Friday, July 20, 2012

Cram Chaban!

I’ve always been fascinated by the name on a sign post we’ve passed over the years when we were travelling North. Cram Chaban sounds like a magic word. Yesterday we set off to visit the village.

In fact Cram Chaban consists of the community, Cram and another part of the village which is either called Chaban or Cram Chaban? It’s tucked away in the middle of nowhere and is quite a pretty village.

As there was nowhere to have lunch there, we travelled to the next village to find somewhere to eat and happened on Basil Fawlty. When we asked if we could eat outside he said “We don’t usually serve meals out side. Do you really want to eat outside? Well I suppose if you must eat out side I’ll serve you a meal outside…” and so on. There was no menu, just the menu du jour which was simple and quite good. He told Rob off for being on his phone at the table (timetable problems – I was secretly pleased though). We were handed a selection of cheese on a plate, each piece wrapped up, but it was all the same goat’s cheese. If he hadn’t reminded us of Basil Fawlty we wouldn’t have stayed – it was quite amusing.

We then enjoyed a good walk around the beautiful, old village and went into the tourist office where there was an exhibition of work by Michel Moro, who combines paint and mosaics. The website does not do justice to the colours. His workshop is open to the public and is in CRAM! I think that we will be returning soon.

5 comments:

Plastic Mancunian said...

Hi Anji,

Love the idea of meeting a Basil Fawlty.

I met a Chinese version once in Hong Kong - he was a very rude waiter, so rude in fact that he was really funny.

I love that.

:0)

Cheers

PM

Anji said...

PM: He mentioned regular visits from other English ex-pats. Perhaps the reason why they go there is for a dose of Basil Fawlty?

I discovered that the man who inspired the character has his own Wikipedia entry:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Sinclair_(hotel_owner)

Lucy Melford said...

The Thistle Hotel in Brighton has been offering 'Fawlty Towers' meals, and clearly there is a market for such an experience. I suppose it must be based on the 'Gourmet Night' episode. Personally I'm not attracted by the thought of bad-tempered, hysterical service, even if it would be fun to ask whether there was 'any sign of the duck'!

Lucy

Karen Fayeth said...

It sounds like a perfectly lovely day, Mr Fawlty aside, of course.

Anji said...

Lucy: I prefer a quieter meal myself.

Karen: It was