Exploring the Chateau at Saint-Germain-en-Laye (France) - Visiting a Royal Chateau-Fort with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Exploring the Château at Saint-Germain-en-Laye (France) – Visiting a Royal Chateau-Fort with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

I loved Paris as a young woman, but recognized that as a parent in the 1990s that it was polluted, noisy, and dirty even in the near suburbs.

I took Florence on walks to the Bagatelle Gardens in the 16^th arrondisement during the week.  On the weekends, though, Laurent and I took Florence to run and play in her jean overalls in the park at the Château-de-Saint-Germain.  This Château was only 30 minutes away by car from our apartment.

The Château’s Park on a tall plateau with its woods made it a wonderful place for all of us to walk.  The Château itself is a mélange between a real fortress and a comfortable royal residence that has become a museum of French National Antiquities created by Napoleon in 1867.

We have cute photos of Florence climbing on tree stumps and playing on the paths around the Château.  My sister Kathleen’s small town Georgia newspaper published the photos of her with a caption like “Where is Florence?”

We would go grocery shopping at Chambourcy, a town along the Seine, after our park outing and eat lunch in the mall.  At that point in life, I liked quiet, family outings.

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Sampling Catalan Food in Barcelona (Spain) with Savvy Mom Ruth Pagert

Sampling Catalan Food in Barcelona (Spain) with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

 

I woke from my nap and got ready to eat lunch at Barcelona time – 2 pm.  We went to the Los Caracoles Restaurant, a tourist spot for the Spanish as well as foreign visitors.

The restaurant began its life in 1835 as a wine shop and gradually evolved into a restaurant.  The food is simple and expertly prepared.  You have to walk through the grill area to get your table, and the walls are lined with photographs of the rich and famous people, who have eaten there.

We sat at a corner table, which was perfect for Florence.  She could see everything and not be in the way.  She was a well-behaved girl during all of the meal.  She smiled at our neighbors, a Spanish family and three German ladies.

Laurent began his meal with mussels cooked in tomato, garlic, and parsley.  I tried the fish soup made with tomatoes, langoustines (crayfish), and morsels of fish.  Florence ate garlic-butter croutons dunked in the fish soup I ordered.

For our next course, I ate the paella with grilled shellfish while Laurent ate grilled prawns (large shrimp).  Paella is like sauerkraut for me.  I will only eat it, if I am someplace where it is a specialty.  The rice the Catalans use is pudgy with round grains.

The 6-inch prawns Laurent used were grilled, chopped in half and seasoned with olive oil, garlic, and parsley.  We drank Viña Sol, a delicious white wine from the Torres Winery in the Pénédés region with our meal.

Laurent ate Crema Catalana for dessert, and ate I ice cream topped with tourron (hard nougat).  Catalan cream is made with milk, eggs, sugar, cornstarch, cinnamon, and lemon or orange zest.

The caramelized, crunchy topping is made by flaming sugar and cinnamon with a blowtorch.  The Catalans use a heated, cast iron tool called a salamander with a disk at the end to make this dessert.

We walked back to the hotel and slept until dinnertime.  I ate Spanish Teruel ham with a pineapple quarter and felt like I was eating a meal from the Spanish Canary Islands.

Then, I ate roast chicken with potatoes.  Laurent had grilled shrimp.  We drank a rosé wine called “tinto” in Spanish from the famous Spanish wine region of Rioja.

These meals were definitely vacation gorging.  We would go back to more reasonable portions at home.

Recommended books on Catalan and Spanish food in general:

Catalan Cuisine by Colman Andrews

The Foods and Wines of Spain by Penelope Casas

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Visiting the Juan Miro Foundation (Barcelona, Spain) with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Visiting the Juan Mirò Foundation (Barcelona, Spain) with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Our destination for the day was the Juan Mirò Foundation at the top of the Montjuic Hill in Barcelona.

We took the bus there, which was fun.  I saw a few gates that looked like dragons on the way up to the Mirò Foundation.

In my journal, I have a photo of Mirò’s painting called Apollo de Vi.  There is a volcano in the bottom of it in the left-hand corner of the painting and a snake eyeing a fly in the painting.

There is a funny story that goes with this postcard.  A Spanish family was playing with Florence while we looked at the painting.

We were about to leave when the mom showed the painting to her daughter and us.  She made a sound like a fly, pretended to drink, and weaved around, making flying sounds to indicate a drunken fly.

We laughed and went to eat lunch at the café and set out for more adventures in Barcelona.

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Exploring Barcelona: Shopping in Catalan Spain with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Exploring Barcelona:  Shopping in Catalan Spain with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Walking along the Ramblas in Barcelona, I passed the Gran Teatre de Licieu where the Catalan opera called Zarzuela is performed. 

Attending the opera was expensive for us even the kiddy matinées, but fortunately they did have children’s cultural programming on television in Europe, so Florence could see musical programs like Peter and the Wolf, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, and the Nutrcracker on television.

A little further down from Rambla Sant Josep, I heard meows, cackling birds, cooings, and gurgles of aquariums along the Rambla del Estudios as vendors to buy a pet.

Along this Rambla, I found a neat bookstore and a cheap one at that; it was the Catalan regional government’s bookstore.  I bought a book about Catalan wine and food in Castellano, which everyone outside of Spain refers to as Spanish.

Opposite the bookstore is the Catalan Cathedral of good food, the Boquería Market.  The place was so crowded that I could hardly squeeze Florence through in her stroller.

I knew I was a nuisance from all the vendors calling me, “mamasita.”  That innuendo is called a “piropo” in Spain.

I wanted to rent an apartment near the Boquería, so I could try my hand with the local ingredients.  After awhile, it became impossible to maneuver Florence through the crowd, so I reluctantly left the market.

The place I visited next was the Plaça Catalunya.  The stores there were nicer in this area.  Supposedly, there were Roman tombs there, but all I could see was traffic.

It started raining, so I decided to do some shopping at El Corte Ingles, the big department store in town.

There were no doors leading into the store.  There was just a large opening with sawdust on the floor and security guards posted on either side of the opening. 

When the Spanish people congregate in public they tend to speak loudly and the department store is no exception

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Exploring Barcelona: Walking up the Ramblas Marketplace in Barcelona, Spain by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Barcelona: Walking up the Ramblas Marketplace Through the Center of Town by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Before stepping out onto the foot of the Ramblas for a walk with baby Florence, I looked at the Hôtel Güell that Antoni Gaudi built for his wealthy and loyal patron.  The doors reminded me of those at the Sagrada Familia’s entryway.

The doors sweep your gaze upward to the view of some of Gaudi’s trademark gumdrop chimneys.  The doors are the only things an ordinary tourist can see.  (The Hôtel Güell was a theatre history museum at the time.)  You can see what the interior of this museum looks like in an art book, since you cannot visit it.

The Ramblas is like the Champs-Elysées in that it the Ramblas has been turned into a tourist haven with souvenir shops and a McDonalds.

The Ramblas at the time was not as nice as the Champs-Elysées.  The boulevard is made up of individual sections called a rambla in the singular.  The Rambla Santa Monica with its sex shops reminded me of Place Pigalle, the red light district in Paris. 

I walked down to the port and looked at the Columbus Statue.  Queen Isabella of Spain financed Columbus’s voyages to the United States.

It is quite interesting that her State of Castilla took precedence over King Ferdinand’s Aragon and Catalonia.  I hoped that I would have the chance to visit Castilla one day, but was quite happy that I was given the chance to visit the Spanish Catalan region.

I continued walking along the Rambla Santa Monica, which was rather tame in the morning.  This Rambla is filled with newsstands with newspapers from all over the world, flower stands in some areas, and improvisational con artists looking for customers to play card tricks or find balls under shells.

One man was even jumping through a spinning wheel made of fire.  Andean musicians played their panpipes everywhere.

It was a cacophony of sound and yelling, but rather fun and nice to leave when I wanted to eventually.

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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