Day 2 (Sunday May 5, 2013)

Day two

Lessons of the day:

After a long day (or two) of travelling, we slept in today and sadly woke up around 1pm.  Once we showered and started out on our adventure we decided to head out to the seaside community of Agon Coutainville.  But first we explored a little the back gardens around our cottage, there is an apple tree in full bloom right outside our door and cows just on the other side of the fence, carp in the pond and lots of birds chirping about.

Agon Coutainville is a cute little town that has a cute little boardwalk that overlooks the ocean with a smattering of bistros intermixed amongst cute 17^th to 19^th century homes.  When we arrived we walked along the boardwalk for an hour or so and then decided as it was almost 4 PM and we hadn’t eaten yet that we would go and get a bite to eat at one of the bistros along the boardwalk serving fresh mussels and oysters.

This was when the lesson came in…

You see in France there are different rules or practices not sure which… it seems that restaurants are only open for lunch and then they close at 4pm…being that it was 3:45…they were no longer serving food… only drinks.  So sadly, we could only drink and given that Coke is more expensive then beer and cider (Normandy is famous for its cider)… we ordered a beer for Peter (a lovely little German beer- can’t remember the name but starts with a W) and a cider for me (La Masson). Not a great idea when one hasn’t eaten that day, but we figured when in Normandy…so we sat down dejectedly at a little table and enjoyed the cider and the beer whilst listening to Red Hot Chili Peppers (Californication), ACDC (Back in Black), Bruce Springsteen (Born in the USA) and the Eagles (Hotel California)…odd choice in music for a bistro in Normandy…but odder still was the bartender who was French, singing along at the top of his lungs…oh well to each their own.

Now for those of you who know me well you know I don’t drink…but seriously it’s cheaper than pop.  The beer and the cider cost only 5 Euros for both and a Coke cost 3 Euro.  The cider wasn’t bad; actually it was good…I liked it! 

So back to the difficultly finding food…it seems that the restaurants close at 4 and some stay closed while others reopen at 7pm.  So imagine how we felt…3 more hours before we might be able to find somewhere to eat…oh but the ice cream (or glace as it is referred to here) place was open so we bought ice cream… yup this trip is really helping the waistline… but the ice cream was delicious…we both ordered “deux boules”….in bowls…we hadn’t eaten so we rationalized that it was ok…Peter ordered a banana chocolate and a dark chocolate which he did not shared but said they were both delicious.  I on the other hand ordered one triple chocolate the other a caramel fleur de sel…Trish, you would have died it was so good…the two flavors played off of one another so well…the caramel de sel had just a touch of salt which brighten up the buttery-ness of the caramel. (Note-I didn’t share mine with him)

Now from Agon Coutainville we decided to just throw caution to the wind and drive aimlessly along the old country roads and came upon this adorable 2-story brick home that really reminds me of the little house that Madeline grew up in (the Madeline storybooks) and even better it’s for sale…please can we get it?  It is just outside of St-Germain on Road D527.   For fun, I am going to see if I can find it to see how much it’s worth, although the properties aren’t as expensive as you’d think we were looking at properties in a store window in Agon Coutainville and most were between 150K-200K Euro.

In hopes of eating dinner we drove back to Coutances as the restaurants in Agon Coutainville were closed for the day and we went to centre ville just to where the cathedral was that we could see it from a distance last night.  In the centre ville we parked and wandered around and found a little restaurant on a side street that we watched people go in ahead of us…halleluiah!!!  Don Castillos…I think…it was delicious… I started with a La Masson cider…(I see a trend occurring) I ordered of the Prix Fixe menu (3 courses for 21 Euro) so I had fresh shrimp with a homemade mayo on the side, then a steak (born and raised in France) and fries and I finished with a Crepe Lancelot – a fresh made crepe topped with whipped cream, a ball of caramel ice cream and drizzled with a caramel fleur de sel.  Again this was delicious…I may have over eaten but I was so hungry that I figured I might as well enjoy it!

Then we headed to McD…but couldn’t get online…grr…so will try again tomorrow…

Bonne nuit!