Jeannine & Roger's French Cheese Odyssey

Vienne - 24th April

Vienne is a small town an hour south of Lyon. It was once the major centre of the Roman Empire, ideally located on the Rhône River. Today you can still see Gallo-Roman ruins such as a well preserved Corinthian Columned Temple. Our first expedition was a geocache in a park that featured many Roman ruins and artefacts including a Roman road which had grooves made by chariots. See photo above.

The second expedition was a geocache at the train station. France has a great railway network and has many grand old station buildings. The Vienne station isn’t grand but does feature some amazing engineering holding up the cliff near the tracks. It also has a fresco to commemorate the 763 men of Vienne who fought in World War I and did not return. I chose this cache because it is ANZAC day tomorrow and even though the French are very good at respecting and remembering those who served in the war they don’t however observe ANZAC Day.

Essence of France Photo Challenge #3: Train Stations.
Please note - to respect the fallen, Napoleon is not in this picture, but appears further on in the temple photo with some random from Nelson.

Lunch today was bought from a little bakery by the Corinthian Temple of Augustus and Livia. The temple is obviously very old being Roman and is believed to be one of very few that has survived in some sort of complete state, that’s either good engineering or no Christchurch fault line here. Our filled baguette of ham, tomato, rocket and ricotta was accompanied by a petite pain au raison and pain au chocolat.

We drove an alternate route home via Givors and stumbled upon a Lidl supermarket. They are the ultimate in supermarket entertainment; we didn’t actually need to buy anything so just bought some flour (based solely on the picture on the outside) and then waited in line behind the guy buying a small garden shed.
Cheese experience No.3 Bleu Cremeux Beaude this is a locally produced creamy blue cheese made by the Beaude family Fromagerie from pasteurised cow’s milk. The Beaude Fromagerie or dairy, established in 1919, has been managed by varying members of the family who have Master Artisan Cheese maker status. A lot of the cheeses they make are from age old recipes and the process is tightly control by AOP/AOC Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée standards. For example they produce the Bleu du Vercors Sassenage cheese originating from a 14th century monastery which must be made of raw milk from cows of the Vercors Massif.  Not being a big blue cheese fan we had it as a sauce for our steak and mushroom tea and Roger had some on crackers.