Rest for the wicked

Today we had an option day to rest, and with the pattering of rain on our windows in the morning we decided to do so.

The daily grind
One of the more frustrating parts of our day is getting our bags ready for a potential early morning pickup. (Yet another beef with our tour company.) We've been told to have our bags down by 9am, but each day we've had our bags still sitting there by the time we've left the hotel. So we try to sneak some extra time in our morning, so that we have a less hectic pace to our vacation.

Staying at the same place tonight was highly anticipated, since we were able to go down to breakfast without the normal morning rush.

French time
We are still trying to figure out french time, as there doesn't seem to be much rhyme or reason. The only grocery store in town opens relatively early, and then closes before 11:30am for the day. Boulangeries will keep their own hours, closing on whatever days suits them. Same goes for other general stores.

Lunch is usually after noon and until 2:30pm. If you're hungry, you generally have to wait until 7pm for something to open. Unless you're able to find a crêperie, which usually provides a nice in-between snack. The favourite so far has been nutella filled.

Beer
We've also tried partaking in some beer throughout our trip, but unfortunately this has been a bit of a challenge when trying to find something locally. Most beer has been foreign, but there has been a bit of a local twist.

The first is panaché - a beer, mixed with lemonade. Surprisingly quite refreshing. You can either find it served in a glass or pre-mixed in a can. Apparently after some googling I've found out this is the same as a shandy.

The other variation is monaco - a mixture of beer, lemonade, and grenadine syrup. Google tells me that this is after the colours of the flag of Monaco. If you can get past the bright creamsoda red look, it actually also is quite nice, but sweet.

The third variation we've yet to discover is picon bière - a mixture of beer and alcoholic syrup.

Châteaux Grignon
Since we had time on our hands, we decided to visit the local historial site. One of the reasons it is famous, as well as why Grignon is well-known, is because of Madame de Sévigné. She was famous for writing letters to her daughter about her experiences of the time.

Writing letters? Put that into today's context, and basically she's famous for writing a blog. Ah, how times have changed.

The châteaux was nice enough, even though a good chunk of it was rebuilt. The worst part of it was that we had to go through with a tour, which spoke only in french. We were told it would only take an hour, but instead the tour guide went on and on and on, and by the end we were another half hour later. To make matters worse, we only had an english coles notes version to follow the tour, which didn't match the order of the rooms we toured nor went into the depth the tour guide went into.

By the end we were nearly running out of the châteaux, back to our room where a bottle of wine, cheese and bread were waiting for us.

Olives
The end of the day was at another restaurant with simple salads. The french seem to love olives with their salads. So if the menu tells you that there are olives on the salad, there will be plenty of them. If the menu doesn't mention that you'll have olives on your salad, odds are likely that you'll still get some.

I guess I should note that with the vineyard and lavender fields, there are also olive trees. But since it ranks much lower in my priorities, I just have forgotten to mention it.