our favorite place

 It may seem a bit strange that our favorite restaurant in France is an Italian pizza parlor. Paul stumbled upon it when he first came here and was living in a hotel and eating out every night.

It’s a small place located on a pedestrian street which has a small square with a fountain. When the weather is good, they put tables outside and most people eat on the plaza. And so it became a routine that every Friday night, after a long stressful week for Paul dealing with the French, we would sit outside with a carafe of local wine and watch the world go by. Along one side of the plaza, there is a bicycle path and bike station where you can borrow bikes. It’s interesting to watch people deal with unlocking the bikes and equipment malfunctions. (It’s also nice to know that we aren’t the only incompetant people in France!)

There is a theatre across the street and occasionally they have a “spec – TAK- le” (event) there. The square is surrounded by the typical 5-story apartment buildings. Often you see people shaking out their rugs and watering their flower boxes (jardinaires).

When we started going there, Monica was our waitress. She quickly caught on that we ordered the same thing every time: a Greek salad that we split between us, followed by a Quatre Saison (Four seasons) pizza that we also shared, and then a bottle of Cote du Rhone wine.

Monica disappeared in the fall and they hired a new waiter. He quickly caught on to our routine as well. One night when Paul ordered the Cote du Rhone, the waiter asked Paul to repeat it. He was amused by the way Paul pronounced it. After giving him the order for the wine again, the waiter walked over to the bartender and loudly announced that the people over there wanted some “Cote du Rhone” and he said it loud enough that your could hear it across the restaurant. And then when he delivered it to our table, he loudly announced the wine. And from that time on, whenever we would enter the restaurant he would yell out, “Cote du Rhone.”

On the last Friday in December, the waiter told us that the restaurant would close for a couple of weeks while they did some renovations. Well here it is mid-April and they still haven’t reopened. Paul keeps wondering what takes so long and how they can afford to be out of business for 4 months.

We’ve tried other places but none comes close to our pizza place. It appears that they are putting the final touches on the place. Maybe next week we can go back to the Friday night routine.