Jeannine & Roger's French Cheese Odyssey

Parc de la Tête d'Or - 29th June

Today is our last full day in France so for Roger the priority was cleaning the car, done at no cost thanks to our apartment having secure parking right at our backdoor with all the facilities. For me it was visiting the ‘Golden Head Park’ that we didn’t manage to see last time we were in Lyon.

We caught the tram and walked a small distance to the entrance gate. In 32deg heat and with 117 hectares to cover we didn’t get to see all of the gardens, but we did achieve the main parts being:

A visit to the forest, lake, and one of the rose gardens, the biggest one was closed off

The Zoo and all off the park is free to visit. We were trying to do a geocache in the zoo area and kept running into signs on roped off areas that said something about crocodiles. We assumed they weren’t loose and carried on. If the crocodiles were hungry they could start with an entrée of 300 primary school children who were also visiting the park

The park is so big that we took a lot of wrong turns doing our geocaching; we needed to break for lunch at 2.11pm but the only café in the park stops serving food at 2.00pm. However the chef felt it was easier to give us something than explain. Our French is better than their English - we understood but like them just played dumb.

Lunch consisted of a croque monsieur and a tall drink with ice.
No, that wasn't our daily cheese experience.

Our last geocache was on the Island of Memories in the middle of the lake and you access the island by underground tunnel. All that is on it is a huge war memorial, plus groups of teenagers playing cards.

Our last tea, due to the limited choices in our neighbourhood, was a really nice pizza. It was simply a tomato base, mozzarella cheese, anchovies and capers. Again, this isn’t our daily cheese experience.

Essence of France Photo Challenge No.31 - Champagne France says they discovered it and are the only producers who can use the name 'Champagne'. We are unlikely to drink any before we leave, however because I have been profiling our evening drinks, Roger’s beer tonight is Portuguese, if you know what Rheineck tastes like, well Super Bock is weaker than that. I will continue to drink my standard orange juice and soda water.

At the start of our trip I promised 69 cheese experiences and today we have finally reached...
...Cheese Experience No.69 - Religion and the survival of cheese, an appropriate cheese to end our journey on as Roger and I have not only visited a Catholic Church almost every day, but have managed to survive each other (just) and 69 days of eating cheese. Today’s cheese is Val des Moines, it is made according to a traditional recipe of Cistercian monks. Invasions in the Middle Ages by Germans, Mongols and Saracens wiped out a lot of the Roman areas and with it cheese production. Monasteries preserved some of the recipes and manufacturing methods to keep cheese production going e.g. Maroilles, Roger’s favourite of this trip.

Cheese’s association with God sometimes led to an association with nobility. Anybody wanting to say how superior their cheese was would liken it to royalty. They would link their cheese to Kings by personalising them with the King’s Coat of Arms. When Charlemagne was served some Abbaye de Conques cheese with mould on it, he liked it so much, that when word spread of his opinion, demand increased and the Abbey made a fortune through the mere association to Charlemagne.

There are many other cheeses associated with King Henry IV, King Louis (whatever number), Napoleon, the list goes on. Our 69 days are up, so no more cheese experiences this trip. Would we bring any back to NZ? No, I couldn’t stand the overzealous border security staff here in France.

You can bring cheese to NZ from France as long as:
• It is less than 2kg
• Pasteurised
• You inform MPI
• It was produced in France
• It is wrapped and sealed
Considering the time it takes to get home it really wouldn’t be worth the hassle.