Stylish Tana

Woke up early to the sound of church bells. 5:30 is perhaps a little bit early to start with the kind of noise but not in Tana. Seemed to me that when one church was done with the ringing the next one started only just to add a little more volume to the bells. So why not get up early and do some blog-writing. Oops, Internet not working. Maybe tomorrow then.
Our last day in Tana and before 2 full days of traveling - first to South Africa for a short stop and a night at the airport hotel in OR Tambo airport in Jo'burg and then a looong flight to Hong Kong. So today is dedicated to "chill out" in Tana.
We had breakfast with the group and booked a table for the dinner at the "La Varangue" restaurant. The rest of the group will go to another place to have a farewell dinner - we have mixed feelings about that. It would be nice to be with them for a final evening - on the other hand they have different expectations to what's included in the dinnner (Fish-finger-salad), and we would really like to try the best place in Madagascar - at an extremely good price that is.
So we went on our morning walk to the centre of Tana. Super morning with lots of sunshine and busy city. Went to the big station and realised that there was only one platform and no trains. Walked back on the main street to find a nice cafe where we had some quiche, ice cream and drinks. Had a short stop at the Varangue on our way back to the hotel just to check out the place. It looked really nice.
Spent some time on the hotel before walking to the Hilton for an afternoon swim in the pool. By now it was called the "Carlton" since it had not been able to upgrade the standard of the hotel and therefore could not keep its Hilton brand. Pool area was nice but looked a little 1980's although not too bad. Hotel was a big concrete block, not making Tana any more pretty but certainly big compared to the rest of town.
The afternoon turned out to be cloudy but warm and soon some of the others from the group arrived to hang out with us after their morning/afternoon trip to various bird/lemur/wildlife parks.
Went back to our hotel to get ready for the evening, and went to La Varangue for dinner around 18:00. It is a nice small hotel with restaurant, they have a big terrasse where we had a Kir Royal before dinner. And then a delicious and rather big 3 course meal - not a the Michelin level but certainly close to. Add a bottle of nice french red wine and it was a perfect evening for us. How about "Brasse de Jambon a 16 heures dans temperature basse avec pommes des terres a'la ancinenne" for main course. Only the French can do that and with success.

One small dissappointment - the main chef was in France so there was no "Special menu gourmande" - but the alternative was certainly good.