Dimanche à la campagne

I love ‘Sunday in the country’, it’s an event we discovered when we first arrived in France, and have supported it every year since.

This year there were 45 sites with 3 new ones to try. I’d picked out seven to visit, although we ran out of time and only got to five.

The first one was at Marolles-les-Bailly, it was a small farm called ‘Malice & fromage blanc’ with some beautiful cows and goats. They make their cheese products on site and sell via a small shop on the farm. They produce excellent fromage frais, faisselle and also, which I was interested in, mozzarella and scamorza. Scamorza is a smoked cheese usually made in Italy.

From there we headed to a picking farm ‘Cueillette de Troyes l’Espérance’. Currently they just have flowers available for cutting, but later in the year they will have all sorts of fruit and vegetables, we will definitely go back there.

I then wanted to pop back to the pottery at Amance, I was interested to see the cost of their garden pots, they are so gorgeous.

We then visited Jerome Cothias, where we enjoyed a coupe of his blanc de blanc, and I bought some honey and grape jelly. They had laid on some country dancing, which everyone was joining in with. Next time I’ll take my hat!

Finally we headed towards home, stopping at Verpillières-sur-Ource, where there is a small farm that rears highland cattle. They have a beautiful heard at the back of the castle.

It had been a very chilly day, with smatterings of rain, but also glorious sunshine. We’d managed to stay dry though and, as usual, had an excellent little outing, coming home with some wonderful goodies. Quite an eventful Sunday.