We took RER line A to Saint-Germain en Laye from Charles de Gaulle Etoile. Line A is one of the busiest in Europe with about 1.2 million passengers a day. It is well set up with very wide platforms and good access to escalators and the double deck trains run well. I believe they are run automatically through the central, high density part of the line. This is actually the route of the first public railway line in France.
Saint-Germain is an interesting place to walk around with a very active daily market and a great number of food and other shops. There seems to be a specialty cheese monger in every block.
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| Starbucks are pretty heavy on the franglais |
If the truth be known, the real reason for coming to Saint-Germain was to have lunch at La Cantine de Marius. We have found the restaurant to be very good indeed and today was no exception. We had made a reservation and were given a nice corner table with a good view of the entire room.
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| The wine list was almost entirely wines from Corsica and this light red was recommended. It went very well with the meal and we noticed that many other diners were drinking it. |
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| Oeuf en cocotte |
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| Razor clams in a gravy |
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| Bavette (beef) with snow peas |
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| Clementines soaked in honey with ice cream |
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| A dense chestnut cake |
The restaurant is very close to the chateau which has been beautifully restored. After an excellent lunch we ambled out and walked along the extensive grounds with views over Paris. Until today it seems Paris has only had about five minutes of sunshine this year. This made for good walking. However, today the cloud cover was more broken and we enjoyed the way the low winter light emphasized the trees and other landscape features.
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| We called this Old Man's Beard, some kids even tried to smoke the woody stems |
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| The Saint-Germain vineyard with the railway viaduct in the distance |
We took line A back to the Etoile and caught metro line 2 back to Villiers.
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