Jeannine & Roger's French Cheese Odyssey

Perouges - 27th April

Today we went north to Perouges via Cremieu. Cremieu was once a thriving medieval trading town that had an interesting and varied past. The current population of 3,000 still use buildings surviving from the 12th to 17th centuries. Below are the Halles, which are being maintained and were in use today by a wine appreciation group. The Convent has been turned into a craft brewery which doesn’t open to 5.00pm. The long searched for Forgotten Virgin geocache in hand we walked the whole town for a bakery.

Cheese Experience No.6 We bought small cheese baguettes based on our previous experience in Annecy. Unfortunately looks were deceiving; they tasted like a stale scone that was over kneaded and even the cheese had no colour or taste. Cheese and bread should be made the same, with good quality produce/ingredients and handled correctly.

Cheese experts in France believe the best cheese is made by hand ‘a la mains’ and not mass produced in factories. We saw this sign in a bakery in Bourgoin Jallieu when we first arrived...
Who works with his hands is a worker
Who works with his hands and his head is a craftsman
Who works with his hands, his head and his heart is an artiste

Perouges, the medieval part of the town is situated on a hill. It is a walled town with most of the old buildings, roads, walls and gates still intact and in use. The residents of old were believed to have been Italian craftsman and linen weavers supplying traffic from Lyon to Geneva. In the 19th Century when rail and road traffic was re-routed the population dropped to 90. In 1911 the town was restored and now has 1273 residence. Apart from its history the town is famous for the 1961 filming of the Three Musketeers and Galette: a flat round crusty cake or crepe with either a savoury or sweet topping. Still suffering from our bad lunch we completed our history fact finding geocache and left town.

Last two ports of call today were the Madonna geocache in Sermerieu and a cool drink from the local supermarket. France still uses 1, 2 and 5 cent pieces, with items always ending in 9 cents and us being cash shoppers we end up with a lot of loose change. In fact I had nearly 40 coins so we off loaded them in the self service checkout, sorry Carrefour. The Madonna had 360 degree panoramic views, all the way to Mount Blanc.