少し戻って、湯布院に着いた日にことを。ちょうどランチタイムに由布院の駅に着いて、駅前にたくさんカフェなどあるだろうからそこでランチをしようと思っていたのですが、スィーツのお店やおやつ系のお店はたくさんありましたがランチが出来るようなとこはなく、諦めて、金鱗湖まで歩いてカフェでランチをしようということになりました。以前行った時に金鱗湖のカフェでランチを食べたことがあるのでそう決めたのですが、混んでいるかもという不安はありました。何しろ、駅前から金鱗湖に向かう道はアジアの人たちですごく混んでいたのです。

We go back in time a little – I’d like to blog the afternoon we had in Yufuin on the day we got there. Our train arrived in Yufuin around lunch time, so we were planning to have lunch somewhere near the station because I thought there were many cafes there. Although there were many sweets cafes and snack shops we didn’t see the sort of cafe, where you can have a proper lunch, so we decided to walk to Kinrin-lake (a well-known lake) because we’d had a decent lunch there once before. We were worried it may be too busy because there were so many people from Asia walking towards the lake along the street full of sweets cafes/shops and snack shops.

Cafe La Ruche というカフェに入りました。幸い、わたしたちが着いた時は空いていて、すぐに席に着くことが出来ました。パン屋さんを兼ねた軽食をセルフサービスで出しているカフェでした。この景色、見覚えがあったので調べてみたところ、やはり前回入ったカフェでした。前回はシャガール美術館の併設のカフェだったのですが、美術館は閉館し、カフェも以前とは変わったようです。結構広い湖ですし観光客も多いと思うのですが、他にカフェは見当たりませんでした。

We found “Cafe La Ruche” and went in there. Fortunately, when we got there it was quite empty and we were able to get a table straight away. It was a self-service cafe with simple food and a bakery. This view looked so familiar so I did a little search online and found out that it was the same cafe we’d been to some years ago, but it used to belong to a museum and was totally different inside The museum (which as dedicated to the artist Chagall) has closed and the adjacent cafe has been changed to this new one. The lake is quite large and had many visitors but we didn’t see any other cafe.

夫は、チーズ・オン・トースト。とても美味しいと言っていました。こんなものでも美味しいのとあまり美味しくないのとありますよね。

My husband had Cheese-on-toast, which he said was very good. Even such a simple thing can be very good or not very good.

わたしは、お野菜とチーズのタルティーヌ。バゲットがパリパリで美味しかったです。

I had Tartine of vegetables and cheese, the baguette was so nice and crispy.

旅館にお迎えをお願い出来る時間（3時）までまだまだあったので、お茶とタルトも。タルトはブラッドオレンジのタルトでしたが、その小ささにびっくりしました。一口タルト、という感じ。

We had a lot of time to kill until the time for the Japanese Inn to come and pick us up back at the station, so we also had tea/coffee and a tart. The tart was with blood orange, but what surprised us was the size! So small! You can probably eat in one mouthful.

しばらくこのカフェでゆっくりとしてから、金鱗湖をぐるりとお散歩しました。その写真は、次のポストで。

We took our time here, then walked around the Kinrin-lake. I’ll put the photos of the lake in the next post.