Travel Blog – 7th May, 2023

Having said goodbye to Ian and Carmel for the moment, we continued on with Caitlynne and Rob toward Vannes. On the way, we stopped at another magnificent, tiny village called Pont Aven. A river ran through the centre of the ancient town, meandering right around houses, which were probably mills at one stage because there were broken old water wheels next to some of them. This place was used as inspiration for Guigan to paint some of his impressionist paintings, and it is easy to see why.

We thought it was quite unusual, however, that the public toilet was right in the river. It looked quaint and cute from one side of the river, but when you walked behind it, the two urinals were in full view of the public! So, of course, Rob and I had to have a pee in them.

The village was chock-o-block full of art shops and we enjoyed wandering around looking at the fantastic art.

We then drove to a place called Carnac, which is famous for being one of the most extensive collections of neolithic menhirs, or granite standing stones, in the world. Nobody knows why the people of the area erected over 10,000 standing stones in 3,300 BC, but they run for kilometres in lines across the countryside.

We arrived in Vannes and Rob and Caitlynne went off to check into their AirBNB, while we checked into ours. Finding a place to park the car was the first challenge. The streets were made for donkeys and horses, not cars, and we had to find a spot to park on the street near our apartment. We eventually found a place and shoe-horned the car into it. Then it was clunk-a-clunk-a-clunk with the suitcases over the cobblestones to a white door on the street. According to our instructions, we had to open a keysafe and extract a set of keys. One key opened a white door, which led to a dark foyer. On the other side of the foyer was another doorway. This led to a narrow, concrete hallway with a door at the other end. This big, heavy door led to an outside foyer with two gates. One of the gates led to a small yard. Across the yard was the door to our apartment, which a second key unlocked. So basically, accessing the apartment was like tackling an escape room. Anyway, we used our supreme intellect to eventually make our way into our apartment. It was a lovely place, however within 5 minutes, Lidia had walked past the kitchen table and hooked her brand new jumper on the corner, pulling a thread out of it. This completely destroyed any enthusiasm she had for the place, as did the smell in the bathroom. Without ventilation, and with the addition of a washing machine and clothes dryer, the bathroom smelled like the inside of an elephant’s arse. Anyway, we did take advantage of the laundry to throw on a load of washing.

Despite its smelly bathroom and clothes-destroying table, the apartment was in a fantastic location. Just outside the front door was the historical centre of Vannes. What a beautiful city! Towering ramparts and ancient, fortress gates surrounded half-timbered houses in various colours, all in immaculate condition (although most looked like they would fall down at any second with walls leaning at strange angles).

We wandered around for a while before heading to a restaurant for dinner with the Allens. Rob had booked us a table at L’Annexe, a Michelin starred eatery which did not disappoint. An absolute highlight of the meals we had enjoyed so far in France. Lidia and I had the fish, which came with a delicious puree topped with a perfect, crunchy, veined leaf which we think was made from parmesan cheese. Rob ordered a meal which came with a side that was basically a layer of sauteed mushrooms covered in a mushroom mousse and topped with a fine, crunchy lattice of something we think may have been made from buckwheat. It was all incredibly tasty. The girls finished the meal with a selection of four ice creams from their extensive list.

The next day we spent walking around the beautiful city of Vannes. We explored the extensive fresh food market, walked the ramparts and enjoyed a cup of coffee in a café called “derriere”, which had pictures and knick-knacks of butts all over the walls. We stopped for another cup of coffee that afternoon in an al fresco cafe and a French lady named Daniela struck up a conversation with us. She explained that she had gone to New Caledonia for a holiday years back and ended up staying there for 30 years. She was a lovely lady, although Rob and I are convinced that the French take the piss when you try to speak their language. Daniela asked where were going next and I said “Nantes”. She said “Che?” I said “Nantes”. She said “Che?” I said “NANTES” (because if you say it louder, they can understand you). She said “OOOOOH, Nantes!” Seriously, it sounded exactly the same as how I said it.

We went back to our apartment to rest in the late afternoon and to get ready for another dinner. I went out to buy a cheeky bottle of Bordeaux for a pre-dinner drink and Lidia and I were enjoying that immensely. We sat on the couches around the large, low coffee table, which was wooden with a giant, inlaid tile in it, a few inches from the edge. A slight issue ensued when I went to place my glass of wine on the coffee table next to one of Lidia’s packing cells. The glass caught on the raised edge of the inlaid tile and my glass of wine emptied into her packing cell, covering her white top with red wine. In my defence…..I have no defence. We had to quickly put on a white machine wash and were a little late for dinner. She was secretly happy about it though, because it gave her an excuse to venture back into the elephants arse.

The meal at Roscanvec was very fancy, but again, super delicious. It was our last dinner with Rob and Caitlynne, and sadly after dinner we had to say our goodbyes. We had a fantastic time with the Allens and made some memories together than will last a lifetime.

The next morning we set off to Nantes. Che?

While we were driving there, we received a message from Rob that he and Caitlynne had stopped in Nantes at a market for lunch. We thought that was a good idea and decided to stop there as well. After winding through the streets of Nantes, we found the market. We circled the streets a few times, but couldn’t find a parking spot. We finally found an underground parking garage and parked in there. We went to the market, which was a bustling, covered area full of every type of fresh food you can imagine. We bought some cold cuts, cheese and a baguette and settling down in a chair in the sun to eat. When we returned to the car, the ticket machine kept spitting out my parking ticket asking me to insert it correctly. I tried every which way, but nothing worked. In the end I told Lidia we’d sort it out at the boom gate. We drove to the boom gate, but the same thing happened. I pressed the emergency call button to try to get some help, but the message was in French! I held my phone up to the machine and used the translate app to try to figure out what the message was saying, but that wouldn’t work either. Meanwhile, cars were piling up behind me. I hopped out of the car to see if I could find a number to call and saw that the driver in the other boom gate was having the same problem. He was pressing the button as well and managed to convey to me that there was nobody answering. A crowd of people started gathering. There were lots of “Sacre Bleur”s being shouted and arm waving going on. Eventually, a man went to the boom gate and lifted it up into the air above his head. It must have been heavy, because he was shaking like Dean Luca I quickly jumped back into our car and shot out of that carpark like a rally driver.

We then started making our way to our hotel. Unfortunately, they had blocked off lots of the roads in the city centre and the GPS in the car wouldn’t allow me to block certain streets from the route, so it kept trying to make me turn around and go back to the street that was closed. I shut my eyes and just headed in the general direction of the hotel. Eventually, we made it!

It turned out that the streets were blocked because there was a special event on in Nantes that day. It had been postponed for a year and they were all very excited about it. It was about to start, so we quickly dropped the bags in our room and hot-tailed it to the main square. We arrived just as a parade started. There were floats, bands, dancers and a joyous feeling in the city. The tradition is for the parade performers to throw coloured confetti at the crowd and the kids all stand in the crowd with bags full of confetti and throw it back at them. There was confetti flying everywhere and some of the kids were so excited that they were piffing handfuls of confetti in the faces of the performers like they were rocks. Not to be outdone, a bunch of clowns in a car starting firing a confetti canon into the crowd. It was all very noisy and a lot of fun.

After the parade, we walked to a tram stop and hopped a tram to the “Machine des L’isles”. This is like an amusement park inspired by Jules Verne, where they have massive animatronic animals. There is a giant elephant that roams around spraying water on everyone and a hall full of all different animatronic contraptions. It was pretty great, and would have been greater if we could understand the commentary.

Nantes is another lovely French city, and we enjoyed walking back to our hotel through the old town, the path passing right through the middle of a chateau on the way. We enjoyed a glass of wine in our hotel room, without spilling any. The hotel Lidia booked was spectacular. Converted from an old cathedral, our room contained a huge window overlooking three stained glass windows. We were happy to chill with a wine for a while before heading out to dinner.

For our last dinner in France, we dined at a great restaurant called La Loco. Lidia was rapt that they had prawn risotto on the menu which she thoroughly enjoyed. I ordered lobster, prawn and scallops that came with a buerre blanc sauce that was to die for. We think it was basically butter, cream and garlic.

For dessert, we ordered the crepe suzette, which our waiter, Olivier, made at our table. He wheeled up a small trolley with a hot plate on it, then poured a load of sugar into a fry pan. He added bucketloads of butter and simmered it until he could run his spoon through it without it running together. He then added orange juice. He added the crepes, then poured Grand Marnier over the whole thing, lighting it on fire. It was super delicious!

Side note: It’s always a worry for us when we have to let the kids (Ian and Carmel) go off on their own. Things always seem to go wrong. In my last blog, I explained how much trouble they had after the car hire company screwed up their reservation, meaning they had to take a train to visit Ian’s cousin in Limoges. They eventually made it to Limoges and settled in with Ian’s relatives. Turns out that the first night there, Carmel ate some soft, unpasteurised cheese that played havoc with her. Ian told us in great detail about poor Carmel doing a projectile vomit in the main square of the town and then being waylaid in bed for the entire stay. They had to take a bus to Paris to catch their flight to Rome. Carmel still has a questionable colon, so I’m sure the 8 hour bus ride has been a challenge of monumental proportions. To top it off, the bus left an hour late, the driver took a half hour break halfway and then they hit peak hour traffic in Paris. Right at this point in time, they are still racing to the airport in a taxi from the bus station. It’s touch and go whether they’ll make their flight. Tune in next time, to see if they made it!

They are not allowed to play without us any more!

Hopefully my next blog post will see us all in Sicily!