LES GRANDE BUFFET
So after our canal trip ended, we took a taxi to Narbonne, a city Hugh and I had visited in 2024. When there Hugh discovered the Les Grande Buffet. A buffet that boasted of 8 rooms of food, including a cheese room with over 100 different types of cheeses. We tried albeit unsuccessfully to get reservations.
I spent some time reading up on getting reservations, finding out that you could book two (2) years in advance.
So when we made our boat reservations in September 2024, that was the next reservation I made.
We all had looked forward to seeing what 8 rooms of food looked like, and were keen to taste everything (not). There were so many amazing things in this buffet, there must have been 10 different types of meat handing to be carved, a room devoted to ice cream and sorbet, the cheese room (!) and the lobster tree. I was overwhelmed. We were given a menu to see what was being served that day, and I had one idem on the list I wanted to try, but was unable to find. No worries, I didn’t walk away hungry!
With very full stomachs, we made our way to the Narbonne train station, to catch at train to Toulouse. On the train, we passed through Carcasonne which we had visited on the 2001 canal trip.
From Toulouse, we would separate. Julianna would go back to London for 10 days before joining Hugh and I in Mallorca, Timothy would go on to Madrid for two days before heading back to the US and Hugh and I were off to Barcelona.
When we made our flight arrangements, we had planned to visit the area around Milan, but changed our minds two days after we purchased non-refundable tickets. We decided to investigate the southeastern coastline of Spain instead. But of course, our tickets out of Europe were from Milan.
So the day after our Les Grande Buffet adventure we took to the skies. First flight Toulouse to Munich (Tim was also on this flight), next flight Munich to Milan, and last flight Milan to Barcelona, four countries in one day. Tim did three. Julianna only the normal two.
Listed under resources is information on how we planned this trip.