Actually, much of this trip was planned by my friend. She got the contacts and settled everything, and I just tagged along. Which was good, since I get easily frustrated with too much paperwork to do and I can’t really handle these stuff due to my serious procrastination problem. More information regarding my stay can be clarified in this webbie.
In short, this homestay is provided by this Taiwanese lady and her French husband, Michele and Thomas. They mainly cater to Taiwanese but also open to all Chinese. It was very lucky of me and my friend because we coincided being there with two other Hong Kong girls so quite a bit of costs were cut quite dramatically. The lodgings was reduced from 25€ for two people to 20€, and the most worthwhile was the wine tour cute from 70€ to 40€. More on the wine tour in another post. It deserves a post by itself. I’ll now focus mainly on the homestay and a traditional French dinner of 25€.
The house is not far away from the main station, but considering that I got lost everytime I went out and that all French roads look about the same and that I can’t ask for directions in French, I don’t think it’s a very major problem on the hosts’ parts. The interior of the room for stay is very luxuriously done up, but due to restrictions from the host, I cannot put up pictures.
In a verbal description, the room is large enough for a big twin sharing bed and a double decker bed with two wooden tables and two comfortable woodened and cushioned arm chairs, with still flooring space to do whatever you might want to do. As explained by Michele, she can house up to 6 people, so with only 4 people in the room when I was there, there was more than enough space. In a very French style, lots of thought was given to details. The beddings and furniture were all from IKEA and very nicely wrapped up with rich and colourful sheets. The sheets and the duvets are also washed everytime a guest checks out, so it’s clean.
The 25€ dinner on hindsight can be a bit steep because dinners outside don’t cost that much. But the dinner was still very filling and delicious.
The table was set, and the candles were lit, very typical French. Throughout the dinner, no lights were switched on as the candles provided every form of lighting in that setting, of course flashlights of our cameras were no lacking, all four cameras. wahaha~ There was also a free flow of bread to eat with the mushroom soup and fries to eat with the pork and of course wine to go with the meat. The main course was pork in Dijon mustard sauce.
The soup was a tad too much garlic for me, but the first few mouths without the garlic was fabulous. I think in accordance to the Asian taste, the host added too much pepper to my soup. I’m not a person who’s very fond of pepper, so it was a bit of a turn off for me.
The pork was wonderful. WONDERFUL~
The grilled vegetables and tomatoes were well, not to my liking, not because they weren’t nice, I’m sure the rest thought it was nice, just that Joan is just one person who doesn’t like vegetables. But I did have to take some of them out of courtesy. hai…
The wine was okay, I expected some better red wine, but it was just okay. I only had about two to three glasses though since it had been quite some time since I last drank something other than cocktails. yea… wait… I think it’s longer than I thought since I last drank.
The French fries were nice. The host had a deep frying machine, so the fries were very well fried.
Pity that there wasn’t dessert. I think dessert would have ended the meal perfect.
In all, I did think that the trip as a whole was very worthwhile. 20€ a night for a very homely stay is really cheap. Although it’s mainly catered to backpacker, I don’t think my friend and I are considered as backpackers since the amount of luggage with collectively brought in was about that of nothing, although we both effectively doubled our luggage at the end of our stay there. lol~
Anyone interested in staying over with Michele can contact her through that website on the top or can drop me an email or comment.
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