We have been in France for over ten days now and have fallen in love with the country. The people are fantastic, food is lovely and the sights are amazing.
We began our journey out of Paris after two days waiting for our car to be ready. During that time, no sightseeing, Tim finished school! Hooray! He did very well this last semester and is quite proud of his accomplishments, as are we.
Luckily for us our car came equipped with GPS for France and we were able to navigate to Nantes, which is west and a bit south of Paris. A four hour journey to meet friends in the Château’s parking lot. We arrive by 4;15pm after passing two toll booths ( traveling by large motorway in France is expensive) to find Alain, Maryvonne and Anne-Charlotte Murgue waiting patiently. We met the Murgues while traveling in Peru back in October. We visited the Château and walked the many winding streets to discover the lovely church and charm of Nantes.
We spent the next five nights with our friends the Murgues. It was fantastic!! We spent our time enjoying incredible meals, meeting their friends (now our friends too), and going to various places in the area surrounding their home.
The Places
Day One; from Soullans we passed through the small town of Beavior and visited a very old roman church. On to Port de Bec which is called the Chinese Port, from here we saw the Aeolians also called windmills for the first time. They are using more & more windmills to produce electricity for the local areas and hope to provide 21% of needed electricity by 2012. We had lunch on the Ile de Noirmoutier, a lovely beach where the baguettes, ham, cheese and apples tasted better than any we have had before. We walked through the village and onto the beach, where we walked and walked. So very beautiful. Low tide is a special event off the Ile as there is a road to travel when the water is out! If I remember correctly its about 3km long, amazing!
Day Two; Today we travel to Croix de Vie, St Gilles, Bretignolles and on to Les Sables – D’olone. This is along the coast and we stop to visit the beaches, have a picnic lunch (a very common activity for the people in France) and walk on the beach. We discover many ports, seeing many fishing boats, small boats and luxury craft. This area really seems to enjoy their time in the Atlantic Ocean.
Day Three; We travel north today through Bois de Ciene, to Ile de Bouis, then onto Port les Brochets & Le Collet. We travel the coast on the local small roads through the country side passing Les Moutiers en Reitz, La Bernerie en Reitz before we stop for a picnic on the beach in La Fountaine-aux- Bretons. We walk along the custom trail towards Pornic. We see the new port (with all the fancy boats) and the “natural port” (where the boats are at buoys), we see beautiful homes (mostly vacation) and the Castle.
The Food
Alain and Maryvonne prepared the most fantastic meals. Every morning we had a wonderfull breakfast on the porch in the sun. Fresh Croisonts, fresh baguettes from the bakery, various meats and cheeses, fruit, the works. As we mentioned above, the afternoons saw a picnic somewhere with baguettes, meats and cheeses. The kinds of meats and cheeses available here are amazing. Each evening, we were treated to wonderful dinners, fantastic fish with herbs, seared beef, pork. Everything was wonderful. Even their friends were kind enough to share meals with us (See below). It is easy to put weight back on here. We will have to be careful as we continue on to not eat so much. French cuisine is amazing though.
Friends
Allain, Maryvonne and Anne-Charlotte were so gracious to introduce us to their friends. We met a lot of people who were kind enough to give us suggestions on places to visit, show us brochures and maps and help us plan for our sightseeing. We also enjoyed getting the opportunity to talk at length with everyone and their willingness to share their thoughts about things with us. It was not easy since we do not speak French. Everyone was very patient with us. They all spoke enough English for us to talk and we had a French/English dictionary for those times where none of us knew the word we were looking for.
Everyone was so kind to us that we extended our stay and visited Bernard and Danielle's house for lunch on Sunday (wonderful Morrocan dishes) and that evening we had dinner at Pierre and Dominique's house (salad and omelette).
Thanks to all of you for the wonderful hospitality, great conversation and fantastic food. We hope to see everyone in Seattle some day. (Technical difficulties, I am not able right now to post the other two photos I wanted to).
Our dear friends have been fabulous travel guides and we have seen much of the area surrounding their home.
A big thank you to Alain, Maryvonne and Anne Charlotte, you are most wonderful.
~Karen~
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