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Madrid
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| Palace of Versailles |
We are up early for a taxi ride to the train station for an
early train to Madrid. Today, Nicida
celebrates her 50th anniversary of receiving her Bachelor’s
Degree. Two other graduates from her
group of friends meet us at the apartment before we head off for the
ceremony. There are about 120 graduates
attending this ceremony. It is being
broadcast to other locations for those that cannot make it to Madrid. With the exception of one notable statement
‘Keep questioning, don’t judge,’ the entire proceedings are in Spanish. As with all ceremonial programs each speaker
has more to say than their allotted time so the program runs an hour longer
than planned. After several speeches, the
graduates are announced, then come forward to receive their pins, commemorating
the event. It is nice to see the school
photos from when they attended the school, of each of the graduates. When the 50th anniversary students
are announced, I position myself among many others, for photos of those in
Nicida’s class. Being tall is an
advantage this time. A nice event. Nicida and I retire to a local Venezuelan
restaurant, where we had lunch earlier today.
We enjoy a nice meal while visiting with the restaurant owner.
On to France
The next morning, we are up at 430 to catch a taxi to the
airport for a 730 AM flight. The
reserved taxi never shows, causing unneeded anxiety. Using Uber, we finally get a ride to the
airport. Because of the delays we have
to rush through the airport, being stopped at TSA. We have to remove liquids from our carry-ons,
placing them in quart bags. We
frantically look through our luggage as other passengers squeeze past us to go
through the TSA check. We find the
offending bottles, squeezing them into the quart bags, then getting back in
line for the check. We neglected to think
of this with our TSA Pre in the States.
We finally arrive at the gate a few minutes before we board the plane. Our flight to Nantes, France is smooth,
Nicida sleeps while I write this morning’s adventure in my journal so I can
relive the activity for this blog.
San Malo
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| Relaxing ride to San Malo |
From Nantes airport we catch a bus, heading through a
seeming maze across town to the train station for the train to San Malo, our
destination. We are traveling with one
of Nicida’s elementary school girl friends who relocated in San Malo with her
husband. She takes all this activity in stride.
We are finally able to relax on the
final stage of our travel to San Malo.
The countryside is very green; trees and grass surround the train on our
entire ride to San Malo. I feel my
anxiety levels drop with all the green space.
Nicida’s friend’s husband is waiting at the train station to take us to
their home. We find lunch ready and
waiting. We start with many cheeses and
crackers, our appetizer course.
Wonderful bread follows. Then the
main course, roasted chicken with rosemary and small potatoes, then
dessert. Our lunch takes about 2-hours.
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| San Malo RV park |
We tour the town by car.
Once into our tour, a light rain begins to fall, increasing in intensity
as we continue. We have gone from the 80-degree
temperatures of central Spain to 60-degree temperatures of the Brittany
Coast. Nicida and I are glad we put on
our heavier jackets. Returning home we
enjoy a light dinner before heading out on a quick walk to the coast in the
rain, to witness the waves crashing on part of the wall surrounding San
Malo. We hear more of the waves crashing
than seeing any wave crashing, it is too dark to really see much, also we opted
to keep covered from the wind-blown rain coming off the ocean. Rushing back home with the wind at our backs,
we change out of our rain-soaked pants into our dry PJ’s. We relax, no agenda for tomorrow.
We are here for the next 6 days. Time to slow down and take in the activity,
scenery and ambiance of San Malo.
After breakfast we ride to the small village of Saint-Suliac
on the Rance river. Above the village is
the Grainfolet Oratory, a historic chapel overlooking the Rance river. It was built for the women of the village to
gather together to pray for the safe return of their husbands who went out to
sea, fishing. From there we walk into
town noticing all the stone buildings, lining the winding, narrow streets. We enjoy gallettes, a free-form pie made of
pastry dough, for breakfast.
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| Wood carving |
Continuing our walk, we notice many hand embroidered
curtains in the windows. We detour to Catholic
church built during the 13th and 14th century. It has many statues and carvings related to fishermen
of the area, fishing the seas for months at a time, between France and Newfoundland
in Canada. Look at the image of the wood carving, right, depicting sailors enduring turbulent seas.
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| San Malo near high tide |
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| San Malo near low tide |
We have oatmeal and fresh croissants picked up earlier this
morning at the local bakery just down the block. This could become habit forming. The sea is calm today, but that doesn’t stop
our walking tour of town. The tidal swing
is over 40’ so we can literally see the change in the where the waves come up on
the sand over just a few minutes. The
air is cool with a wind coming off the sea.
As the tide recedes, we walk the beach looking for shells, and photos of
the area. After lunch we return to the
beach heading away from town towards a park overlooking the English
Channel. We find more remnants of German
occupation during WW II. Ending our hike
along the coast we take a 20-minute bus ride back home. We stop a block away from home picking up
different cheeses, as our supply of cheeses at home is quickly
disappearing. I am amazed at the number
of different cheeses there is to select from.
Today we stop at the local farmer’s market, only a block
away. Seafood is abundant, we select 3 lbs.
of mussels, ray (think a very small relative of a manta ray), and salad
fixings. Prepared items include caramel
rice pudding, quiche, and yogurt. We
also see, but do not buy, meats of all kinds, a hundred pound
tuna with a 4” x 4” square cut out of its side, and four large refrigerators of
cheeses. San Malo is turning into an
eating extravaganza. At lunch, we learn
the proper way of eating mussels, using a fork to extract the meat from the
first one, then using one side of the shell from the first mussel to dig out
the meat of the subsequent mussels.
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Only a small sampling
of the available cheeses |
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| San Malo inside the wall |
After lunch we hop a bus to downtown San Malo. Passing through an opening in the wall
protecting the town we find steps leading to the walkway on top of the
wall. We get a bird’s eye view of the
city, seeing people window shopping, relaxing at a café with their favorite
coffee, and seeing the streets winding back and forth through parts of the
city. Reaching the opposite side of San
Malo, we make our way to the port to catch a boat to Dinard, a city across the
river from San Malo.
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| San Malo |
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| Low tide |
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| Dinard mansions along the coast |
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| View of San Malo from Dinard |
Back at the port in San Malo we stop to watch 6 – 10 people
fishing. Their plastic shopping bags are
wriggling with the fish they caught in the past few minutes. We see them pull fish off their multi-hook
lines, toss them into the bags then cast their line back into the water. One fisherman has the right stuff; he catches
between two and five fish each time he pulls in his line.
As we start walking back to our bus stop, we hear the loud
clanging of bells and flashing lights, bridges are being opened to allow boats
to pass between the marina and the open sea.
First, four to five pass into the marina, then three to four boats,
including freighters leave the marina.
Very interesting to see these large ships pass through the narrow
waterway. It was a good day.
Today we are 28 days into our European trip. Thinking back to things we did earlier on
this trip, it feels like those things happened months ago, if not on some other
trip.
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| Oyster beds, receding tide |
We are off to Cancale, the town France calls the oyster
capital. A trail leads us to an overlook
of the bay and oyster beds. It is a huge
operation; large farm tractors haul flat bottom boats to the edge of the water
so workers can work their aspect of their job.
Other workers in chest waders perform other operations in the never-ending
muddy environment. As we watch from our
perch, the scale of the farm grows, with the receding tide. More and more beds emerge from the receding
water level. We learn that the farm is
36 square miles in size. We also learn
that from our spot we see only a small portion of the overall farm. |
| At lower tide |
Following the trail into town we find stalls of vendors
lining the pier, selling oysters. Instead,
we head into a restaurant for lunch, but no oysters. Later we enjoy our bus ride back to town so
we can have dinner with our hosts.
We are eating at a place found quite by accident by Nicida’s
friends. They have returned several
times enjoying their meals and the restaurant’s ambience. Thei restaurant only opens for dinner; we
have the table for the night. Only one
group of guests per table per evening.
We enjoy our time ordering seafood and steak, bread and cheese ending
with dessert. We are able to watch the
two owners cook, prepare and serve each meal.
It is fun to see them enjoying their work serving everyone this evening.
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| The line top enter |
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| Mont San Michel |
Today’s destination is Mont San Michel, a medieval abbey
built on an outcropping of rock on a tidal island. At high tide it appears as an island,
unfortunately our timing does not allow us to see it at high tide. The abbey is a 45-minute ride by car from San
Malo. The abbey towers above the small
town of shops, a few small hotels, and homes to a few local people. Our pre-purchased tickets allow us to bypass
the long lines of others waiting to enter the abbey, highly recommended.
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| Inner passageway |
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| Town below the abbey |
The sanctuary has high ceilings with mosaic patterned
stained glass surrounding it. We ascend
and descend to different levels of the abbey going from one room to the next. The abbey is packed with tourists. We cannot imagine the crowds that must be
here during peak tourist season. Once
back outside we notice the tide is even lower.
There are groups of 10 – 20 barefoot people standing around waiting…. to
walk the mudflats surrounding the abbey.
One can only walk this area with a guide, quicksand areas exist among
the mudflats – lethal, man eating or (sinking) quicksand.
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| A walk in the mudflats |
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A barefoot walk
in the mudflats |
We wind up our stay in San Malo with our seafood – ray, with potatoes. The ray is quite tasty, I did not even know it is edible, I would have it again. Tomorrow the train to Paris.
Paris
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| View from our apartment |
Our train ride to Paris is just over two hours. The ride is smooth and uneventful, arriving right on time. Our first goal is to pick up a metro pass so we can travel around Paris using the buses or the subway at a reduced cost. After procuring the cards we head out for a 10-minute walk to our Airbnb. We meet the apartment’s owner, she gives us the tour of her apartment, an efficiency with a pullout sofa bed. The bathroom has a clothes washer, which we immediately put to use. A walk to the nearby grocery store fills our refrigerator with food for the next few days, we are back to our normal eating habits, salads, oatmeal, chips, guacamole, hummus and fruit. The apartment has a small patio with a view of the Eiffel Tower.We take off looking for the rendezvous point for tomorrow’s van tour of the Palace of Versailles. We pass green spaces and many tourist shops on our route. The office is only two blocks from the Eiffel Tower so we make a quick detour for a look, making a couple of selfies. We hurry back, tomorrow is an early day.
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| First view of Versailles |
We are up at 530 for our 800 departure. Instead of walking we employ a taxi. We immediately notice the drivers here do not pay much attention to the lane markers either, just like the drivers in Spain. We arrive in plenty of time meeting other tourists from New York, Alabama, Maryland and Australia. Our tour guide/driver arrives, and starts rounding us up for the ride to the Versailles. He has a heavy French accent so we have to pay close attention figuring out some of his words as he is speaking. Our ride takes 30 minutes in heavy morning traffic.
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| Front entrance of the palace |
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| Inside the palace |
Arriving at the palace, the first thing we notice is the size – it is huge. There are over 2,000 rooms. The next thing we notice is the gold, on the palace ornamentation, and on the gates surrounding the palace. It absolutely glows in the bright morning sun. The king, Louis the 14th transformed the hunting lodge built by Louis the 13th, into this palace, occupying it in 1682. The palace is 12 miles from Paris.
His plan was to keep the noble class under his watchful eye, keeping them in line with his wishes, and keep the government away from the protesting occurring in Paris. He ruled France for 73 years. The size, the gold, the money that went into the grounds is mind boggling. The gardens stretch as far as the eye can see. Seeing this I can understand the overthrow of the ruling class.
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| Some of the gardens |
Thank you for stopping by,
Mark
Today we stop at the local farmer’s market, only a block
away. Seafood is abundant, we select 3 lbs.
of mussels, ray (think a very small relative of a manta ray), and salad
fixings. Prepared items include caramel
rice pudding, quiche, and yogurt. We
also see, but do not buy, meats of all kinds, a hundred pound
tuna with a 4” x 4” square cut out of its side, and four large refrigerators of
cheeses. San Malo is turning into an
eating extravaganza. At lunch, we learn
the proper way of eating mussels, using a fork to extract the meat from the
first one, then using one side of the shell from the first mussel to dig out
the meat of the subsequent mussels.
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