What a glorious day it was, when we drove our way down to Quiberon. A former island in the Atlantic ocean until the 11th century, when formation of a tombolo changed its landscape and connected the island to the mainland, creating a peninsula with an isthmus that sports a width of mere 22m at its narrowest point.
The key to truly enjoy the coastal front of the Côte Sauvage is to avoid the chock-a-block main road, particularly during the summer holiday season, that goes through St-Pierre-Quiberon down to Quiberon. Instead, on passing the tombolo and immediately on arrival of the former island, take a right turn in the direction of Portivy. From there, it’s a straight drive along the coast. Better still, park the car and take a long, invigorating walk while admiring the wild coast which sees waves after waves crashing in.
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May I say just how much I am looking forward to my vacation? All things finalised, booked, printed and nitty-gritty details all updated to my TripIt app, I guess that means we are all set. The only thing that I know I won’t be able to realistically achieve is to schedule blog posts during my absence, so there’s going to be a whole lot of back-dated posts in the next few weeks…
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2 Sep: The first time someone suggested that we go to an “afterworks” I was rather confused, especially since the invitation was issued in French. The explanation that was given to me sounded like a Friday evening blowout party at a club, something not particularly my kind of thing, so I declined. For me, an outing after work is more aligned towards a group at a local pub where we can chill, have a drink or two, chit chat, and maybe then decide if to go on an impromptu dinner together or not. (I sound old and sooo not hip, isn’t it?)
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The Ria d’Étel empties into the Bay of Biscay, and right at this meeting point, things can get pretty interesting. After our morning detour to Saint Cado, we continued driving westwards to Barre d’Etel, located at the mouth of the estuary.
Along the river, large volumes of water are displaced by the tides and the estuary itself is subject to strong currents – we saw multiple signs warning potential swimmers from committing the folly of mounting a watery challenge. At Barre d’Etel, an ever shifting band of sand is formed by these cross currents. Additionally, on days with strong wind, be prepared for the assault of the sand. (Yes, I was ill-prepared, for I arrived wearing shorts and it was painful being pelted non-stop that I couldn’t go anywhere near the seafront! Everyone else came back with pocketful of sands instead.)
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Another month, another wedding to attend. While July’s wedding took us to Dijon for a weekend, August saw us heading to Morbihan (southern Brittany) for a handful few days to celebrate the marriage of one of my best friends from my Dublin days. While we were there, as you may have guessed – road trip!
One of our post-wedding sightseeing stops in the region was Saint Cado, a small islet just to the north of Belz. It is such an idyllic village, set with stone and whitewashed houses surrounding a chapel that was built in the 12th century on the site originally founded in the 6th century, and flat green fields that occupy the eastern half of the islet. It is also surrounded by structures that indicate oyster farming as the main economic activity off its immediate bay today. Between the islet and the mainland, a singular stone house is seen to sit on another small rock island in the middle of Ria d’Etel.
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A second wedding invitation this summer saw us heading to Rahon on the weekend of 14 July, and we took the opportunity to visit Dijon too. Probably not the best travel move of the year, since our sightseeing day was not only on a Sunday, it was also the 14 July, and just about everything was shut. We explored the town by foot randomly, and with some tips from the tourist information centres that were, surprisingly, open on a Sunday and a public holiday to boot, we found some activities to do.
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Blink, blink. September has just turned up, the French population is gearing up for la rentrée while I, well, dealing with a bunch of paperwork actually. That, and finalising the details of my upcoming holiday. In the mean time, I’m suffering from writer’s block and find it very difficult to put words to paper (or to WordPress, in this case). Please excuse me while I search for my inner wannabe-writer…
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26 Aug: There are the typical Haussmanian buildings, and then there are a whole lot of variations of non-Haussmanian too. I don’t think I was too far away from Pont d’Alma when I took this shot, just because it’s quirky enough to be different from its neighbours. I’ve been trying to search for more information on this architectural style, but haven’t have much luck so far. I may need to dig deeper, or whip up the thick book of Parisian architecture bible that F bought a long time ago. It’s a very interesting book, but just a bit too much French for me to read, so it’s work instead of fun reading.
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Ever since Alex posted some photos on her Facebook over a year ago of her walk in the woods of St Germain-en-Laye, Frédéric and I spoke often of visiting it ourself. But alas, all talk, no action…
When Lauren and Danielle started planning for an afternoon out in this western suburb of Paris, I jumped at the opportunity to tag along. We were joined by Anne, Deanna and Lauren’s adorable pup, Daisy. Moreover, with “free” daily transport within Ile-de-France in the summer thanks to the dézonage of Navigo – it is now back to weekends and public holiday only – it would be silly not to take advantage of it.
A short fortnight later, I found myself hopping back on the RER A towards St Germain-en-Laye, this time with Frédéric and Nicolas in tow. For the second time in as many weeks, I was admiring the beautifully designed garden of the Château of St Germain-en-Laye by André Le Nôtre, principal gardener to King Louis XIV (who was, incidentally, born in St Germain-en-Laye) and the man responsible for raising the bar in the construction of formal French gardens.
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I have a thing for the fleur de sel. The “flower of salt” is famously hand-harvested in Guérande, just south of Brittany, although there are other (mechanically collected) productions in Noirmoutier, Île de Ré and Camargue too. Moist to touch and pale silver-grey in colour, this fine salt has such a delicate taste that once you start to use fleur de sel, it’s hard to imagine going back to your average table salt. I couldn’t describe it but know that it doesn’t taste like any other salt in the world.
Just outside of the historical town of Guérande lies the salt marshes, the marais salant, where the fleur de sel is harvested. A complex series of waterways, including the traicts protected by Le Croisic and Pen Bron, channels the water of the Atlantic Ocean into shallow marshes; the water fills up the basins – also known as vasière – during high tide and is then guided to into the marshes known as the œillets via designated narrow water networks.
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Finally, the works in our neighbour’s apartment terminated so no more loud drilling, hammering, and the likes. Sadly, the traffic is also coming back to the city, so one form of noise replaces another. On the plus side, some of our favourite restaurants are/will be re-opening after being away for several weeks, so I’m looking forward to a break in cooking and baking. Ah, such is the ebb of city life. ;)
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19 Aug: We are a couple of days away from the full moon, and this is a significant one in the Chinese calendar. According to the Chinese custom, it marks the height of the Hungry Ghost Festival, and if I was still living with my grandparents, they’d be telling me right now not to stay out late so I won’t encounter any roaming spirit. But hey, I live in Paris, the sun doesn’t set in the early summer evening. I also don’t see various festival-associated offerings and rituals performed, so I don’t get spooked quite as much. Instead, I am out with my friends, and we’re all appreciative of just how big the moon seems tonight.
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I’ve been working on a bit of a side project in recent weeks, and it’s taking me away from writing this blog as regularly as I’d like to. I don’t explore the city as much either, sticking mostly within my own neighbourhood. At the same time though, a neighbour in the building is doing some renovation work, and the constant drilling and hammering proved to be a nuisance and often breaking my concentration. If only my laptop is not one that requires attachment to the mains all the time, then I could head out somewhere new and work out there at the same time. Wouldn’t that be ideal?
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12 Aug: A couple of weeks ago, Chloé and I went to the Disneyland for a little bit of summer fun. However, the day was long and the heat was getting to us too. We skipped the closing lightshow and fireworks for another evening, i.e. this evening! It was a magnificent show, synchronised to the many catchy tunes, featuring well-loved Disney characters. If only they would start the show a little earlier… Pretty much everyone was good to watch the show by 10.15pm, 10.30pm, even 10.45pm, but no, they held off until 11.00pm. It was starting to get chilly without the warmth of the sun, you know.
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