It seems that the medieval town of Provins was small enough to explore for a few hours. I thought that we had an enjoyable time here in the Paris, I’m not sure if my companions would agree. I liked the fact that it felt like one of those off the beaten track tourist spots. It seems that Provins isn’t really in the tourist radar, and it is probably for the best as I have seen how mass tourism can ruin medieval towns like this one. It was like a UNESCO World Heritage site which no one knows about. It is a short train ride from Paris so it very accessible.
We took a bus back to the railway station and along the way I noticed that there was a McDonald’s. It isn’t really that isolated after all. We got back to the train station and waited for our train. There are hourly trains to and from Paris so you shouldn’t be too worried about getting back. I wanted to stay late in the town to take night photos, but days are long and it only gets dark past nine in the evening. We couldn’t wait that long so we just head back.
We head back to our apartment for our dinner hopefully, we would be having something nice. We were randomly walking along the streets near our place when we chanced upon this restaurant. There was a waitress who was very hard working and she was telling us to go in the restaurant. She was of Indian descent so her English was quite good. It was probably one of her strong points as English-only tourists would be stuck trying to figure out and talk to non-English speaking staff. We didn’t really know any better, but it was a “French” restaurant anyway, so we decided to give it a try.
This time ordering food was much easier with the English speaking lady and I ordered some duck. I thought this place was where poor tourists end up because they couldn’t understand anything else. I didn’t have very high hopes for this place. Besides, I still couldn’t “get” French food, I think it would still take a bit of time for me. My duck was not like the last duck I had in Paris. This one seemed to be a bit overcooked and I am not even French! Meat here tends to be a little undercooked to give it that juicy texture, this one was obviously overcooked, not a good sign. True enough the meat was already a bit dry. It consisted of a few slices of duck and some fries or chips. The meal wasn’t terribly expensive, so I can’t really complain that much, I don’t think this was representative of French cooking. I probably would get better results elsewhere.
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