OK, tenuous link but wanted to pop up the photo of the place I was facilitating in yesterday – a rather spendiferous chateau.
Was running a big Insight Workshop thing-y for Pernod Ricard just outside Paris. Not entirely the best place for a group of 70 clients (mmm where exactly do you stick flipchart if not on the 16th century decorated walls?) but pretty impressive. They were showing a reel of all the films that have been made there (mostly seeming to feature Gerard Depardieu, oddly) – it's obviously a frequent contender for the 'France dans les annees anciennes' location scouts).
Imagine my un-impressed-ness though, when the AV France office admitted that actually (having 'encouraged' me to cover over and help them, with tales of the stunning chateau) we were not actually staying there overnight, but…..
…. in the Best Western up the road!
Funnily enough, that little gem got sorted pretty damn quickly ('Oh I think you'll find I am' seemed to do the trick) which thank god was the one thing I did manage to pull off. As you can also only imagine my delight when we drove out of the castle the night before the workshop to go for a quick dinner. We drove past a lovely-looking top end little French restaurant, covered in ivy, right by the castle walls. Redolent of astoundingly good cuisine and maybe even a snail or two to sate my escargots lust.
Making me think we were obviously heading somewhere majorly impressive, way way better than that, for our dinner, if it wasn't going to be there. It all started well – tiny French roads, cutting a swathe through the glorious countryside and surely heading to a little known but awesome experience gastonomique - until we turned into what looked like a shopping complex.
And indeed it was just that - a hideous mall, which was (a final piece de resistance!) part of the Eurodisney/Disneyland Paris franchise, full of teenage girls with Minnie Mouse ears on, and bemused Asian families with kids in strollers. Surely there would still somehow be an amazing little bistro tucked away off this complex, to which we were hopefully heading? No – cue one bizarre dinner in the Korean BBQ chain resturant (mmm, that's exactly what you come to Paris for - NOT!). Mostly spent rescuing charred bits of obscure meat off the shared grill and wondering how to pronounce the local Korean beer HITE). With a silent S, methinks peut-etre….
Anyway – here's the chateau's grande salle - quite a corker! S x