Maison de l'Outil et de la Pensée Ouvrière

The Tool Museum in Troyes. Thankfully, a very different concept from the Tool Shed in Sydney! Do not google that if you're at work!

This tool museum was an unexpected highlight of our trip to Troyes. A fascinating (seriously) array of tools from more careers than I thought possible. And I finally got to see what a spokeshave looks like. Look away Radio 4 listeners but for those of us who aren't too ashamed that they used to listen to Wogan's show on the way to work (what, only me then?) it brought back fond memories of Paul Waters.

Actually Troyes was a rather unexpected highlight of our trip to France. We don't exactly do a lot of research before we head to France. Just book ferries/eurotunnel, plan the dates we're going to be at SooB's, pack a map, a Michelin guide and a satnav and see where life takes us. Troyes, however, has been on our radar for the last couple of years purely because K was born there. We intended to go last year but had an unscheduled stay in Dijon due to a broken toe link and never made it. Even this year we didn't do any research and K rather apologetically warned me at breakfast that it might be rubbish, he really couldn't remember it at all. We even made vague plans to simply have lunch and leave if we didn't like it. There was a nice drive through the Champagne region on the way.

Oh how wrong we were. It was glorious and we absolutely LOVED it. Simply fabulous. How it's not higher on the tourist radar, I don't know but selfishly I'd quite like to keep it that way. Beautiful half-timbered houses in the old town, great museums, restaurants and an amazing cathedral. Steeped in history, yet modern and not too touristy at the same time. The only problem was the tourist offices, loads of them, and none of them seemingly open while they moved offices. The door was ajar at one so we managed to get the musuem recommendations from a slightly baffled women. It could have been my attempts at French. Or that we'd ignored the "we're closed" sign as it directed us back to two other offices that we'd already been directed away from. Maybe that's why it didn't feel touristy. Everyone else was just wandering aimlessly round the city on some cruel wild goose chase.

We crammed in the tool museum (which we were at for hours, luckily we're both fairly geeky), a wander round town, more than decent lunch, the time trial in a café bar, the new stained glass museum and the cathedral before 6pm and the realisation that neither of us wanted to leave. Cue much scrambling for a hotel room and the meal of the trip.

The food was sumptuous, the wine was stunning, the service was first class except that is for a poor trainee who was having the first shift from hell. At least I hope it was her first shift as she won't have that job by now if it wasn't. She brought out the amuse bouche without explanation, the sommelier who was supervising said "no you have to tell them what it is?". Blank look, explanation from sommelier, "yeah that", no tell them, flustered look and inability to repeat. She looked so out of her depth, bless her. And every time she went into the kitchen you heard something smash, things spilled, bread rolls became projectile missiles. If it could go wrong for her it did. Her face said "beam me up Scotty" all night. It didn't spoil our enjoyment of the meal one bit but you can understand why I haven't named the restaurant. I'd go back in a heartbeat but they might not want that review on the internet!

Vx