Broughton Castle
I
visited several castles, a couple really memorable ones, before I ever had
lunch in one. I’ve also eaten in a several castles since that first one but two
are memorable birthday lunches.
It was
after a hoof and mouth disease outbreak that I found myself in England on my
birthday. Because we were a small group of 6-7—as many others had canceled the
trip—we had a lot of latitude regarding time and venues. It was a complete
surprise that we would be at Broughton Castle on that special day.
A wide 6-foot deep moat surrounded the stately
1300s castle. (Many castle moats have been filled in and grassed over.) We
arrived late morning—just in time for lunch. We were served a typical
ploughman’s’ lunch, which was a first for me. Traditionally such a lunch
consisted of cheese and hard bread. The drink was most probably ale. The
ploughmen would take their lunch to the fields, just like the miners took theirs
into the mine. Today restaurants add a small green salad and sliced tomato to
such a lunch and in parts of England it is a popular lunch item. Tea and cake
followed our lunch.
The
large castle has oversized rooms and I particularly remember 6-foot long logs
ready for the immense fireplace. Many movies have been filmed at the castle,
especially in its lovely interior rooms. The gardens here are large manicured
Victorian ones.
Caffe Nazionale
Fast
forward 12 years, after more castles, palaces and lunches, when at 81 I found
myself hiking the Alps in Italy. We spent the morning touring the massive Roman
ruins in Aosta, Italy. The local docent finished the two and half hour tour at
lunch time.
With a
little research beforehand I figured we’d be in Aosta (the
a is silent and the o long) on my birthday. I read about the
Caffe Nazionale having been in service since 1886. It was a long ago private
sanctuary with a chapel for the Dukes of Savoy. We had no problem finding the
Caffe inside the Roman gate and located on the large main square.
We passed on the sidewalk café and opted to
eat in the 10-vaulted chapel, each with a lovely fresco. English is a bit
scarce in this part of the world, but our pleasant waiter spoke enough to
answer our questions, help with the menu and make some conversation. My
daughter and I each ordered a salad; hers was a side salad, but remembering how
salads often come in Europe I ordered a mixed salad. My eyes got big when I saw
the size of my salad that could have been a whole meal in itself! I managed to
eat half of it. My daughter ordered roast beef which was thinly sliced, cold
and spread on the plate under frilly greens and thin slices of cheese. Potatoes
were served on the side. I’m not big on cold beef, so I ordered lasagna which was
excellent, and again the serving was large. By the time we finished our meal,
neither of us had any room for dessert. The service was good, the food
excellent to say nothing of the ambience. What a treat!
We could have lollygagged over coffee, but the
restaurant was busy and we wanted the waiter to be able to turn our table plus
we still had lots more to see.
That evening the lights dimmed after dinner at
our Cogne, Italy hotel and in came the waitress with a lovely birthday cake
while everyone sang Happy Birthday. It
truly had been a great day for a little old lady who doesn’t know enough to
stay home in her rocking chair and watch the grass grow!
No comments:
Post a Comment