Category: Places to Visit

It isn’t necessary for us to mention it, but we will anyway: We love Wine Country.  The sectors we spend the most time in are in the United States, but we have also gone wine tasting in Europe, Africa and Australia (sadly, not yet in South America).  We find the scenery to be beautiful, the food delicious, the people friendly and, of course, there’s the wine.

Meadowood Resort in St. Helena.  Photo courtesy of Five Star Alliance.

We have seen a worrisome trend in recent years, beginning in Napa Valley but spreading elsewhere as well.  What was once an area dedicated to a very particular kind of agriculture, with a few nice hotels, is being transformed into upscale resorts with wine tasting as a sideline.  Now, we have nothing against attractive hotels and try to stay in them as often as we can when travelling.  And there’s nothing wrong with golf, tennis, spas and top-flight dining rooms.  But when they start crowding out reasonably priced hotels and inns, so that Wine Country becomes the preserve of only those who can afford to stay there, then we have a problem.

Perhaps an even greater issue, as we see it, is that the vibe of Wine Country becomes different.  Perhaps 75 years ago, the reason to visit Napa Valley or Sonoma County was to be in the country, buy fresh fruit and maybe do some horseback riding.  But for at least forty of the intervening years, roaming through vineyards and tasting wine that have been the attractions there.  Even in some of the sleepier parts of Europe or Australia, wine tasting as a weekend or vacation activity has taken off.

Hotel de Pavie in Saint-Emilion.  Photo courtesy of All Wine Tours.

By changing the emphasis from wine tasting to spa living or golf, the tasting rooms will attract a different clientele.  Instead of couples taking in three or four wineries in a day, there will be visitors who only schedule one tasting a day, scheduled around their tee times or massage appointments.  Diners may have glasses of wine at suppertime, instead of a bottle and they may not be as particular about what’s in that bottle.  In fact, they may be more inclined to dine at the resort than in the local restaurants.  We have already experienced a bit of this in Napa Valley and are fearful it will creep in elsewhere.

Wine tasting has not been an inexpensive avocation ever since wineries discovered that charging for small pours of fine wine was a more profitable proposition than giving it away.  But tasting was a pleasure that could be enjoyed by casual tourists as well as connoisseurs with deep pockets.  Altering the focus to those who can afford Wine Country resorts will change the way that wineries approach their market.

There is nothing that can be done about this trend.  Those who want to open resorts will do so, and those more interested in golf or workouts are free to indulge those pastimes.  But those of us who are wine tasting devotees can go about doing what we have been doing.  We can, and will, visit, sip, dine, sip some more and maybe stay for dinner.  Let’s hope the wineries continue to cater to us.

Americans have a lot of difficulty with the word, orange.  We’re not sure if it’s two syllables or one or whether the first two letters are pronounced ah, aw or oh.  With Orange counties in New York, California and Florida, we’re not even sure where it is.  So a discussion on Orange, a city in France’s Rhône valley, ought to start with the pronunciation, which is oar-AHNZH, with the r sort of strangled at the back of the throat and the n stuck in the nose.

The city of Orange has a lot of history.  First there were the Gauls. Then when Julius Caesar won his war, some Roman veterans set up what became Orange.  The name is based on the Gallo-Roman name for the fort that was there and over time it’s morphed into the color we know as the Syracuse University basketball team.  Oh, yes, and that fruit of the same name.

The Roman Theater in Orange, in performance.  Photo courtesy of All About World Heritage Sites.

There are no Gallic ruins that can be seen but there is a lot of ancient Rome still in Orange that can be visited and admired.  The best known is the Roman Theater, still in use for concerts and plays (in French, not Latin).  The seating was restored in the 19^th century, but the stage – overseen by a statue of the Emperor Augustus – is original.  The theater accommodates 10,000 people to this day.

There is also an Arc de Triomphe that had been incorporated into the walls of the medieval city and now stands alone in restored glory.  The triumph in question was Caesar’s victory over the Gauls, which does seem a bit like rubbing it in.

Orange sits very much in the midst of Provençal Wine Country.  Châteauneuf du Pape is the next town over; Beaume de Venise, Vacqueyras and Gigondas are due east, twenty minutes’ drive on small rural roads.  There is no shortage of great wine to be had if you’re in Orange.

The market in Orange.  Photo courtesy of The Good Life France.

As wine tasters, you’ll certainly take advantage of travelling through the environs of Orange.  But be sure to leave time to enjoy this fine little city.  It is much more than ruins.  Of course, there’s a museum and a cathedral, as there are in virtually every French town and city.  But the people of Orange (Orangians? Orangeois? Orang-utans?) live there in leisure and comfort.

We have had the occasion to shop and cook in Orange, due to the pleasure of having friends there.  The chickens are plumper and more flavorsome than we’re used to in America.  The bread and pastries are indescribable.  And they grow more than grapes in the region around Orange.  If you manage to be there on market day, make sure to have some apricots, prune plums, figs and an incredible fruit called mirabelles.  They put whatever you buy at your local grocery to shame.  And for all you know, they could have been grown in an orchard only a few blocks away.

At those same markets, you can find the fabrics, table cloths, herbs, pottery and honey that Provence is famous for.  Take advantage of them while you’re there; you never know when you’ll pass that way again.

Power Tasting does not review restaurants.  This article is about a restaurant, but it’s not about the food, the drinks or the service but rather a special restaurant as a destination in itself.

Mustards Grill has been sitting alongside Route 29 in Yountville since 1983.  It was opened by Cindy Pawlcyn back then as a self-described “deluxe truckstop”.   We’ve been to truckstops, and that’s not what Mustards is.  Truckstops have big rigs in the parking lot, showers, and large persons more intent on nourishment and a quick getaway than on fine dining.

Photo Courtesy of Open Table.

What Mustards is and always has been is a roadhouse, a great American throwback, and that’s what makes it a Place to Visit.  If you feel as though you’ve heard of roadhouses, that’s probably because you came across the term in the works of F. Scott Fitzgerald, who was the ultimate chronicler of an emergent upper middle class in the 1920’s, now a century past.

A roadhouse was a drinking and dining establishment in the rapidly changing outskirts of major cities.  The boys had come marching home from World War I and having seen Gay Paree wanted no more of life on the farm.  Prospering in the post-war boom, they had snazzy roadsters and straw boaters and wanted to get out of town and have a good time.  The girls of the time were no less eager, with their bobbed hair and turned down hose.  Roadhouses spring up to meet a market demand.

Which brings us to Mustards.  Napa Valley was making some pretty fine wine in 1983, but once the sun went down, there was no place of any quality to get a meal or a drink.  Like the soon-to-be-suburbs of the 1920’s, Napa was changing its identity from a rural sector not too far from San Francisco into a winemaking (and tasting) mecca.  Ms. Pawlcyn started Mustards to meet a latter-day market demand for a simple place with not so simple food and lots of wine.  (It’s also worth visiting for its vegetable gardens, which we addressed in a previous article – still worth reading.)

She tipped her intentions on the side of the building, announcing that steaks, chops, ribs and “way too many wines” are to be had within.  From that day to this, Mustards has kept its promise.

There was a seamy side to roadhouses back when, including dancing flappers , gambling, bar fights and prostitution.  None of that is present at Mustards, of course, but for out-of-town visitors there is a sense that you’ve happened upon something only the insiders know about, something like a speakeasy (the urban equivalent of a roadhouse).  That’s because you’re as likely to be dining at a table next to locals and winemakers as other tourists.

A Stutz Bearcat.  Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.

We always drive up to Mustards in a car we rented at the airport.  Please excuse us if we pretend that we’re in a Stutz Bearcat, the quintessential roadster, wearing racoon coats.  We’ve been stopping at this bit of Americana through all the years of its existence and we can’t thinking of being in Napa Valley without going there.

If you are a true wine lover, then at some point in your life you have to go wine tasting in Burgundy.  Now, Burgundy is a big place and it includes winemaking areas such as Chablis, Beaujolais and Mercurey, all sources for very fine wine.  But when people think of Burgundy what they really have in mind is the fabled Côte d’Or, French for the Gold Coast.  That’s where the Grand Cru Chardonnays and Pinot Noirs come from.  It runs from Dijon (of mustard fame) in the north to a cluster of villages on the road to Chalons to the south.

And smack in the middle is the town of Beaune.

Anyone who goes wine tasting in the Côte d’Or will pass through or around Beaune.  For many visitors, Beaune is simply a starting point for going somewhere else.  Mostly they’re going to villages that equate to wines, like Nuit St. Georges, Gevrey-Chambertin, Volnay, Pommard or Montrachet.  We would like to recommend that you stop a while in Beaune itself.

The Place Carnot in Beaune.  Photo courtesy of Beaune Tourism.

The center of town is the Place Carnot, named after 19^th century President of France who had the ill luck to be assassinated.  There is a small carousel in the middle of that, that in its way says this is pleasant square is in a pleasant town where visitors are always welcome.

Cheeses at the shop of Alain Hess.  Photo courtesy of Wine Keller.

The square is ringed by shops and cafes.  One shop kept bringing us back time after time: Alain Hess, Maitre Fromager (Master Cheesemonger).  Charles DeGaulle once questioned how anyone could manage a country with 500 types of cheese.  We never counted, but we think you can find all 500 of them at M. Hess’ shop.  And of course he can sell you the wine and some charcuterie to go with the pique-nique you’ll have next to a vineyard.

There are lots of interesting things to do while you’re in Beaune.  In a previous edition, we’ve described the Hospices de Beaune, which is a treasure not to be missed whatever else you do in the region.  You can do some in-town tasting at Louis Jadot or at numerous oenothèques.  There’s the Musée de Vin, which is installed at the former palace of the Dukes of Burgundy.  And here’s a special tip: We’re not sure it still exists, but if you walk down the Rue du Faubourg Madeleine, away from the Place Carnot, on your right there’s a nondescript tabac with the best chocolate ice cream we’ve ever eaten.

There are many restaurants in the Côte d’Or where you can dine on French haute cuisine, and a few of them are in Beaune itself.  But if you want to feel French while you dine, go to a little café in Beaune where you can order a meal made from the fine Burgundian farms.  Start with escargot, drowning in garlic butter.  Then it’s either a boeuf bourguignon made from local Charolais beef or a roast poulet de Bresse, considered the finest chicken in France.  There will be local cheese before dessert, such as the bleu from the aforementioned Bresse.    You will soon realize that you’ve spent an afternoon indulging yourself, all the while pretending that you’re a local.

 

 

There are times when we’ve been on a wine tasting trip that we’re eager to do something else than tasting wine.  (Gasp!)  Often it’s because we know we’ve had enough alcohol for one day, but sometimes it’s just a desire to take advantage of other things that are of interest in the area we’re visiting.  As with most Americans interested in wine tasting, we’ve been to California’s Napa Valley more often than any other destination, which has led us from time to time to Bale’s Mill.

Bale’s Mill, as it is today.  Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress.

The precise name is Bale Grist Mill State Historic Park, but we’ve never run into anyone who calls it by its full name.  The road signs don’t, either.  It’s located on Route 29 where St. Helena and Calistoga meet.  There’s parking just off the highway and then you follow a trail through the woods until you reach the mill.  The trail is paved, so if you didn’t wear your hiking shoes, you’ll be all right.  And there are more than two miles of trails through the woods if you did come appropriately attired.

The mill has been there in one form or another since 1846, when that part of the world was called Mexico.  It was in actual use until the 1900’s and has been retained and restored several times over the years.  The most recent renovation was only completed in 2020.

The mill was erected by a doctor named Edward Bale.  It was used by local farmers who brought their grain there to be ground into flour on the mill stones, which were powered by a large wheel driven by Mill Creek.  No doubt the mill came first and the name of the creek followed.  Bale had married into the Vallejo family that governed the region and when he died in 1849, his widow took over its operation.   Evidently she was a canny businesswoman and did quite well with it.

There are tours (with guides in historic dress) and milling demonstrations on the weekend.  School tours happen during the week, so you might have a troop of little visitors with you when you go.

There is an attraction to Bale’s Mill for those whose primary purpose for being there is tasting wine.  Napa Valley was and is primarily an agricultural area (although tourism is rapidly catching up).  It’s one thing to read about the history of the region and what has been grown there and quite another to see and experience it.  Bale’s Mill is a trip into Napa Valley’s past and in a way of the people who made it what it is today.

Before there were big corporations selling expensive bottles, there were farmers, many of whom were Italian immigrants who tilled the soil.  Yes, they planted vines to remind them of the homes they left behind but they had to eat more than grapes.  They grew wheat and corn and brought their produce to the widow Bale.  There was – and is – an elevator that carried the grain upstairs to be cleaned.  Then it was fed into the grindstones to make flour and cornmeal, which ultimately became bread.

All in all, Bale’s Mill makes a fine diversion from a day of sipping wine, one with a lot of history to be discovered.

Yeah, the name of this place to visit when you go wine tasting on the North Fork is just too, too cute.  Evidently, back in the mists of time, it was a simple trail that came to be known as the local lovers’ lane and the name, with a little editing, has stuck.  For the visitor to the North Fork, primarily interested in wine tasting, it offers several reasons to stop.

First, and perhaps foremost, it’s a place midway between Riverhead and Greenport where you can get something to eat.  Of course, if you’re going to be sipping wine all day, it’s important to put some food in your stomach.  So if you’ve visited one or two wineries already, you’d better stop and Love Lane is really the only place to go.

Photo courtesy of the New York Times.

There are two dining spots to choose from, Ammirati’s and Love Lane Kitchen.  With no criticism of the former, we keep going back to Love Lane Kitchen.  It’s the sort of eatery where everybody seems to know everybody, welcomes one another by first name and always has time for a cup of coffee.  There always seem to be a few moms with youngsters trying hard not to be noisy.  The menu is primarily sandwiches and salads, although breakfast can still be had through lunch time.

Oh, and the cakes are made by Mom.

Besides the food, there is an attraction to Love Lane that is more atmospheric than commercial.  The street is three blocks long but everything you might want to see is on only one of those blocks.  It hearkens back to a small-town America that may never have been quite so shined up for the tourists but that nevertheless was and still is real.  Trees line the street.  There are places to park.  The shops have old-timey storefronts.  And there’s a charming white clapboard church at one end of the street.

The shops on Love Lane do reflect the sensibilities of wine tasting tourists.  Lombardi’s Love Lane Market is the sort of gourmet grocery that would be right at home in New York City.  So are the cheese shop, the boutiques and the sweet shop(pe).  But they don’t have the feel of bits of Manhattan that people have dragged with them out to the country.  Locals patronize here as well, and they all stay open in the winter.

Sure, lots of countries have small towns.  In Bordeaux or Burgundy there are also little villages, each with un café, une épicerie and une église.  But those are French cafés, groceries and churches.  This is unmistakably an American small town, with a vibe more New England than Big Apple.

The other end of Long Island is Brooklyn, definitely urban.  The North Fork is rural and Love Lane is a corner of that lifestyle, only two hours away.  It is a destination in the sense that you would come there to have lunch and then stroll around.  If you don’t pop into every store or the wine tasting room that’s right there, you can see it all in ten minutes.  But those are ten well-spent minutes.

Right in the middle of Burgundy’s fabled Côte d’Or, there’s a hill.  It’s in the village of Aloxe-Corton, nestled next to Pernand-Vergelesses and Ladoix-Serrigny.  For lovers of Burgundy wines, these are not just the place-names of some tiny villages.  They’re the names of specific Chardonnays and Pinot Noirs.  That hill is also the name of a wine appellation.  It’s Corton-Charlemagne.

Charlemagne.  Photo courtesy of history.com

No one encourages you to walk through the vineyards atop that hill, but no one stops you either.  And when you do, you can tell yourself that you’re walking in the footsteps of Charlemagne.  Yes, that Charlemagne, the fellow who was crowned as the first Holy Roman Emperor on New Year’s Day in the year 800.  Back in the day – way back – he owned the vineyards atop that hill.

There’s no particular reason to believe that Charlemagne actually trod through the ancestors of these vines.  But he could have.  And that fact alone allows you to indulge yourself in the ancient history of wine.  Today and for time immemorial, they’ve grown Chardonnay there and not just any Chardonnay.  These grapes go into the grand cru white wines that bear the name, Corton-Charlemagne.  Legend has it that Mrs. Charlemagne wanted him to drink white wine so his beard wouldn’t appear dirty when he drank.  Who knows, it’s true.

Okay, you’ve climbed the hill.  You’ve walked through the vines.  You’ve bathed yourself in history.  What do you do next?

For one thing, go back down the hill and visit the wineries in Aloxe-Corton.  There’s no shortage of wineries in and around this village.  The best known among them are Louis Latour, Corton-Grancey and Corton C.  Some of them offer both grand cru whites and reds, which is unique to this little spot along the famous Route des Vins.   (Most other Burgundian AOCs have one or the other, but not both.)

Corton C, also known as Corton-André and Pierre André Estates.  Photo courtesy of Le Bien Public.

Perhaps more so than any other locale in Wine Country, a major attraction of wine tasting in the Côte d’Or is the architecture.  Oh, Bordeaux and the Loire Valley have magnificent châteaux, but they don’t have the roofs like they have in Burgundy.  For centuries, the grandees of the region competed with one another in topping their homes with most elaborate tiling and the area around Aloxe-Corton has some of the most inspiring ones.

In particular, you should make a stop at Corton C (formerly Corton André as well as Pierre André and many names before that, over the centuries).  It lays claim to the Corton-Charlemagne hill and keeps it in production after all these years.  The château was built only in the 19^th century, replacing one from the 18^th century which sat on top of the 15^th century caves.  Once again, history flows through everything here.

The elaborately interlaid tiles, polished and resplendent in the sun, make this winery among the most photographed in the world.  And not just the roof.  The towers and pinnacles give the whole building a fairy-tale quality.  You expect to meet princes and dukes when you enter, but it’s only other wine lovers like yourself.

 

 

Going wine tasting on Long Island’s North Fork is a day trip for New York City residents.  Except it isn’t.  Figure two hours each way on the Long Island Expressway if you’re very lucky and it’s easy to see why it’s a good idea to plan for at least one overnight stay.  Moreover, that gives visitors a chance to take in the little villages and towns along the skinny peninsula at Long Island’s northeastern end.  (The southern fork is where rich New Yorkers go to get away from other rich New Yorkers.)

Photo courtesy of Pinterest.

Once you pass through Jamesport, Mattituck, Cutchogue, Peconic and Southold you’ll get to Greenport.  It’s the largest village on the North Fork, but it can hardly be called a town, much less a city.  It is where you’ll find the most inns, restaurants and retail establishments.

These days, the major industries in Greenport are tourism and wine, which are obviously related.  It’s a scenic village with roots back to the 17^th century, when it was settled by people expanding beyond New Haven in Connecticut.  At one time, fishing, oystering and whaling were the primary means of livelihood in Greenport.  The oceans were overfished and the waters became too foul for oysters and the North Fork became known for agriculture, in particular duckling and potatoes.

Greenport always retained its maritime character and many people still make their way there to sail their pleasure craft.  There is a thriving business in charter fishing, which is not our thing.  But we hear from others that at a non-industrial scale the waters are plentiful with bluefish, flounder and other flatfish, fluke, striped bass, porgies and sea bass.

Photo courtesy of Food & Wine Magazine.

We prefer to take our fish one at a time, on a plate with a little lemon sauce.  Greenport is famous for its restaurants, all nautically themed with names like the Frisky Oyster and Crabby Jerry’s.  Quite a few are elegant spots with fine wine lists and views of the marinas.  Others are more casual, with picnic tables rather than white tablecloths.

A half century ago, when Alex and Louisa Hargrave decided that potato fields might also do well with grape vines, they created an attraction that continues to bring many visitors to the North Fork and into Greenport.  Now, Greenport is not St. Helena or Healdsburg, but for those whose idea of a good time is a glass of local wine on a charming patio (AKA the readers of Power Tasting), Greenport is a place to visit.

There is a New England vibe to Greenport, some of which is mostly its natural heritage and little bit the creation of town planners.  Either way, a wine tasting trip with time given to enjoying the pleasures of an authentic fishing village, polished up to be sure, is well worthwhile.  Unfortunately, Greenport gets crowded in summer and empties out the rest of the year.  We enjoy a midweek getaway in late May or early September best of all.

This article is the latest in Power Tasting’s irregular series on great wine bars of the world, although the Maison des Vins isn’t exactly a wine bar.

Just off the main square of the village of Saint-Chinian sits a handsome stone building with a big sign announcing that it is the Maison des Vins du Saint-Chinian, the “House of Wine of Saint-Chinian”.   At first glance, it seems to be a wine shop but it’s not, even though you can buy wine there.  Then you might think it’s the local cooperative, where the local vignerons bring their grapes to be crushed and sold as generic wine from the region.  It’s not that either, but it is the headquarters for the association of growers and vintners of the Saint-Chinian AOC.

Go inside and you will find that it is the place for you to learn about and taste the unique characteristics of the region’s wines, of which more later.  You will be greeted by a staff member whose first task, in our experience, is to size you up.  Are you looking to buy a few bottles or are you there to try their wines?  It’s pretty easy to discern the tourists (they’re not speaking French, for one thing).  And if you aren’t a buyer, are you really there to learn or just to drink some free wine and then leave.

If you, like us, want to learn, the personnel at the Maison des Vins are eager to teach.  What are you interested in, red, white or rosé?  How much do you already know?  What kind of wine do you like?  The servers are all fluent in English, so you don’t have to worry about that.

Before you even get to taste any wine, you’re likely to get a geography lesson.  Your server will explain that the north and east of the Saint-Chinian region is an area of rocky hillsides, while the south and west are level plains.  The soils are schist in the hills and calcareous limestone and clay in the plains, and the qualities of the wines from those two areas differ accordingly.

With some idea of your tastes and level of interest, your server will pour a taste from their extensive rows of wine dispensers.  If you like it, he or she will offer you others like it.  And if not, you’ll get a chance to sample other styles until you’re satisfied.  As you’re tasting, and if you show that you’re interested, the server can tell you all about the vineyard where the wine comes from and the people who made it.  In all likelihood, the farmers/winemakers have been neighbors of the region for generations and all are members of the association and therefore part-owners of the Maison des Vins.

The association publishes a guide to all the member wineries which your server will be happy to give you.  It includes a map, so after you visit the Maison des Vins, you can get in your car (or walk up the street) and go to some of your favorites.  A word of warning: many of these producers are tiny, with their premises on little country roads.  Even with a map, an address, a phone number and a web site, they’re not always easy to find.

 

 

California is a state with many thrilling cities: San Francisco’s hills, San Diego’s sailing and Hollywood!  Alas, Sacramento is not thrilling unless you’re a politician, Sacramento being California’s capital.  But if you come for a visit without overwhelming expectations, the city has much to offer.

For one thing, it is ideally suited as a base for wine tasting.  It’s pretty much in the middle of Amador County, Lodi and Napa Valley.  If you don’t mind driving a bit, they’re each about an hour away from downtown Sacramento.  Because of work requirements we had the opportunity to live there for several months.  It gave us the chance to see the city as a bit of a throwback to the California of yesteryear.

Old Town Sacramento.  Photo courtesy of CBS Sacramento.

The Old Town section is a very deliberate recollection of those times.  It’s a state historic park, where they have carefully preserved commercial buildings from the mid-19^th century.  That date is important because of the great Gold Rush of 1849 that turned Sacramento from a sleepy Spanish mission town to a bustling metropolis.  Today, Old Town is a bit (well, more than a bit) touristy, but the buildings are real and you can try to imagine what it must have been like when the miners came into town.

Sacramento is located at the confluence of the Sacramento and American Rivers. It has badly flooded many times.  It seems that California either has a drought or way too much rain.  If you hit a rainy period, you can walk along Old Town’s riverfront and see the Sacramento threaten to spill over its banks.  It happened often enough that the city leaders raised up the Old Town section in its entirety, so you probably won’t have water lapping at your ankles (or higher) when you’re there.

One real attraction there is the Railroad Museum, with several old steam engines to gawk at.  You can event take a ride on an old train, up the Sacramento River.

The Crocker Art Museum is the oldest museum west of the Mississippi River, founded in 1885.  It has a rather nice permanent collection, many paintings from artists in the bay area and often hosts interesting exhibitions.  For a tourist, it’s good to know that you can easily take in the whole museum in an afternoon.

Sacramento is in an interesting place for eating out.  It is at the north end of California’s Central Valley, known as America’s Salad Bowl.  Thus there are many restaurants that feature “farm to fork” dining.  And if you have a bite or a drink near the Capitol, you’re very likely to be able to listen in as some politicos talk over the affairs of the day.

The crows come in at sunset.

We loved a particularly unique Sacramento experience.  Right at sundown every day, thousands of crows fly in from the fields surrounding the city.  They have predators outside the city but a lot less in town, so they congregate in the area around the Cathedral at 12^th Street and K, not far from the Capitol.  For about five minutes each evening, a thick cloud of birds, cawing like mad, settle in on the roofs, trees and lampposts.  Then they shut up and go to sleep.