Thursday October 14, 2010
France is like an old friend. We have not been here since
2006, but she does not admonish us for our absence – she is as welcoming as
ever. A cursory look at our passports, a rubber stamp, and we are in. The Paris bistro in the arrivals section of Charles-de-Gaulle
airport beckons us with flaky butter croissants and aromatic espresso. It is
appealing after an overnight flight. But we have places to go, a two hour drive
under a cloud of jet lag, so we head out as soon as we can. A shiny Mercedes-Benz awaits (Avis calls it a
standard size car, we call it a treat). We ease out of the airport parking and find
ourselves trapped in a bumper-to-bumper crawl towards the Paris suburbs. It turns out that there is a strike that has
hit something in Paris. Again. Yes, France is like an old friend – a friend with issues.
We have faced strikes on many
of our trips to France. We do not know what the strike is about but that doesn’t matter right
now. If we had known, we might have taken a different route out, but to the
French folks at Avis, a strike is not news. An hour later we escape the
grid-locked city traffic as we head into the countryside.
This is the first time we are
vacationing with friends in Europe. The plan started with Denise and Barry in Venice and spending a week or so in the south of France. Then a close friend, Bruce, tells us he will be in France at the same time, and, coincidentally, on the week of
his 60th birthday. Why not meet? Barry’s first hit in a web search
of France gites (apartments) offers a charming 4 bedroom place
in Sarlat, a historic centre of the Dordogne
region. Emails fly back and forth. Two
couples becomes 4. Four bedrooms is just right. The planning gets into full
gear. But Bruce’s business is in Paris and St-Malo, across the country from Sarlat so we
choose a new destination - Brittany.
Friends change their agendas for each other. Two gites outside of Cancale. We
have a plan. We will arrive in Cancale on Saturday AM, some of the others on
Saturday PM, and the remainder on Tuesday.
But it is Thursday, and we
are on our way to Alençon, a lace-making centre in Normandy. Out of the urban congestion, we pass large farms of wheat,
mustard, and other crops, some already harvested leaving only the rich
brown-red fields under the October sun. Some winter wheat is already starting
to appear in places. It is lunch hour, so we turn off into Dreux with its picturesque
winding main street. The most prominent restaurants include a Japanese sushi
place and a Chinese buffet. Not what we had in mind. We go back to the highway
and soon see a small roadside restaurant, le Pré Vert, advertising a 12€
lunchtime menu. A few trucks are parked in the lot so we figure it cannot be
bad. (But then bad food in rural France is a rarity.) Several young men in paint-stained
working clothes are having beers at the bar near the front door of the
restaurant. We are seated in the main dining room and enjoy a nice lunch
including a buffet of salads, patés, and wine, a main course of steak-frites,
and a choice of desserts. An elderly couple walks in and greets us “bonjour m’sieur
et dame” in a typical French way. The beer drinkers proceed to their tables for
lunch and greet us as well “bon appetit m’sieur-dame”. Our old friend, France, has
not lost her style.
We continue to Alençon. Our
highway map is out of date, and many roads have been re-numbered so we will need
to buy a new map sometime. However, it is easy to navigate in France if you know your destination and the towns and cities
on the way. Those names do not change. So we make it to the outskirts of
Alençon. We have a crude map of Alençon – a printout from mappy.fr. However at
street-level in the real-time thick of rond-points (traffic circles) and
zones pietonnes (pedestrian-only streets), we become disoriented very
quickly and feel lost in the mesh of narrow streets.
Nevertheless it is easy to
find our way out – experience gives us a three step plan. Step 1: locate our
destination and the names of the next major towns on the map. We are headed to St-Paterne.
Our map tells us that we need to head from Alençon towards St-Paterne, with Mamers
a further destination, and further down, the cathedral city of Chartres. Step 2: look for a direction sign indicating “toutes
directions” (all directions). It takes just a few blocks along a main
street to find one. Step 3: follow the signs until we see a sign pointing to one
of these towns. We soon see the green sign to Chartres. Several rond-points and a few minutes later,
we are at the Chateau St-Paterne, a 15th century hideaway for King Henri
IV and our home for the next two nights.
The chateau is run as a small
hotel by a young couple whose family has owned the property for many
generations. The fairy-tale style manor house is nestled in 25 acres of parkland. We are led up the marble centuries-old
stairs to our room, a large bedroom overlooking the park. The high ceilings and
paneled walls speak of an era when no expense was spared to house the nobility.
A large bedroom window overlooks the expansive grounds dotted with lone chairs
and tables here and there in the vast, empty spaces, as if in a Magritte
painting. Our bathroom is modern except for the toilet which is tucked into a
curious wooden box in a corner closet. The dressing room wall paneling is not
tightly fastened, allowing us a glimpse of what was once a secret passage,
plastered over today. The swimming pool is closed at this time of year, but we
enjoy a brief stroll of the grounds in the pleasant afternoon sun. In a wooded
area we see cyclamen naturalized on the ground in the shade of the trees.
Jet-lag fatigue is catching
up with us so we decide on an early supper. Now that we have found our way
once, it is very easy to get into and out of Alençon so we return to the city
for supper. We do not find any restaurants in the city centre offering more
than brasserie fare. We opt for crepes and pear cider (poiré, or perry)
at a small créperie as a teaser for what we expect in Brittany. We return to the chateau for a comfortable sleep in
one of Henri IV’s bedrooms.
The small city of Alençon is known for its lace-making and as the birthplace of
Ste-Thérèse de l’Enfant Jesus. Alençon lace represents a standard of quality
but is hardly made any more so it is not offered for sale anywhere in town. The
next morning, we are content to wander the streets and let the old walls and
architectural details grab our attention. The houses are built of stone, and
centuries of weathering has changed the colour or eaten away bits of the
mortar, leaving a shimmering texture of gray and beige on every surface and at
every angle as we traverse the tangle of streets and ruelles, a
visual-scape typical of these old cities. We read that many buildings date from
15th century however we do not really know - an old building – une vieille
batîsse - never reveals her true age. We will discover that a new one might
not either. Old and modern live in harmony. What really strikes us is how clean
everything is. The city has even installed plastic bag dispensers for
dog-owners.
We hear in a café that oil
refinery delivery truck drivers are joining in the strike and that gas stations
may close for the weekend for lack of fuel. Before returning to our hotel, we decide
to top off our car’s tank, but there is no diesel left. Apparently there is
none to be found in Alençon. Our car has a large tank and we have enough fuel
to get to St-Malo and keep us going a few days. But, how long will this last? We
hear on the news that some flights out of Orly are already starting to be cancelled but the extent
of the disruption is still quite sketchy.
We return to the chateau for cocktails
and a candlelight dinner. A chef is cooking tonight – he is rehearsing for a
soon-to-be-opened restaurant. They offer a fixed menu with asparagus flan,
codfish main, and a tarte-tatin (traditional French upside-down apple
pie). The large portions are probably geared toward a clientele of mainly
English and American travelers; however everything is delicious if a little uniform
in colour.
We have truly enjoyed our
brief stay here. The quality and cleanliness of the chateau is evident in every
corner and this regal residence deserves a return visit. Château de Saint Paterne, 4, rue de la Gaieté,
St-Paterne, Normandy, 72610, http://www.chateau-saintpaterne.com.
To Brittany, Saturday October 16
We leave the chateau early to
be sure to arrive in St-Malo in time to meet our friends. They are due to
arrive from Paris at 12:58
on the TGV (train grande vitesse). We hear that there may be train
delays due to the strike but we have no news. We do not have a telephone, and
we are out of email contact on the road. On the way to St Malo, we check out
the gas stations along the road to see if any are pumping diesel. There is one
and we fill up with no hesitation.
We find our gite, a few
kilometers outside of Cancale, and then head to the train station in St-Malo, a
further 10 km down
the road. The TGV from Paris was cancelled, but there was a later one to Rennes, with a transfer arriving in St-Malo at 2:30 PM. This gives us time to get some groceries – cheese
and wine and breakfast fixings. Our friends show up on the 2:30 train.
We recall having eaten fish
and seafood at the port in Cancale, lined with fishing docks and restaurants,
so we lead the group to Cancale for dinner. We see the sign for the port and
head down the twisting, descending street. We reach the water and see three restaurants,
and two of them are closing. Hmmm, it really seemed bigger than that to us in
our collective memories. A man in the one open restaurant beckons us in. His
name is Maurice. Maurice is a little hunched over, wearing an orange felt
jacket and white plastic rimmed glasses (someone says dollar store) and looks
faintly like someone who has enjoyed a few happy hours earlier in the day.
Nevertheless it is starting to get a bit late so we accept the invitation. We
are the only customers. The restaurant offers a typical coastal selection of
fish, seafood, and meat dishes in three-course “menus”.
If the food was unremarkable
in quality, we enjoy our first night out together. Maurice brings our plates.
The last one arrives, and Maurice has a squeeze-bottle of ketchup in his arm.
Ketchup? In France? With fish? He asks the diner if he can put some
ketchup on her fish and squeezes the bottle anyway, spreading ketchup across
her sweater. Actually, it is fake ketchup. Maurice is a joker. He says he was
once a magician named Mephisto, and treats us to a series of bad jokes. Well,
bad magic is better than nothing when only one restaurant is open and the food
is only so-so. By many North American
standards, it was ok, but it ranks with the worst we have ever had in France. Our memories must have been playing tricks -- it
sure seemed that Cancale was better endowed with restaurants.
We return the next morning to
Cancale for the open market. The vendors have overtaken the entire street
behind the church and we stock up on fresh salad greens, olives, tapenades, dried
sausage, rotisserie chicken, and bread and browse the stalls selling clothing
and accessories. Down the street is the port of Cancale – the real port, with dozens of restaurants and
fishermen selling raw oysters at the dock. It turns out that last night’s
sortie was in Port-Mer, a small community outside of Cancale and not in the
city proper. It is not quite lunchtime yet but we feast on raw oysters, freshly
fished and shucked. The salty-sweet taste of these sea delights will linger for
days.
Now that we have located the
real restaurant row in Cancale, we return there for dinner. It can be a
challenge agreeing on a restaurant among five people, but one place, Le Narval,
has a menu that offers something for everyone: Soupe au poissons (fish soup)
served traditional style with croutons and a light aïoli; warm goat cheese
salad, the rounds of cheese nicely browned on a bed of fresh greens. Our main
courses included dorade browned and served on a long plate with a delightful
assortment of accompaniments – carrot, two small scallops with their coral,
slices of ginger and leek, a small potato, some sprouts, a few mushroom slices,
rice. The steak-frites occupied half of a large plate -- the other half was
decorated with a tree drawn in 20-year-old balsamic vinegar.
But if the main dinner courses
were satisfying, the lemon meringue pie was irresistible. The meringue was warm
and frothy and barely sweet, with a wisp of a crisp baked crust, its firmness relenting
to the slightest touch of a fork. Underneath a tart lemon cream and thin crust,
beside a dollop of whipped cream topped with some sort of toasted grain, and a small
pitcher of crème anglaise set a new standard for this otherwise ordinary
dessert. Oh, and by the way, all that was €14.30 per person, tax and service
included. Le Narval has set the bar for our dining and we will definitely
return here. (Restaurant Le Narval, 20, Quai Gambetta – Port de la Houle, 35260
Cancale, 02 99 89 63 12)
The gite
Our gite (self-catering
apartment) is one of four two-bedroom units in a centuries-old stone building a
short walk from the English
Channel. At the shore there
is a beach and the Sentier des Douaniers, (customs officers’ trail), a
3-km long scenic channel-front path. Towards the west end of the trail, across
the street from our gite, is the tiny Chapelle Notre Dame dedicated
to the protection of seamen. It is a simple chapel, and usually empty. One
morning we see a procession of nuns walking up the road to the chapel, their
habits and headpieces flapping in unison in the breeze coming in from the
Channel. We do not know where they arrived from and never see them again.
Another day we meet the owner
of the gite and her two teenage daughters as they were walking toward the
beach. It is 14o this morning and we ask where they are going. For a
swim, of course, looking surprised at our question as they marched on. These
are hardy folks, indeed.
Aux
alentours (nearby)
We revisit Dinan, the tenth
century city at the estuary of the Rance River. Burnt to the ground by William the Conqueror in 1065
(as depicted on the Bayeux Tapestry), Dinan was rebuilt as a fortress and
thriving market town. Inside the walls we are treated with examples of the many
styles of architecture covering the last millennium of life in northern part of
France. Dinan has many restaurants as well – many of them creperies
- so it is not difficult to find fare pleasing to everyone in our group.
Tuesday
October 19: More gas stations are running dry. The issue is that the government
wants to delay the legal retirement age by two years to account for people
living longer and the additional social assistance costs. Germany has already done that. Approaching seniors see the
existing retirement age as an acquired right; the young see the postponement as
delaying their entry into the workforce. We suspect that as much as the French
population is against this, once the law is passed (targeted for Senate
approval Thursday) the demonstrations may subside. There are various reports of public service closures
but many trains are running. Barry inquires at the Avis counter whether they
have diesel fuel for customers. The office manager tells him that half of his
cars are empty. “You have had many strikes – how long is this likely to last?”
“Yes, we have had strikes but we have never had [President] Sarkozy!”
Our
other friends are supposed to arrive today on the 1258 TGV from Paris. They call from Paris. Their train is cancelled, but there is a TGV to Rennes connecting to St-Malo. The traffic in Paris is so bad it takes an hour and a half for the taxi to
arrive at their hotel, so they miss the train to Rennes. They make a later train - two out of three are running today - and
arrive in St-Malo in time for wine and cheese at the gite. Somehow
things have a way of falling into place.
Wednesday
October 20: Concern is rising about the inability to keep ambulances, police
and fire vehicles moving. The minister of the interior has announced that steps
will be taken to get fuel distribution back to normal by the weekend. Police
blockades at some fuel depots kept the strikers back last night and allowed a
few trucks out, but the number of service stations across the country without
fuel is rising. Public service union demonstrations were held yesterday in Paris. The union reports there were 3.5 million
participants, the government said 1.1 million. Either way, we do not wonder that
our friends had difficulty getting a taxi.
Emotions are running high - one day there may be a rational explanation
of all of this, but this is France, and strikes are almost a way of life in this highly
socialist country. We figure it will all fizzle once grocery stores are no
longer able to keep their shelves stocked with wine.
We visit the Manoir
Jacques-Cartier. The manoir was the explorer Cartier’s last home and
was restored as a museum by the foundation our friend Bruce heads. We were
there in 2003, but we never tire of history and enjoy the updated film on
Cartier’s voyages and the various artifacts of 17th century life and
exploration. On display is one of the earliest globes depicting a spherical
world with China and Japan across from Spain and land masses occupying most of the planet. The
various instruments used to determine and record position, direction, and
speed, while perhaps a bit primitive to us, belie a scientific acumen far
beyond what most of us could muster without modern maps, GPSs and iPad apps.
Thursday
October 21: Almost one in two service stations in France do not have any fuel because of the refinery
blockades. Apparently Brittany is one of the worst-hit areas. There are no stations
open in the St-Malo-Cancale area. We have enough fuel for a few short day trips
and our return to Paris but decide that, in the worst case, we will leave the
car with Avis in St-Malo and take a train back to Paris. After all, we still have more than a week left in
Cancale. Many French are becoming anxious as the two-week Toussaint (All
Saints) school break begins this coming weekend and the French take to the
roads en masse.
There is an antique market (brocante)
in Rennes every Wednesday and we want to be there when it
opens. It is dark when we leave; daylight does not appear until after 8AM in this western part of the time zone. There is frost
on the ground. People tell us that it is unusually cold for this time of year.
Only a dozen or so brave vendors are setting up, but we manage to obtain a few
little treasures for our collection. We are always conscious of the airlines’
new tight restrictions on baggage weight, so our purchases are all small – a 19th
century carved wooden snuff box in the shape of a shoe, a few silver sewing needle
cases, some vintage postcards. We walk through the historic section of Rennes, the parliamentary capital of Brittany, and recall our visit seven years ago. The half
timbered and corbelled buildings still catch our eye – Rennes has some of the finest examples of this medieval
style of building. We visit the Cathédrale St-Pierre, the latest
incarnation of a religious structure on this site dating from Roman times.
St-Pierre is a stately Renaissance church, started in 1541 and taking three
centuries to complete. Its coffered ceiling arches and its walls adorned with
Breton paintings and other art provide visual delight at every turn, even if
their intent was to inspire faith and humility.
It is too cold to wander much
more so we decide to wend our way back home via the back roads. On the road to
Bécherel we find a service station selling diesel. The lineup is a dozen cars
deep, but all the pumps are working and in a mere ten minutes we are at full
again. We stop in the adjacent hypermarché to pick up a few things. In
the fifteen minutes we were inside, the gas station has closed – it sold out its
fuel. We stop for lunch in Bécherel, famous for books, and a centre of antique
books and paper ephemera. We pass through Combourg with its 11th
century castle and Dol-de-Bretagne with its medieval cathedral. We return later
with our friends who have not been here before to visit these monuments.
We must not be late getting
home anyway. It is our friend Bruce’s birthday and he is being feted at the Manoir
Jacques Cartier this evening. We
arrive at the manoir which is set up for a feast and learn that this is the
first time in over a century that a meal
has been hosted in this house. Champagne awaits us as a violinist from the St-Malo Académie
plies seventeenth century tunes – a chaconne, a prelude, and the Londonderry
Air - from a violin made in 1745. A chef-traiteur from one of St-Malo’s finest
restaurants prepares a Normand feast in the same room that Cartier ate
his last meal: a feuilleté noix de St Jacques (scallops and a scallop
brochette on a bed of julienne), a trou normand or entremets (green
apple sorbet in calvados), tournedos of duck breast topped with a slice of foie
gras and a panaché of julienned vegetables and mashed potatoes; salad topped
with chevre, brie, bleu, and a semi-firm cheese of unidentified
origin. For dessert, apple slices in a whipped créme patissier surrounded
by a brochette of barbecued pineapple, a berry mix of groseilles,
blueberries, and a single raspberry in a red sauce. Fortunately the chef has a
truck equipped with a full kitchen; the museum is ill-prepared for such a
feast. We closed with a 70-year old calvados made by the grandfather of one of
the museum employees. We were treated to stories: the curator of the great
abbey at Mont St-Michel and architect told us how the old abandoned house was
brought back to life, the medical doctor who parlayed an interest in the
autopsies of Cartier’s scurvy-stricken shipmates to becoming an expert on
Breton history told us of the thrill of reliving history as the details of the
house were restored. The Canadians who worked to supply the resources and the passion
for history to bring the whole thing to life told us many anecdotes of the long
hours they had invested to make it all happen.
Everyone sleeps in late after
last night’s party. There is another one tonight, too, so we need to stay close
to home and decide to take a drive to Dinard, a mere 25 km from the gite. Located at the mouth of the Rance River opposite from St-Malo, Dinard became a fashionable
summer resort in the late 19th century among the American and British who built magnificent villas and Belle Époque
hotels. It is still a popular resort although on this sleepy autumn day there
is little evidence of that. We enjoy wandering along the seawall and admire the
turreted mansions on the cliffs. Lunch at an outside terrace provides an opportunity
to bask in the sunshine in this unusually cool autumn.
We are invited to the home of
the director of the St-Malo Theatre for an evening buffet. He and his wife were
unable to attend last night’s event so they compensate with champagne, Chablis,
Pomerol, and a spread of fish in aspic, paté and charcuterie, salmon tourte,
cheese, and more. We suspect that this is just another typical Friday night dinner
for these folks.
As digestif, we enjoy a
Chartreuse VEP (Vieillissement Exceptionnellement Prolongé or aged for
an unusually long time) a rich liqueur aged 40 years in oak by the Carthusian
monks. Much richer and less sweet that the green fire we are accustomed to as
Chartreuse, this liqueur puts to rest any questions as to why one would want to
wait so long to drink it. It is
certainly a treat to be the guests in the company of these theatrical people --
producer, writer, and their actress daughter. Their house is an old farmhouse
on the outskirts of St-Coulomb, a village just a few km from our gite. Our host
shows us the stone wall he had built to fence in his yard. From a distance, it
is virtually impossible to distinguish it from the centuries-old property it
protects. So much for the stories the stones tell …
Our days are full with
markets – a brocante (antique market) in Cancale and a regular street
market in Dol de Bretagne on Saturday, more antique markets on Sunday in Dinard and La Richardais. On Tuesday we
enjoy another street market in Saint-Servan, once a village but now a
residential section adjacent to Saint-Malo. This little village has
everything that we enjoy in France, centuries-old buildings
housing food shops of every kind, boutiques, and little brasseries. We wander
around a bit and then enjoy a simple lunch of herring and potatoes, a thick potage de
legumes, steak-frites and a little rosé; this is all we ever
really wanted to do anyway.
Normandy
On
our last Wednesday we head into Normandy for a short tour. We head
off the expressway onto the Route de la Voie de la Libération which takes us directly
into Saint-Lô and other important WWII battle sites.
The
typical architecture here is slightly different from what we have been seeing
in Brittany. Houses have sloped roofs on all four sides, half
deep in one direction, and similarly half shading dormers, somewhat like a
monk’s hood and generally more windows than the homes in Brittany. The rolling countryside
is a pleasant change from the relatively flat Breton coast. Every turn and
hilltop affords an eye-catching and pleasing vista in the early morning light.
We
arrive in Bayeux, home of the famous tapestry depicting the events
leading to the conquest of England by William the Conqueror
in 1066. The 80-metre long tapestry is
housed in a wing of the municipal library and affords us the opportunity to
appreciate the vivid colours and exquisite artistry of this millennium-old work.
Embroidered by women in the court of William the Conqueror, the tapestry
depicts the events leading up to the battle of Hastings in picture and Latin narrative.
As we stroll he length of the tapestry with its progressing story, we are
amazed by the vivid colours of the dyes used, even after all of these years, of
the depth of the pictures and the animated storytelling centuries before the
science of perspective was understood. The emotions run high, my heart beats
faster as the battle of Hastings is underway, and I breath a sigh of relief
when it is all over, mixed with sadness at the terrible losses suffered by
Harold’s army. It is a miracle that this work even survived the world wars, but
the clever folks in Normandy made sure it did.
We
go on to Caen, which was virtually leveled during the Second
World War. We drive through modern cityscapes with wide avenues and parks reminiscent
of a suburban sprawl unfamiliar to us on our visits to Europe. Nevertheless, the French
have rebounded, and have recuperated whatever pieces of their historic city
they could and restored several important monuments to their original grandeur.
Visiting the church of the Women’s Abbey, we see where the totally
reconstructed interior meld with the original floor stones which escaped German
bombs. Some people say Caen has no spirit. That is not
true. It’s just modern, that’s all.
On
to the Côte Fleuri (Flower Coast) and Honfleur, our home
for the night. This little harbour town at the mouth of the Seine and in the
shadow of the shipbuilding yards of Le Havre is charming and unpretentious, its
slate-covered tall buildings lining the port and housing a variety of galleries
and restaurants. Artists still set up on the Vieux Bassin daily to drink up the
inspiration of the Impressionists, many of whom lived or visited here.
Our
hotel was originally a 16th century presbytery, however, behind the
humble exterior and corbelled roof were all the modern comforts we needed. (Hôtel
Absinthe, 1 rue de la ville, Honfleur) We dined at the hotel restaurant – an amueuse-gueule of mackerel, cassolette of shrimp and scallop,
lamb with cumin, rabbit stuffed with and quenelle, cheeses, trio of sorbets,
the creature comforts go on. (Restaurant Absinthe, 10 quai de la quarantaine,
Honfleur, 02 31 89 39 00). It is time to go back. We stop briefly in Deauville, the playground of the
rich and famous on the Cote Fleuri, the lush green coast of Lower Normandy. We admire the chic
boutiques and mansions that line the roads and visit the open market, but opt
to move on.
Along
the coast, we pass the Normandy beaches where the Allies
landed in 1944 to rout the German occupiers. There are still some concrete
bunkers visible. Every little village seems to have rescued a WW2 tank and
erected a monument around it. We visit the Canadian War Memorial, a massive
structure situated on the beach where the Canadian troops landed on D-Day. We
read with sadness the names carved into the large stone monuments, family names
we have seen, towns and villages back home in Canada that are part of our
heritage, the men who bravely came here to secure the freedom of our French
brothers and sisters. We must never forget.
Thursday, October 28: Most gas stations are open,
but to be sure, we when we see an opportunity to fill up, we do and our tank
does not go below ¾ full. We will be fine to return to Paris.
We return to Saint-Malo for a last visit. This week celebrates the Route du rhum (the rum route), a solo transatlantic
sailboat race from Saint-Malo to Pointe-à-Pitre (Guadeloupe) held every 4 years. This year, there are 85 contestants. The
departure on Sunday will certainly be spectacular; unfortunately, we will have
left Brittany by that time. However, the old city is overflowing
with tourists to look at the boats and enjoy the various shows and musical
groups set up throughout the day – in fact this has been going on all week. We
stop to listen to a group performing old Breton maritime songs and chansons
de réponse set up in a town square. The Breton tunes are wonderfully
melodious and the (mostly elder) singers look like many people we have met in
rural Quebec. A large number of French Canadians trace their
ancestry to these Breton roots. We remark how comfortably the bistros
and creperies in the historic section of Saint Malo can handle the
multitude of families through lunch hour despite the absence of a McDonalds or,
in fact, any other fast food restaurant.
Friday, October 29: The government passed the
retirement act last night. The refinery strikes have been called off. Four out
of five stations have fuel across France and things will soon be back
to normal.
Paris
We
are spending our last two nights of the trip in Paris. The drive to Paris is uneventful. That is the
way it should be. We drop off the car and take a taxi to our hotel in the
centre of St-Germain-des-Prés, a major tourist and entertainment section of Paris (the 6th arondissement). The bustle of people in
the streets and cafés assault our senses in sharp contrast to our sleepy and
bucolic little home we had beside the English Channel. It is the holiday week
preceding All Saints’ Day so the city is particularly full of French tourists.
The sense of excitement pervades every street and alley in this historic
section of the city. We wonder why we have waited so long to return to Paris.
Two nights in Paris afford us only one day but
we manage to visit one of the world’s largest antique and flea market in St-Ouen
(Métro Porte de Clingancourt). We still
had time left before supper to browse the vintage books and papers in the bouquinistes’ stalls perched along the Seine river walls. Our hotel is comfortable and well situated in the
middle of the action. In spite of a non-functioning elevator the day we were
leaving forcing us to hand carry luggage down several flights of stairs, we
would definitely return there for a longer stay. (Hotel Le Regent, 61 rue Dauphine, 75006 Paris)
… the empty spaces
Our weeks with our friends, France included, passed by quickly. Time seems so short with
friends. We do not see these folks frequently -- there are many empty spaces in
our friendship -- but we all tolerate these empty spaces and we just continue
where we left off when we do get together. We will see these friends again in a
few months for our annual New Year’s Eve get-together and we are already
planning for that time. France? We do not know, but there are apartments in
St-Germain and on Ile-de-la-Cité that look like they would be a nice pied-a-terre
for a longer stay sometime. All of us on this trip are thinking the same thing
as we look around. Fill the empty spaces.