SURPRISE TRYST

Is it time to escape with your loved one, but where? Do you have a need for serendipity but lack of inspiration? The Eluxetravel agency renews the romantic week-end cliche by offering tailormade surprise trips. The writer Simon Liberati and the filmmaker Eva Ionesco, as a couple in the city, went on an adventure for a romantic getaway, knowing nothing about their destiny.

My camarade, Thibault de Montaigu, editor-in-chief of L’officiel Voyage, calls me to propose a 4-day trip through France with Eva, provided we accept the conditions and ignore our destination points. Every day will be a surprise. I write, Eva takes photos and the Eluxetravel agency organizes everything, providing us with a series of mystery envelopes to be opened each morning. A simple phone conversation with Frédéric, the boss of the agency should allow him to identify our wishes our desires. From what I understand, Frederic is kind of like a touristic profiler. When he calls me, I was on the 70 bus, between the Palais Royal and Sèvres Babylone, on my way to have lunch with my parents. I explain that Eva loves massages and that my interest would be more in old churches, a souvenir of my holidays in the Citroën 2CV with mom.

Palm Sunday, April 14, 2019

Yesterday, we retrieved the 1st envelope from the leather pouch delivered to us by a courier. At 10:24 at the Montparnasse railway station, we take the train to Angoulême. Eva is very excited by the promise of a body-care treatment on arrival called “Rallumer les étoiles” (Rekindle the spirits) at the Domaine des Etangs, the first refuge of our mystery journey. As expected, she tried to coax me to open all 4 envelopes corresponding to each day, contrary to the commitment I made with the magazine.

- We need to check now, because what if there are things that we can’t physically do! Oh, great! In anticipation of the eventuality (hot-air balloon trip, masked ball, exploring caves, a triathlon), I had to accept that she loaded an extraordinary suitcase with fifty kilos, which lost a wheel on the stairs. Fortunately, because the Paris marathon is in progress and Eluxtravel wanted us to avoid the confusion, the driver planned ahead and arrived an hour in advance. First exoticism (for us): the 15th arrondissement with its avenues lined with Japanese cherry blossoms.

- Hey, I have never lived around here. - Neither have I.

- We could settle in this neighborhood, it’s empty like a Sunday back in the old days. There are no terraces, nor happy hours… - Don’t do your precious child act…

The precious child discovers that the escalator at the TGV Atlantique railway station is down. Cardio training to get to the train, car number 1, seat 13; lucky number! Angoulême is homeland to Taillefer and Lusignan, descendants of the fairy Melusine…

I dreamed of seeing the Saint-pierre cathedral and its 75 carved figures awaiting the Last Judgment, but the driver takes off as quick as possible, limousine-style, to get to La Rochefoucault, Chabanais (the name of a brothel) and Rochechouart in the north of the Charente region. This part of France, with the rolling hills in spring-time, is wonderful.

Despite the astronomical or astrological toponymy chosen by its owner, the Domaine des Etangs is not a Luna Park. It is a delightful little castle made of light-colored stones and pointed windows. Ponds are everywhere, like those in the Tale of Melusine. The domain includes a series of rooms and suites as well as individual houses named after constellations

(the Unicorn, the Dragon). Under the rafters, a table is set with two salads, layed-out on a bridge table near an astronomical telescope made of copper. Our suite called “Moon”, opens through here and we discover a dovecote with a magnificent roof structure of beams under glass. The walls are decorated with sketches by Hergé and Professor Tournesol’s rocket sits in a corner.

While Eva falls into a swooning ecstasy in the spa hidden in an old mill, I set off on a bicycle tour of the 1,000-hectare estate.

Red cows of the beautiful limousine race gallop at my side. Later, I sit under an oak tree to read Valery Larbaud, the most provincial of our globetrotting authors. The countryside around me is like a décor and I suddenly think of The Prisoner and the big ball in the television series from my youth.

Monday, April 15th

After a boat ride followed by a delicious lunch (duck breast and fillet of sole), we open envelope number 2: destination Cognac. A driver takes us to the five-star hotel Chais Monnet, recently converted from the old wine cellars and now open. On the program, spa treatment for Eva and a visit to the old Cognac town for me. On the walls of cellars and houses, black traces of torula compiacensis, a fungus that feeds on this “happy evaporation” of alcohol which makes cognac, can be seen everywhere. Just as we come back to the suite, I discover the fire at Notre Dame de Paris on the television.

I go down to the pool to share the news with Eva. Everything around is empty and I have the impression of being the panther in the film Cat People. A huge convertible pool and impressive state-of-the-art facilities. In this old Angoumois city where Kingfrançois the 1st was born, the Chais Monnet is resolutely contemporary.

Troubled by the pyrotechnical drama and Eva’s swimming session, we forget to go to the exquisite cognac bar located in the cellars, not far from a glass building, black like the torula.

Tuesday, April 16th

Wake up call at 9am for a royal breakfast surprise served in a wicker basket. Visit to the Abbaye aux Dames in a Citroën 2CV. I ramble on about my childhood and in the rearview mirror I see Eva rolling her eyes. Eric, the baggage handler and driver tells me that his mother, a Norwegian model, was a fervent reader of L’officiel. She asked him to buy a copy of the magazine at the airport when he came to see her in Norway.

I haven’t visited the city of Saintes since 1969 and I can see that the Abbey is in much better condition thanks to the music festival and the efforts of the association that manages it. 33 rooms were installed in the former cells reserved for the nuns. 15h30, departure in an orange Jeep for the Bordeaux region and more precisely the Château Smith Haut Lafitte and the hotel Les Sources de Caudalie. Arrival an hour and a half later in the vineyards.

The Château Smith is a wooden Scottish watchtower in the middle of unspoiled vineyards. We are settled in a lovely hermitage that looks like a lazarette in Cap Ferret. Total luxury, simple but the signature of a palace. A dive in the pool, a session at the Spa Caudalie for Eva (facial treatment) then dinner at the Rouge, the hotel’s wine bar: a Rabelaisian plate of ham, cold-cuts and sausages served with red wine from bottles carrying the infamous yellow labels, Les Hauts de Smith.

Wednesday, April 17th

The second to the last envelope. A powerful emotion gripped me, I’m thinking Castle Alzheimer, the retirement home: I forgot my pants at the Chais Monnet. The fire at

Notre Dame and my mother’s Citroën 2CV, way too many Proustian tremors. As a result, I yell at Eva, who starts screaming louder than the Scottish chimes at The Château Smith. What am going to do at the literary conference in Pau at the Centre Leclerc tomorrow? I’m going to look like a tramp with my old, fringed jeans brought back from Miami. Yelling, shedding tears… And then reconciliation, thanks to the charming manager of Chais Monnet who found my clothes. Direction? Direction?? Direction??? Eugénie-les-bains! Hotel Les Prés d’eugénie for a slimming diet menu by

Michel Guerard. Eva decrees that it’s a good idea because she’s obese. Eugénie-les-bains, a resort in the countryside created for the Empress, is seemingly untouched by time. Michel Guérard’s hotel is superbly decorated and its owner superbly preserved, modest and charming. We have a very nice, cozy suite under the roofs and it reminds me of the interior designer Madeleine Castaing. And to write, this is actually one of the nicest places I have ever been to. Much better than the room at the hotel Ritz where we stayed during the anniversary of Chopin’s death in 2016.

The regenerating effect of this slow journey in a region of France almost unchanged since the 1960s and being in Eugénie-lesbains, gives me a very peaceful feeling. Reading a book by Larbaud and the gastronomical slimming diet dinner, plus

800 calories makes me dream peacefully. The sweet and kind author Houellebecq has received the Legion of Honor medal and I had an unforgettable conference in Pau, homeland to other authors like Toulet, Beigbeder and Francis Jammes.

Thursday 18 April

It’s the end of our journey. I skip the yoga class to write, in exchange Eva doubles her spa treatment and spends the whole morning in the dream-like setting at Spa Sisley. It seems we’re back in 1890: baths with white clay in large booths decorated with antler furniture and jet massages with retro faucets, worthy of a classic old movie. I tell her that Isabelle d’ornano, born Potocka, creator of Sisley has a real taste for Rococo and also leisure time. Eva is more concerned about the future so she acquires Michel Guérard’s book, Minceur Essentielle.

Back in Paris we feel the effect of this trip: Eva sleeps twelve hours and is in better spirits for the first time in a long time and I write better, like an old limousine rolling down the road on a spring morning. PRACTICAL NOTEBOOK Because his (already) long experience in high-end travel taught him that real travelers ask, before anything else, to be surprised by a destination, Frédéric Savoyen had the idea of a new concept: the Surpriize trip. After having taken travelers around the world with his previous companies (Nosilys, then Mytravelchic. com, the leading, private sales web site for exceptional travel experiences, now Idiliz), the CEO of Eluxtravel has returned to the original source of traveling: discoving a country through the prism of a foundational, essential and authentic experience.

The primary purpose of Eluxtravel is to offer its customers luxury and customized solutions, but written in a different style than those of the “a la carte" vacation trips offered today.

“We often hear the phrase ‘I did this or that country'”, says Frédéric Savoyen. But we don't “do” a destination. We live it, we soak it up, we feel it, we appropriate the whole experience from a panel of emotions..."

The idea of the Surpriize trip is fully in line with this approach which aims to combine the originality of the destination, the quality of accommodation and the professionalism of the services available. With this offer, the tour operator prepares candidates wanting to escape, to expect the unexpected. New, enchanting and terribly exciting, Surpriize sharpens all the senses and plays the card of emotion and suspense. The concept is simple: the customer chooses the destination and the tour operator organizes an escape program, everything from A to Z, according to his desires and his passions. The itinerary is sewn together with new discoveries and personalized experiences revealed each morning by opening a surprise envelope with contents concocted by the Eluxtravel travel designers.

Just like a real customer, our reporter, Simon Liberati, contacted Frédéric Savoyen. He told him that he should be in Pau on Thursday to give a lecture and that he could leave with Eva Ionesco, his companion on Sunday for a four-day trip. Eluxtravel takes care of the rest.

Obviously, the experiment was conclusive. According to Eluxtravel, the surprise trip is likely to become the next gift to offer for a romantic weekend.clp

Tel. 01 76 24 24 40. Eluxtravel.com