May holiday day 5: Sens in the sunshine

Dinner last night was appallingly mediocre, hopelessly under-seasoned. I don't think the cook had ever heard of salt and pepper, never mind anything else! The puds were nice, though.

It was cold but clear, this morning, so we went into Sens to visit the market hall, which was faintly disappointing, as there were very few merchants there. I expect it is fuller at weekends.  Nevertheless, we bought a very nice melon, some Tomme de Savoie cheese and two quiches, which were delicious when we had them for lunch a bit later!

We then went for another walk around the town, enjoying the quiet streets, but saddened by the number of empty shops - it looks as if France hasn't recovered from the recession the way the UK has.  One of the things we saw was the house of Jean Cousin, a sculptor and painter who had been responsible for much of the Cathedral.

 There is a statue of him in the park which looks at first glance as if he is doing something Very Rude Indeed, but on closer inspection, he is just holding a paintbrush.

 We headed back to the hotel via the supermarket for a delicious lunch of quiche and salad, melon and the end of the strawberries.  Followed by a nap, at least for me - I don't know about the Swan Whisperer! Then I did some work, and after a cup of tea we set out again.

We drove up to Bray-sur-Seine, and then the SW said he fancied seeing Provins, so we started off in that direction, but ended up going to Coulommiers, in the hope of finding a factory making the eponymous cheese, which we love. Far from it - we didn't even see a cow! We thought the latter might be abundant in Brie, where we were, but not a bit of it. We did see some Charolais, but they are mostly beef. And for the most part it was arable, with oil wells!  And rainbows! So what do they make the cheese from?

We discussed heading into Paris for the evening, but decided it would be an expensive drive and an even more expensive dinner, so we didn't, but drove back to Provins, and then to Montereau-Faute-Yonne, where we had dinner. We wished we'd eaten in Provins, where there was a plethora of restaurants, and in Montereau there seemed not to be many, but we found a Chinese, which was lovely. And so back to the hotel for a final night.