot of interesting cars, but not so much, nowadays. I've never, to my knowledge, seen a Lancia on the street. Not even said family friend's. I can see why you're enjoying being fed them. ;)

I'll be looking forward to future Carpentras installments, and more of your daughter's ratty clothes. ;)

The crème de champignons looks like mushroom soup.

The gadget is possibly this https://www.vorwerk.com/fr/fr/c/vorwerk/produits/thermomix which is ruiningly expensive. Lidl do one for much less!

John - 'Ratatouille' immediately came to mind as I read this thread! One of my favorite movies, which I watch whenever it comes on the tv. Love it! Such fun that you know the fellow who created it.

This is “quenelles de brochet a la bisque de homard“ which is made of creamed fish, breadcrumbs, egg, reportedly having a light, fluffy, spongey texture, in a lobster bisque.

A vegetarian curry for our French daughter, now of the meatless persuasion.

She was a 16 (?) y/o student from Marseille on a school trip to Berkeley, who stayed with us for two weeks, then returned the next summer for two months, and again for many successive summers, in Berkeley and in Portland. Later I helped her write a CV to get a job in New York, where she ended up living for several years. Now in Brussels in her mid 30s, she is remodeling her apartment kitchen and is intrigued by combi (steam ovens) such as Giselle. She will have a small galley kitchen with a wall oven and a cool round wall opening to the living/dining space.

The accompanying wine, described as “a sweet white wine that is rly excellent”.

Yikes, Islay, that thing is crazy expensive! The Thermomix TM-6 is available in the US too, also $1,500. It does seem interesting - a food processor-blender-mixer with heating element and integral scale that can boil, simmer, slow cook, cook rice, and sous vide, with touchscreen for controls and recipes. I assume it is well made, as the one in Carpentras has been cooking away for at least four years. It does combine five or so separate counter-top appliances into one small footprint, so if one has very little counter space, and the requisite cash, maaaaybe?

Apparently they will be cooking a capon next. I don’t think we have that in the US.

This sort of thing is all over my IG. The big driving lights on rally cars look tuff, and convey this car is not parallel parked for pedestrian errands, it is a purpose built racer. In general, cars without functional bumpers are cool that way.

Cool, but impractical for daily use. So why do so many modern cars have no functional bumpers? A walking-speed parking lot contretemps leaves many current cars with thousands of dollars of body damage. A slightly larger shunt can total a new car, designed as they are for rapid assembly, from complex pressings glued together, unrepairable at any reasonable cost. And new cars are large and complex, crazy expensive to buy and then to insure.

The worm may be turning. Large cars and SUV sales are down, small car and SUV sales are up. Not good for the US automakers, who gleefully dumped many of their smaller, less profitable models during the Covid shortage in favor of $80,000 F150s.

This is received information, not personal knowledge, but, AFAIK, the modern, squishy, big bucks damage, bumpers are designed to save your body, not your car's. Those heavy chrome cowcatchers of the heavy steel body age, transfered the force of impact, and often the whole front end, to the cabin. New cars are designed with ”crumple zones” which absorb as much of the impact as possible, and save your legs or your life.

The quenelles look delicious and excellent, and a perfect representation of the Lyonnais dish. The Alsatian Grand Cru looks to be an excellent pairing. Definitely a step up from the burger au poulet from the rest stop (aire). Wonder if the Thermomix was involved.

So many of the rest stops now have food that has been replaced by the big chains of fast food or unremarkable chain restaurants. (I saw a documentary that said only two independent restaurants at rest stops remain in all of France)

Crumple zones are lifesavers, for sure. Cars have had effective crumple zones for a long time, possibly starting with the revolutionary Mercedes W124 by Bruno Sacci.

A good friend was driving from Boston to NYC at night, tired, and fell asleep at the wheel. His car drifted off the road, his foot still on the accelerator, and slammed head-on a big tree at (est) 65 mph. He had a broken pelvis and some lower leg injuries, but recovered fully, and last year flew to Portland, bought a Ducati 900SS, and rode it back to Boston.

Another friend was driving on a two lane road in rural Oregon, when an elderly driver in the oncoming lane drifted over the centerline and hit my friend’s car head-on, combined closing speed (est) 80 mph. Rick, too, recovered from lower leg injuries and was motorcycling in Mexico a year later.

The first car was a 1998 (?) Mercedes W124 wagon, the second a gen-2 Toyota Prius. Both cars are old-ish now and can be feasibly repaired after minor shunts, with their conventional construction. Add the old 5-mph bumpers - clad in sleekifying flexible plastic - and they’d be even more practical and insurable.

Well, my rant now subsides. I only drive old cars bought for cash, so $80,000 pickups with insurance payments to match make no nevermind to me.

On the aires, it is sad that mom & pops no longer feed hungry French motorists. Still, even a bog-standard AutoGrill is a major step up from typical US interstate fare.

When I was young, I couldn’t understand why l’Aire du Temps was a fragrance named after an autoroute rest stop.

Ah. I was comparing to pre-oil shortage cars.

Too bad about the mom and pops, assuming the food was good. It's the same here in California. There used to be local places along the highways, but it was hard work not relished by the next generation, some were awful, and people driving by just want clean and easy, and will choose a recognized sign over a local, unknown, potential delight or possible horror. For all the digs on McDonald's, barring a few franchisees who need reeducation and supplies brought to them already diseased,, they can be counted on to be clean in kitchen, dining room and restroom. That can be a big draw. But I do miss the old gems that one planned one's route to visit.

During my law school years in L.A., my friends and I drove to Berkeley many, many times. 400 miles up and down Highway 5 in whatever econobox we had - Datsun 510, VW Dasher, first-gen Honda Civic was the usual rotation. I knew every exit, rest stop, bumpy pavement stretch. Sometimes I’d come to with no recollection of the last hundred miles of fully-automous driving.

Even back then, independent roadside food had mostly vanished from Highway 5, but not entirely.

There was a mythical place called “Pea Soup Andersons”, about two thirds of the way to Berkeley, just a bit off the road. We’d see signs for it, joke about it, and one day we finally took the Santa Nella exit and were awed by the ersatz Dutch windmill and, inside, the old-timey counter and booths, waitresses carrying giant bowls - in our road-addled brains, at least gallon-sized - of thick green pea soup. Old-school stuff, from back when standing a spoon up in the bowl was the test for a hearty rib-sticking pea soup. We were usually exhausted, brain-drained from law classes, hungry - I only ate once a day in school - and poor. My roommate was from New York; Los Angeles was bizarre enough to him, and the barren mountains and near-desert of the Central Valley was surreal, like being on another planet, Mars with windmills and buckets of pea soup.

The ultimate roadside dining on that Interstate is, of course, Harris Ranch, the fly-in steakhouse-and-resort off Hwy 198 a short drive from the 5. We stopped there once, realized it was out of our price league, and drove on. I’ve since stopped there and would recommend it to hungry travelers.

plllog, for you

I have more pictures from Carpentras, but no explanations, so I will simply post them with my random guesses and come back later to add whatever I am told it actually is.

No idea what is being done here. But what you see is about 60% of the available counter space, which may explain the spendy multi-tool appliance previously shown.

“croustillant de gambas en feuille de brique avec un salsa d’aubergine grillé truffé” which is crispy prawns, in some wrapping I don’t understand (? islay, gooster ?) with salsa from grilled eggplant and truffles.

“foie gras poellé sur risotto de celerirave avec sauce aigre doux au porto et creme citronné“ which is foie gras, celeriac risotto, and a port reduction and a lemon cream sauce

This is the ”chapon au champagne avec legumes confits”, baked in a Dutch oven with 1.5 bottles of champagne and veg, sealed with dough, I think that’s called “en croute”? (No, its not called that.) It looks studded with something - truffles?

Ok, DD has explained. ”the pot is sealed with that dough so that it is airtight, and the champagne steams, cooks the chapon and melts all the fat out and into the veggies. since the steam can’t escape it turns back to liquid and falls back to the bottom of the pot, where it mixes back with the rendered fat and confits the veggies. the chapon is placed on a bowl inside the pot, to keep it elevated over the veg and also off the bottom where it could burn“

The pairing tonight. Reportedly to be the best champagne of the week. My word, there’s more champagne in coming days? You see, Christmas is Carpentras is not for sissies, you have to work to keep up. Last time I had chapon there, it was with a truly awesome wine.

homemade “sorbet de fruits rouges”

Thank-you! My darling was a bit different, but that is definitely a cool car. Too bad those things left trails of failed parts all along the roads. ;) My darling was a hard top with that bubble shape, dark bronze with an ivory interior. It lived in Beverly Hills (where else?) but I don't know with whom. I always saw it parked. :)

https://www.peasoupandersens.net/ The Buellton one has been closed all year, supposedly for remodelling. A Central Coast friend told me the details, but I don't remember. Santa Nella is still open.

Of course, there were many more of the old can't-miss stops along 101 and 99. Just a couple on or near 5, but even on 101 there's a lot more fast food now (with one really well placed In-'N-Out).

Awhile back we had some Thermomix discussions, though perhaps in another forum. At the time it was available in Canada, barely, and there was some impediment to bringing them into the USA, but I don't remember what. Maybe just a warranty issue. They left me feeling quizzical, but in the French micro-kitchen, It makes a lot of sense. Great to see one in its native environment. Love the rest of the pics. Truly "foreign" (to me) food. Very interesting.

Brik is a Tunisian pastry similar to, but slightly different from, Phyllo. Here’s an article about it:

All about brik pastry

And I’d add to the translation of the sauce on the foie gras that it’s sweet and sour (aigre et douce) :-)

There have been some safety concerns regarding Thermomixes here as a number of people have had severe burns using one:

Thermomix safety issues

Our consumer watchdog department won a class action against Thermomix:

Thermomix fined

Thanks colleen!

I wonder if brik pastry is commonly used in France, or if we are seeing the culinary results of Marseille’s proximity to North Africa?

John ~ capon is a rare find here in the US, sadly. Very expensive when it is available. Was a custom order for me at the city's meat market in past years, no luck at all this year. It is a superior bit of fowl, as you know! Wish I had a source still...

Sad report from Carpentras. An illness - seems like a cold/flu - is sweeping the group. Presents and the Buche Noel were postponed from the customary Xmas eve to today, and now are being postponed again. People are taking turns going to the doctor and today the vibe is more sanitarium than gastroville. DD and French daughter remain intact, but for how long.

Oh dear, hope it’s just a cold or flu 😕🤞

Sounds like it, with a little G.I. thrown in. I’m sure the doctor is Covid-testing.

Oh, man, it's terrible to be sick on Christmas, in spite of my long held belief that it is simply an arbitrary date on the calendar and can actually be well celebrated at my whim.

It's my understanding that rats are actually very smart. One of Ashley's friends had a white rat with a little harness and leash and he took it out walking. It often "rode" around on a willing shoulder and I never knew it to be at all troublesome.

Rats in the movies? I would argue that "Willard" had good rats, their only trangression was defending their friend although the movie was just awful, LOL. Oh, and there was the rat sensei in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!

Annie

I'm so sorry Christmas was a bust in Carpentras. I've seen the feuille de brique used in many things, just as you would see fillo --- lots of finger foods and appetizers, and I've seen prawns wrapped in a similar fashion.

That noel meal seems quite special. I see the truffles under the skin of the chapon, the fine champagne used in the cocotte, with the crust to seal it. It sounds quite delicious but may be tough to replicate stateside ---I am thinking the fat chapon is a key to this dish. Are those local truffles from the Carpentras truffle market?

I think the hostess gets her truffles locally, but I don’t know where.

I’ve asked if someone is making restorative chicken soup for the ailing, but no response - either that’s not a thing or the ailing has spread :-(

A last report from Carpentras. People recovered enough to exchange presents and eat a little more.

Cheese, of course

And jars of . . . sea urchin?

The hostess has a new dog, who was a Very Good Dog.

When DD got back to Marseille, she adapted the capon recipe to her humbler means and cooking facilities. Chicken thighs, veg, butter, cheap champagne, and her trusty found-on-a-Paris-street pot. She said it was just as good!

So glad they're all feeling better!

Roe, I think. Taramasalata is Greek roe salad. If you say sea urchin, sea urchin roe is a thing in jars.

Brick sheets are great. It's not to do with the proximity of Marseilles to North Africa, but a legacy of old colonies. Its why the French love couscous and brick and us brits love Indian and Chinese. A typical quick meal is to break an egg onto a sheet of brick, fold it up and fry it in a pan.

Gooster, you only have to slip off the motorways to find lovely restaurants. To he honest, we always eat our own food when travelling but then it's easy as we have the caravan on the back of the car. There are some amazing places to eat. Between us and Le Mont Saint Michel there's an "American" diner. You spot it from a distance as there's an enormous plastic chicken on the top of a 20 foot high pole...... people say the food is great quality - burgers, fried chicken etc. Not talking Mcdo here. I'll have to see if I can find a pic for you. It makes everyone laugh.

https://www.ouest-france.fr/leditiondusoir/2023-04-28/le-poulet-de-la-n175-symbole-des-voyages-entre-bretagne-et-normandie-fete-ses-30-ans-0d14e3f4-fda3-4870-8c20-51c5dd9b36ac

I hope they're getting better. Sounds bad.

DD's chicken looks delicious, as does the sorbet. I'm glad there was enough recovery to at least exchange gifts and take some sustenance.

I smiled at the Very Good Dog. Since Molly died last January we have not had a dog and I miss her.

Merry Christmas to everyone, here and abroad!

Annie

IC, that's hysterical! It's decidedly more of a French idea of American, than anything you see here, exaggerated to the point of satire—and cool at the same time. Even better than the (likely) fiberglass whole cooked chicken hanging off a tray with a giant triple decker burger hanging off the other side and even gianter Coke, the sign! As if L'EXPRESS doesn't say it all, the second line explains ”snack - fast food”, though I suppose that's aimed at the international travelers.

The interior does have an American fast food vibe, though a photo farther down in the article shows a server, and a family at a table with real dishes, and massive amounts of food. It's hard to know if that's also meant as satire, or a put-on for the reporters, or an evil plot to induce food comas in the drivers on the highways… I'm not awake evough to seriously tackle the text—I just skimmed— but there are a couple of allusions to Route 66, which I take to mean the historic U.S. highway which ran from the middle to the west, here, in the mid-20th C. The whole thing looks fun and funny, and the patrons seem to like it very much. But, adding the photos together, are they frying chicken whole and naked (no coating), then cutting into quaters? There's a Salvadoran place here that fries naked leg/thigh quarters, but it's not typically American. Or the whole chicken on that sign—perhaps it was chosen for its recognizability at speed in a way that parts wouldn't be?

I have way more questions than an article about an anniversary can answer, but this was so much fun to look at! Thank-you!

The ”Poulet” place sounds cute! I like quirky, nichey, old timey, not trendy, un-corporate places like that. It’s sort of like Pea Soup Andersons that way.

I just remembered... There's a family restaurant near a friend of mine, where they serve ginormous portions, even bigger than the French fast food place. I'm not sure if they expect you to buy one dish per table (awkward!), trying to lure you back with "value" in terms of leftovers (food costs, especially for basic fare, are the least of it), but I did notice the clientele also tended to ginormous. :( So, maybe this is a subset trend in the U.S., making up plates with four times the amount of food one is paying for, and worthy of the satirical treatment of the giant naked chicken. :)

I did smile at the Chicken place, including a Power Ade on one of the tables, it's everywhere! I really liked the adjacent story about the bedbug sniffing Cocker Spaniel named Rapper too. I had to click on the dog story, LOL.

Annie

I forgot to mention the quenelles. Such delicious clouds of flavour! Love them.

It turns out that our “French daughter” who lives in Brussels can work remotely, and likes to spend time in Marseille where her friends are, but doesn’t want to spend more than a few days at her mom’s place in Marseille, so might rent DD’s little apartment for a couple weeks or a month at a time. So DD is definitely keeping her apartment for now, and went about improving the furnishings with a brace of EUR 10 pieces from the junque store. We are planning a June trip ourselves. I’d like to do another few weeks working from Marseille, then go exploring.

Explore up our way!!!

Where are you, @Islay Corbel? I vaguely recall Brittany-ish?

I want to visit Lille. We’ll have to go to Brussels to see French daughter’s apartment (condo) in which she’s putting a new kitchen. But I really want to go back to Venice too. And SWMBO is still mad about our trip to Lucca, when the rest of us liked the villa and hills outside Lucca so much that we refused to go into Lucca, so she may insist on a return trip.

Hmm. Maybe do two trips.

Since it’s now 2025, I guess this is a good place to mention my travel plans. Anyway, I can’t start a new thread.

Synchronicities abound as I am also headed for Venice in May, France and Ireland. Won’t be able to get up to the north of France which is a pity.

The food, the food… should be good/ wonderful.

The chicken place was so interesting, part of the fascination with American diners. I've had similar fried chicken without a coating, in the US.... well marinated, it is pretty tasty. I had to grin in the video when the guy called it a magical place. ETA: Those burgers are massive.... and the ribeye and fries is like $17 (tax and service included).

When I was referring to food along way, I really meant at the specific rest stops (aires) along the A numbered autoroutes. i find it has been getting grimmer and more chain-based. The choice is better along N roads (and once you exit and pay to get off the autoroute). On the other hand, I still have bad memories of restaurants at rest stops along the autobahn in Germany --- some of the most revolting I've ever had.

@Gooster, worse than a truckstop along AnyFreeway USA?

@neely, sounds great! Where are you staying in Venice? Where are you going in France?

We haven’t booked accaccommodation in Venice yet because my son’s partner is an architect and is being sent by his company for the Architectural Biennale to help with the set up of their exhibition ( this is originally why we all decided to go) the company may provide an apartment. We would like to stay on Lido for a couple of days and stay on the main island near the exhibition if possible for the remaining days. It is in the Castello district which is to the East of the more touristy San Marco district… not that there’s anything wrong with that as I can’t wait to have a coffee in St Marks square even if there is water lapping at my feet.

Any advice is most welcome. I remember you wrote a thread about your Italy travels … was that last year or the year before… anyway I’ll do a little search.

After a week there we are headed for a leisurely train and car exploration through the northish part of Italy and along the south of France coast ending up with a week in a AirBnB in a little town Cassis from which more exploring and eating is to be expected.

Then on to Ireland where we will stay with relatives in Tipperary. I’m looking forward to ordering a Guinness in an Irish pub in my best Aussie accent, should get a laugh and a stare from the locals. I’ve not been to Ireland before but have been to Italy and France many times but not for a few years.

here’s the thread https://www.gardenweb.com/discussions/6300433/marseille-again

Castello is the district around the Arsenal and the Biennialle site. It is nice, not terribly touristy away from those two sites. There is a main-ish street, Via Garibaldi, which has neighborhoody type places: hardware store, laundry, local cafes, food shops, and a super fun bar that used to be the headquarters of the Venice branch of the local Communist Party. Would be an easy and pleasant stroll along the docks to St Marks.

On the trip mentioned in the thread, we stayed on Calle de Fabrii quite close to the Rialto Bridge, that area was hellaciously touristy but also convenient and central. We mostly went to places in the Dorosorduro and San Marco districts.

But it’s all quite close, so an apartment in Castello would be great. Assuming not mobility challenged and welcoming of meandering walks.

Are you in Australia? Where? I guess I never realized it. I liked Australia/New Zealand a lot and would like to go back someday.

@John Liu Yes, I think you'd find truckstops have more variety. Though there will be much overlap with places like McDo or KFC or Starbucks, at least I think you'll find independent diners and restaurants still around on the major I interstates. Only two independent restaurants remain along the A autoroutes in all of France, reportedly. Now your best choice is a chain bake shop like Paul or Brioche d'Or... For cooked meals the restaurants are usually lacking, with the least appealing chains winning the leases, like Buffalo Grill. So the choice is to exit the autoroute at a decent sized town, or just grab a sandwich.

That is sad. Well, I came along too late for the Golden Age of European motor-touring. No sporty driving in an Aston Martin on scenic, uncrowded roads punctuated with leisurely meals and wine in not-Buffalo Grills.

Yes John I live in Melbourne Australia.

Mobility is not really an issue as long as I can take a seat now and again which is fine in a country with plenty of cafes.

Your thread about Venice was fantastic originally and now so good from my intended travel point of view.

What is it with Ryan Air. We had booked our flight from Venice to Nice but they have Cancelled the flight. Money given back but still. Anyway, might be better as we have decided to take the train via Verona and Milan with an overnighter there.

Melbourne was one of my favorite cities to visit. I haven't been in almost thirty years, but assume it is still lovely.

Edit: Hmm, looking back at my notes it seems I only spent three days in Melbourne. But I still insist it’s one of my favorite cities, and no one will persuade me otherwise. http://web.archive.org/web/20060430042934/http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/johnliu/melbourn.htm

(I still have the emu egg on my mantle. )

I am going to try to take a sleeper train in Europe. Apparently they are trying to build the sleeper train network, for environmental reasons, and I just love dozing off in a cozy, swaying private cabin to the clackety-clack of the train. Emphasis on the "private" part.

Edit: The various sleeper train services are kind of confusing!

I suppose that motorway restaurants have closed because of 2 reasons. One is that people want to get to their destination quickly and don't want to spend time eating. The other is that if you're going to have a good meal you want to have wine with it and the days of drinking and driving are happily over .

I have a great memory of eating at a motorway stop when I was about 11. Mum told me to order what I wanted so I asked for a steak haché thinking it was a steak. This very rare burger arrived. I added mustard as we were in Dijon and fell in love.

We love Melbourne too, though we divide our time between Perth and a country town about 100km east of Perth. Our DD lives in Melbourne with her DH and our DGS, so we visit at least once and more usually twice a year. Melbourne is often on the "edgiest cities" lists and "coolest street" lists etc. It's still a nice place, John. You should revisit it :-D

I love Perth colleenoz. Up until a few months ago 1 of my sons lived in Fremantle and over the years since 2013 I have visted the whole area many times. The beaches and white sand are of course gorgeous. The quaint little houses of red brick and limestone plus the modern architexture, the restaurants, the plants, the birds, the boats, the river, the parks all great.

Freo is another one of our favourite places, @neely. Even though we have a unit in Maylands, from time to time we rent an AirBnb in Freo for a week or so and just chill :-D

John, if you look at a map of France, Brittany is the top left bit that sticks out into the sea. Next stop America. https://earth.google.com/web/search/Binic,+Binic-%c3%89tables-sur-Mer/@48.59930541,-2.82992617,16.40595158a,7342.83258094d,35y,0h,0t,0r/data=CowBGl4SWAolMHg0ODExZmRkMTI1YTMzYzI1OjB4Y2ZiNTI5NTRmMDAzMDViNBnXRAt1_UxIQCHShy6ob5kGwCodQmluaWMsIEJpbmljLcOJdGFibGVzLXN1ci1NZXIYASABIiYKJAlgsgDYZv5GQBFRnoHXW_5GQBmalSxORbD0vyGcZDy98bP0v0ICCAE6AwoBMEICCABKDQj___________8BEAA