Weekend in Macon...Mâcon, France

This weekend I visited a friend that I met at UGA named Raphaël who lives near Mâcon (which is not to be confused with Macon, Georgia lol).

I got there at about 10am on Saturday morning and Raph met me at the station. He showed me around the city. One of the first things I saw in the city was the Church Saint-Pierre. I also saw some other cool stuff like a wood building that is really old and famous around here. 

Side of the church

Front of the church

Wood House "La Maison de Bois"

Raph and I stopped by this cool bakery that is well-known in Mâcon. It was decorated so nicely! We got a cake there called the Maconnais which is something famous in this region. It's a very sweet, buttery cake.

Pretty pink bakery

Here are the Maconnais cakes with sugar on top

After the bakery, we walked around some more. I saw the river Saône which passes through the city. There were some interesting stone chairs nearby so I had to test one out. 

by the Saône

Testing out a "comfy" stone chair

After the walk, we went to a nearby restaurant for some lunch. We had a three course lunch. For the appetizer, I had this seafood soup. It was interesting... I don’t really eat much seafood so the taste was a little strange for me. It was a mix of crawfish, mussels... and some other mystery seafood. Raph picked a salad that looked rather good. For the main dish, I selected chicken with mushrooms, potatoes, and zucchini. I enjoyed the main course more than the appetizer. The dessert was the best of all though. I had a chocolate lava cake...mmmmmm. It was really good!

Raph with his french salad and bread

Me with my delicious dessert!

After this big lunch, we walked back to the car and then drove to visit a friend of Raph’s. His friend is an animal breeder and he has tons of cool animals. He has tons of tarantulas, spiders, scorpions, snakes, lizards, chameleons, etc. I got to hold some of the animals and it was pretty cool! I got to hold a snake and two chameleons. The first chameleon was pretty gentle and it walked on your hands by gripping gently with its legs. It was obsessed with my bracelet though. It kept looking at it and sticking its tongue  out trying to taste it I think haha. The second chameleon had a stronger grip and longer nails lol. He was a little fussy at the beginning too. I never heard a chameleon hiss before and it was strange to hear that sound come from it. It was also cool to watch the chameleons change colors. They did so very gradually. Unfortunately, they cannot turn into every color (just a few and it depends on their mood). 

Raph's friend holding a snake

He was very interested in my bracelet...too interested lol

Here I am holding the calm chameleon. He is looking straight at the camera.

There was also this awesome cute little mexican lizard there that was very hyper. It would try to get out of its cage by flailing around. It seemed like it was waving at you while it did it so it was very entertaining. I even took a video of it and it started to flail (wave) after it saw me wave haha. I may upload that video to Facebook soon when I get some time.

Cute hyper Mexican lizard

I really enjoyed seeing the animals and Raph’s friend taught us about the different animals which was cool as well. For example, he taught us about how to tell if scorpions are venomous or not. He explained that there are two kinds of scorpions, ones that use their  pincers to hunt/attack and ones that use the poison in their tails. Those that have big, muscular pincers are most likely not venomous (they will also most likely have a rather thin, frail tail) and those with little pincers are most likely the ones that are poisonous (they will have thicker, more muscular looking tails). 

After the visit, Raph and I went back to his house for dinner. We had snails and salad.

This was my second time eating snails and this time I found that they were a lot tastier. These snails were covered in a butter, garlic, and parsley. I can’t believe I ate a dozen!

Here are the snails hidden by sauce of butter, garlic, and parsley...mmm

The sauce was really good with some bread as well....yum! Then, we watched a movie called: The Untouchables in french.

On Sunday, we went to La Roche de Solutré which was an old hunting site (over 25, 000 years ago). Hunters would trap and kill horses and deer at the foot of this cliff. Many horse bones have been found at the foot of the cliff. There is a legend that the horses were driven off the cliff by the hunters but that was proven to be false. 

La Roche de la Solutré

Here it is again

Maybe halfway up... you can see a lot of vineyards and a small village

We walked all the way to the top of it. It didn’t take too long, but it was pretty chilly and windy. We got a nice view from the top though! It was really high up. We could see a lot of vineyards in this area and even places that still had some snow left!

This is at the top!

After that, we drove to a city called Cluny. The road was windy and this area was still covered in snow. On the way we ran into some obstacles...those obstacles being cows. There were two cows loose on the road. We weren’t quite sure what to do. Luckily cow 1 was smart and just moved over... the same cannot be said for cow 2. This cow just stared at us, and then continued walking in the middle of the road for quite a while. Eventually, it moved over when it saw a patch of grass...

Runaway cows

 When we got to Cluny, we got some lunch at a Kebab place. Then, we met up with Raph’s friend Ben for tea/coffee. Afterwards, Ben gave us a little tour of the city and the Abbey that once existed here. It was the largest church in the world (until St. Peter’s Basilica was built) but unfortunately the majority of it was destroyed and the stones were sold to different builders during the french revolution.

Here is where the entrance used to be

This tower is one of the few things that remains from the original

Next, we went to another city called Cormatin and we visited the castle there. The castle had some nice gardens which we explored. There were bushed that were made into cute animals. There was even a maze that we went through.

Castle Cormatin

Animal bushes

You can see part of the maze and castle from the center of the maze

Ben used to be a tour guide there, so he gave us an (almost) private tour of the place. Two other girls showed us for a tour as well. It was a nice little castle and some of the rooms had really intricate and detailed walls and ceilings.

Very detailed wall and ceiling

After the castle visit, we stopped by a nearby cafe for some tea/coffee. Then, we said good bye to Ben and headed off home for dinner with Raph’s family. We had chicken, potatoes, and green beans covered by a sauce! It was really delicious! After that, we had cheese and dessert. For dessert, we had the Praluline (which is a cake from Roanne that I brought) and a Maconnais (which is a typical cake of Mâcon). We had a good, long dinner. I had some good conversations with Raph and his parents. They were really welcoming and friendly! 

On Monday, Raph and I went to some stores around town. I started to do a little christmas shopping :). Then, we had lunch at McDonald’s. After lunch, Raph took me to the train station. We got there a bit early, so we had a tea/coffee as we waited for the train to arrive. Then, I took the train back to Roanne. I was back at the apartment at about 4 30pm. 

I know I say this every time but, it’s always awesome to see UGA friends! Also, I had a good time visiting Mâcon and the surrounding area!

Back to work tomorrow,

Magdalena