Top 10 facts about garlic
Garlic is a famously adored, used and respected in France. But did you know there’s far more to garlic that a tasty ingredient. Read below to discover some amazing garlic facts!
1. Garlic is believed to ward off heart disease, cancer, colds, and flu. The consumption of garlic lowers blood cholesterol levels, and reduces the buildup of plaque in the arteries.
2. The psychological term for fear of garlic is alliumphobia.
3. Garlic is said to fight off evil spirits and keep vampires away.
4. If your garlic has sprouted, it is still usable although it has lost some of its flavor and health benefits.
5. The smell of garlic can be removed by running your hands under cold water while rubbing a stainless steel object.
6. Garlic is a member of the onion family which also includes leeks and shallots.
7. Its pungent flavor is due to a chemical reaction that occurs when the garlic cells are broken. The flavor is most intense just after mincing.
8. If your garden is being attacked by aphids, an excellent home remedy to get rid of them is to spritz the leaves and blooms with a mixture of crushed garlic and water.
9. When picking out garlic at the shop, choose firm, tight, heavy dry bulbs.
10. Garlic has been used to infuse vodka and as an ingredient to make cocktails.
Mont-Saint-Michel has a special meaning to Le Gaudin
Le Gaudin is on one of the pilgrim trails. Beginning in the Middle Ages, pilgrims from the world over have come to honour St.Michael at the Abbey. The first Benedictine monks arrived in 966 and remodeled the existing lodgings to create a monastery.
Le Gaudin was the grounds for a former monastic shelter and feeding feeding station for pilgrims heading to Mt St Michael. The pilgrim’s way dates to around 40 years after the foundation of Mont-Saint-Michel. It is said that water was collected by those on the trail from the stream that still flows through the grounds of Le Gaudin to this day.
If you wanted to walk to Mont-Saint-Michel from Le Gaudin it would take around 21 hours on today’s landscape, so we assume most would prefer the 70 mins by car! Once there, and after taking in the awesome view, you can then wander up the winding walkway discovering shops and restaurants, hidden alleyways and more. Wherever you look there’s history in abundance and if you reach the top you’re rewarded with amazing views. All this is free of charge and you only play if you decide to enter the abbey, which we do recommend as you’ll not want to miss the architecture and history.
As the number 1 visited site in Normandy, we consider ourselves privileged to be a very small part of the history of Mont-Saint-Michel. Why not find out more about this amazing place by visiting the tourism site below.
Our new website is live!
Bonjour! We’re really excited that our new website here at Le Gaudin went live in the past week. We’ve been busy collating information from our old website along with new links and detail on the history, attractions and general culture of Normandy.
Of course a lot of people think of the war when it comes to Normandy so we’ve made sure to include as much as possible on museums and other related details. We’re also going to try and reflect the Normandy way of life through the website to give everyone an understanding of how great it is living in the Calvados region. We’ve started our recipes page so you can have your own French gourmet experience at home!
We’ve finally expanded into the world of social media too, sorry for the delay! We’re getting a little help here as we’re on a steep learning curve, but will post as much as possible to give an insight to life here, but hopefully not too much that we bore you on how good it is!
Finally, just a thank to all past clients who have stayed at Le Gaudin. We’ve been lucky enough that some have even posted reviews on our TripAdvisor page and we’re very grateful for that too. To our future clients too, we hope that you enjoy the website and all treat it as an ever-growing resource for everything Normandy and French! We’ll even be launching an online newsletter soon so you can catchup on things you may have missed. Just subscribe using the adjacent form.
Merci!
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“The Highlight of our trip. Highly recommend, it is a wonderful, tranquil location… Just wish we could have stayed longer!”
The huge open living room is a delight, comfortable and full of interest and books. Bedrooms are vast and wonderfully comfortable.
A wonderful, tranquil location, a few minutes of the town of Aunay-sur-Odon and within half an hour of the D-Day beaches.