Annual French Trip
Return to Lyons La Foret
8th & 13th September 2010
Thursday 9th
Everyone was up bright and early, fed and watered and packed up for the scheduled start. It's something I've noticed over the years, older people don't have any problems getting up and are rarely late. We set off at 9:30 in convoy to drive the 130 miles to our hotel at Lyons La Foret. It wasn't actually raining so one or two chanced having their hoods down and they almost got away with it. All the way down we could see it raining in the distance, but somehow not exactly where we were. However, the roads were very wet and there was at times so much spray from the lorries, it might just as well been raining. The journey was completed without any mishaps and as expected we arrived just after noon, which was too early to book into our rooms. In spite of my very leisurely 70 mph speed on the autoroute, there was of course the usual moans that "I was having to do 90 to keep up with you" It wasn't all autoroute driving, the last 50 miles were through the beautiful Normandy countryside which was to be the star attraction of each day of this holiday AND during this last part of the journey the weather changed, the sun was out and it was warm. It was to stay that way until Sunday morning.
It was lunch time so we either walked or drove into the village for a leisurely lunch whilst our rooms were finished being prepared. Lyons is an attractive little village and we enjoyed a couple of hours in the sunshine, eating and drinking in the square. It was a very pleasant start to our long Normandy weekend.
The following photographs show our cars parked in the hotel driveway and lunch being enjoyed in the village.
Left is a typical street in Lyons La Foret, which in its own right is worth a stroll around.
Lunch completed we returned to the hotel to settled into our rooms and have yet more leisurely drinks in the grounds.
Some of us (just two of us really) even went for a swim in the large, but sadly, unheated pool. That old cry of "it's fine once you're in" was heard many times over the course of our stay here.
Each evening we met at 7pm for pre-dinner drinks in the garden and then went in to dinner at about 7:30. A really civilised way to behave. On the first evening we also received a welcoming Kia aperitif from our hosts. So by the end of the meal time when we had also polished off a few bottles of wine things were not quite so civilised.
Dennis, Pauline and Jennifer outside two of the quaint little "cottages" that form much of the Domaine St. Paul accommodation.
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