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Any train journey from the south of France towards Alsace requires a trip through the Franche Comté. Tucked into the lee of Switzerland and snuggled next to Burgundy, far from the TGV lines and the main tourist trails, the hills and valleys of Franche Comté form one of the least known and yet most beautiful regions of France.

Image: pafbox (Creative Commons)

The trainline cuts through some really stunning scenery. I’ve done the trip several times, in summer and winter, and it never ceases to amaze me. After leaving Lyon, you head northeast through Lons-le-Saulnier and skirt the foothills of the Jura mountains. The stretch of track from Lons to Montbéliard is worth the trip on its own.

The train follows the valley of the Doubs as the river winds through wooded hills, and you zoom straight past the Royal Saltworks at Arc-et-Senans, probably one of the most interesting pieces of architecture anywhere in France.

The Franche Comté is a picture of bucolic peace – sleepy cows clustered in fields, woodlands laid over rounded hills, and the occasional village spire, with its typical Jurassien form rising above a clutch of red roofs. Even the traditional industries of the Jura are dainty – pens, clocks and spectacles. 

If Hobbits came to France, they’d live in the Franche Comté. And they’d make sure to book a window seat on the train, too.

Image: christing (Creative Commons)

A few cat-sitting gigs here in Montpellier have not filled the wallet, but they have filled the apartment with cat hair, and the whisky cabinet with new bottles, allowing some interesting comparative tastings.  I’m no expert on single malts (as compared to, say Dubber and Clutch), but increasingly I know what I like.

To me, (and I’m going to sound like a complete tosser when I write this), whisky doesn’t taste of things like wine does. Rather, whisky tastes of ideas and images. Short scenarios that shoot out of the glass at you.

I’ve been progressively tweeting descriptions as I open each bottle. Here are those tweet-sized chunks, assembled in one place:

Cragganmore: felt-tipped tulip petals, newly unfurled bracken fronds, and the kitchen door of a Birmingham curry house.

Talisker 10 yr old: charcoal oxygen filters, aluminium window-frames and dodgy 1940s fuseboxes. Like drinking C-3PO. Délicieux.

Oban 14 yr: this is definitely what Maurice Sendak used to clean his paintbrushes while illustrating “Where the Wild Things Are“

Dalwhinnie 10: Wednesdays at boarding school. Freshly laundered woollen socks, a locker room full of rugby balls and matron’s stern gaze.

Lagavulin 16 year old: Wow. Salty. Driftwood and neptunes necklace. Spicy treacle and seagull feathers. Mooring ropes at half-tide in a November sea-fog.

Aberlour 10 year old: you remember that class trip to the colonial museum with the old sweet shop, the stuffed elephant and Melissa wetting her pants?

Glenkinchie 12 year old: weekends on your uncle’s farm, amidst Victorian furnishings, mouldy tourist calendars from 1954

Bowmore Islay 12 year old: fossilised kauri gum, barnacles left too long on the mantlepiece and the bilge water from an Arthur Ransome novel.

Last night at dinner in Mauguio, the aperitif included ravioli réunionnaises, and frogs’ legs:

Although anglo-saxon stereotypes would hold that French people eat cuisses de grenouille (and equally slimy escargots) all the time, this simply isn’t true. A particular speciality of the lyonnais, frogs legs aren’t something that appears on the table very often. However it was inevitable that they would cross my plate at some point while I am living in France.

The verdict – sautéed in oil with herbs and vegetables and possibly some gros sel, frogs legs taste of very little at all. The texture of the flesh is very similar to scallops, and they’re full of little thighbones.  They aren’t unpleasant, but I’m not going to rush out and buy some myself to cook for lunch…