Home

Well I made it home, got to my house around 7:30pm with huge jet lag.

Flights were okay, but the final flight from Iceland to Boston was a bit tough -- was stuck between a mother and her son, who for some reason didn't want to sit together so they ended up talking and gesturing over me quite a bit for 6 hours. The flight was a bit bumpy, especially over Quebec and Northern Maine, but otherwise it was uneventful. Managed to get a good breakfast and lunch in Paris, since I was there for 5-6 hours, so no hunger pains this time in Iceland Air :-)

I did a quick unpack last night, just to make sure everything was okay with all the fragile stuff I shipped. Nancy is once again confirmed as The Best Packer in the Universe -- no breakage or spillage :-)

I realized as I unpacked that I never took pictures of the antiques I got in Provence, so here are photos of those.

The one bit of not so good news is that I left my night guard on the flight from Paris to Iceland. I'm going to try to get through to lost and found at Iceland Air, but I doubt they are able to find it. So slept without it last night and inevitably have headache and jaw pain this morning -- My dentist can see me this morning thankfully but it will be 2 weeks to get the replacement and it will cost me bigtime. So yeah, a bummer but not much I can do about it at this point. I guess the moral of this story is don't put anything valuable down on a flat surface when you're on a trans-Atlantic flight and are already exhausted -- because you will leave it there...

Today is definitely going to be a short day -- I imagine I will probably not make it much past lunchtime, but am planning to go into work to clean out emails. And for the air conditioning -- it's pretty swampy and warm here, which did in much of my garden although my geraniums survived. Today through Saturday are forecast to be in the mid to high 90s! So will need to get some replacement herbs and give them lots of TLC. Am planning to go to the Brookline Farmer's market today since I have a pretty empty fridge :-)

Oh and on the good front -- I only gained about 3-4 pounds, so not too bad :-)

Cheers

Bonjour from Paris

I only have about 20 minutes until boarding here in Paris, and finally had a chance to log in...The flight from Nantes was about 1 hour and uneventful. Jim and I were up at 4:30am (ugh) to make the 1 hour drive to Nantes -- my flight left at 7:15am. I had to pay extra for my second checked bag which I was aware of but if I had done it online yesterday I would have sdaved 30%! Filing that one away...

I had to pick up checked bags in Paris, then re-check for the trip to Iceland and Boston, but no additional charge thankfully. The Paris airport is mobbed -- much more enjoyable to be here off season! But I finally found my way and found a plug to charge laptop & ipod -- so I should have ample battery power through Boston, hopefully.

I greatly enjoyed my trip and am feeling a mix of sadness that my trip is over but also looking forward to being home -- ie the usual :-)

Many thanks to Nancy and Jim for their usual hospitality and sense of adventure -- and love of good food! I'm guessing I've probably gained a few pounds due to croissants and caramel and butter and unpasteurized cheese, etc. -- but it was worth it and I'll just need to exercise a bit extra over the next few weeks!

Okay signing off :-)

Last day

My last day – sad!

We had planned to take a boat trip out to a small island, Île aux Moines, in the Gulf of Morbihan, as well as a 1 hour boat tour around the Gulf, but the weather was pretty on and off all day and I needed to pack, so we decided to just stay in town and have a really good lunch.

Nancy and I spent the morning strategically packing my bags, including many breakables. I’ve managed to pack everything into 3 bags plus my small purse. So my carry-on bags will be a small purse and a large soft bag full of pottery and my laptop – which is much less than most people try to carry on board so hopefully they won’t bother to weigh my pottery bag (there’s a 26 pound total limit for carry on baggage). I will have to pay a bit extra to check the second bag, but that’s no big deal (you are allowed one free checked bag) and obviously the weight limits on the checked are much higher. So it only took us a few hours to pack everything – Nancy and I have done this routine several times now so we are pros!

We had a nice long lunch at the restaurant, called Restaurant Le Vieux Quartier, in the town’s old section -- this is where we had lunch before. Le menu: Scallops in honey sauce (excellent), five kinds of fish with cabbage choucroute in butter/wine sauce (amazing); and dark chocolate tart with caramel sauce (also excellent). A very good last meal!

On the way back to camp we stopped by the pottery shop in town so I could finally decide what to buy there; I ended up buying a rectangular platter in dark turquoise decorated with celtic/Breton design.

Nancy and Jim are taking an afternoon nap. I am typing at the bar with a glass of wine. Lots of folks are here for a late afternoon beer/glass of wine as well as shelter from late afternoon showers. Think I will get a coffee as the temperature has dipped. My flight tomorrow is at 7:15am and it’s about 45 minutes to the airport, so we will be getting up very early – so I will sign off now and try to log in at the airport in Paris tomorrow.

Photos here.

Carnac and Locmariaquer

July 18

We left camp mid-morning to explore the world renowned megaliths in Carnac and Locmariaquer. As we drove into Carnac we drove right between two huge fields of standing stones -- it was pretty impressive. And there are several more fields in Carnac alone. We stopped into the prehistory museum for some basic information and then got a quick lunch at a creperie in the center of Carnac. We had to sit outside because they were so crowded, and we did get a bit rained on at one point but the staff put up big umbrellas so we were fine and didn't get wet. We all had moules and frites (mussels and french fries), which were much better than the previous mussels I had had, with cider of course. Jim and I had crepes for dessert -- he had chocolate and I had the traditional honey and lemon, just to try it, and it was okay but I much prefer the caramel.

From lunch we drove out to get a closer look at the standing stones. Without a (paid) guide it's not possible to walk amongst the stones, but you can walk unguided around the edges of the fields and go up in a turret to look down on them. The stones are placed in straight lines and considering how old they are it's remarkable how in line they still are.

We went back to the museum which had an excellent group of displays, including a display about a couple in the 1930s who discovered many of the megalithes and the few number of Neanderthal-era human remains that have been found in Brittany (the soil is generally too acidic to allow for preservation, but a few remains were buried with shells which counteracted the acidity). We also saw a really interesting live display of present-day archeologists trying to replicate very ancient salt production techniques. As an aside, some very interesting Neanderthal-related news broke recently -- see article here from Discovery News.

On the way out of Carnac, we stopped in to a boulangerie for lemon tarts. We walked in and saw no lemon tarts, which are pretty standard in any boulangerie. Jim and I both were thinking: "Where the heck are they?" Then we saw it: a huge lemon tart pizza! And oh my goodness was it fantastic, probably the best we've had. We also stopped at an organic grocery for strawberries.

Mid-afternoon we set off for Locmariaquer, which isn't very far away. The town has an excellent megalith historic site managed by the national government -- the site contains one huge standing stone that has toppled and split into four huge pieces, as well as two tombs. The museum had a really good film explaining the rehabilitation of the site by the government -- previously the site was used as a parking lot (!!!) and has been painstakingly unearthed and rehabilitated. It is by far one of the best historic sites I've seen. One very interesting point that was new to us: archeologists are fairly certain that these types of burial sites were created for the super-rich as income stratification occurred following the transition from hunter/gatherer society to a more fixed society centered around agriculture production. These sites are around the same age as the pyramids in Egypt and were designed to celebrate the same strata of society, just in a different way. Only the super-rich could have afforded the huge amount of money needed to transport stones of such weight in boats over water and over significant stretches of land.

From the museum, we drove around town stopping at a number of other different types of ancient burial sites that are scattered in among neighborhoods, houses, and schools. It was definitely a unique experience to be viewing historical sites by walking through little alleyways that felt like extensions of peoples' backyards at times. We saw several burial sites that are constructed as a doorway and hallway into a round tomb area, all of which is covered by huge granite stones. Another site was a round burial tomb covered by a huge hill of smaller stones; archeologists over the years dug through the stones to see what was underneath.

Since we were so near the ocean, we drove down to the beach to see the view as well as the monument to lost sailors. Thankfully the weather was pretty nice today.

We had a simple dinner back at camp – various cheeses with bread, vegetables, wine, and the last of the strawberry shortcake. The rain came in as we were getting ready to sleep. We spent a good 15-20 minutes gleefully slaughtering mosquitos in the caravan on a grand scale – they are relentless here and we’re all covered in bites.

Photos here.

Suscinio

Got up early around 7am and took a shower and witnessed actual blue sky and a smidge of sunshine! By 8:30 it was overcast and raining again so I’m glad I was up early. The weather literally changes every hour or so.

Tried a new boulangerie today – their croissants are better than the other place we all agreed – which is saying something!

We were planning to go to Carnac today to see the menhirs (standing stones), but we stopped at the tourism office in our town and got a ton of great information from the people who work there who were incredibly nice and spoke excellent English. They mentioned that there was a pottery show going on in the nearby town of Sarzeau where there is also a very well restored 13^th Century chateau called Suscinio. So we decided to go, since Nancy and I both love pottery and I’ve never seen a chateau.

The drive was really short and pretty to the chateau. We started out perusing the pottery show, which was outside in a field not far from the chateau. There were probably 15-20 vendors, mostly from Brittany with a few from England and other parts of France. I bought a small rustic pitcher that is very Breton in style and is a very pale shade of celadon green; had a nice chat with the potter who wanted to practice her English and had been to New York. She was very excited that her pottery was going to go on a plane to the US. Nancy and I both bought items from another vendor, a woman and her husband, who had beautiful turquoise/teal pieces in traditional styles/shapes. I got a pitcher, Nancy got a bowl and a pitcher. There were a number of other potters who had really creative and beautiful items – especially one guy who had these enormous and painstakingly decorated teapots.

After spending all our cash we headed for the creperie in town – Jim and I both had the galette with scallops and leeks, Nancy had galette with seafood and scallops. Both were very good. Nancy skipped desert but Jim and I both had the crepe with apples and caramel which was excellent.

The chateau was very impressive. It is built very near to the ocean surrounded by tidal marshes and its moat contains sea water. The building was very run down and since the 1970s has been lovingly restored by the regional government, no doubt with major support from the national government, to the tune of millions. After touring the grounds we watched an excellent film on the restoration process, which highlighted how 13^th/15^th Century tools and techniques were used when possible to restore the chateau. The wind was amazingly strong as we finished up our visit and drove out to the beach to see the ocean. The surf was incredible, sand was flying past our car, as we watched a group of para-sailors spinning and flying through the air. We were very glad that the sun decided to stay with us for most of the day!

We headed back to camp for a quick dinner of spaghetti and salad. I’m sitting in the bar down the street from our campground, using their free wifi to post and catch up on news (including the apparent downfall of the Rupert Murdoch empire – huzzah!). Need to get going though – it’s close to 11pm and the smoke is getting to me a bit…I will try to post more in the next few days but I may need to spend my downtime packing pretty soon – sad!

Photos here.

July 16

It really rained a lot last night and throughout the day. When I got up to go for a walk and to get bread this morning, there was a small black cat curled up on my towel, which was folded up outside on a chair under the tent cover attached to the caravan. He ran off really fast once he saw me in the doorway of the caravan.

Jim and I decided to drive to the airport in Nantes, about 45 minutes away, to deal with my ticket. We also wanted to get to a L’Eclerc store which is basically the French version of Walmart but with much better produce/food, so we could get some rain jackets, etc.

The airport in Nantes is much bigger than the one in Lorient, so we assumed we’d have better luck. And we did, thankfully. I was able to speak, in English – although I had practiced the French for wanting to modify my ticket – to a very friendly and efficient Air France agent. With the change fee and the difference in price for the two tickets, it only cost me 75 euro, which is less than a one way train ticket to Paris. So I’m on the first flight (7:15am) from Nantes to Paris CDG airport on 7/20, which will get me there by 8:30am, with lots of time to spare for any delays or mishaps before my 2:15pm flight to Boston (via Iceland). What a relief!

We did okay at L’Eclerc – I found some short wellie boots and a pair of jeans (they are dangerously close to Mom jeans but they are petite size so my standards were low – I only have one pair of pants so if they get wet, which they did this morning, I’m in a bind – and cold as well. Well worth it.) The jacket selection was lousy, so we got some food (including baking powder so I can finally bake that cake). There was nothing else promising in the huge mall (which included an IKEA) for jackets, so we went to a big sports/outdoor/camping store across the way where we found 2 very good jackets, one for me and one for Jim. On the way home we stopped at Office Depot and I got some bubble wrap and packing tape for my pottery packing. The very friendly sales clerk spoke very little English and she didn’t understand my attempts to explain bubble wrap, but I was able to find it, came back to pay and on my way out she said very slowly “Good afternoon” with a big grin, very proud of herself. :-)

We got back to the campground around 3:00, had a quick lunch of tomato soup that tasted so good on a rainy day! Jim left to do some more errands (we had forgotten to buy lemons) including checking out some other campgrounds that he and Nancy may move to once I leave. Nancy and I read a bit, napped.

Using the Romaska baking tool that Nancy and Jim got in London some time ago, I was able to bake a pretty decent lemon/rosemary pound cake, which we had with strawberries and mint, with double cream – which we tried to make into whipped cream, but it didn’t work. Needless to say it didn’t matter because it tasted amazing. We just did a quick omelet and green salad for dinner.