2nd Part - Brittany, France

After our grand D-day tour, we headed to Brittany to savor the region and see Mont St. Michel.

We lost our Rick Steves book while in the American cemetary. And all our hotel information for Brittany was in that book. RATS. Luckily, Brian had written the small town it was in on our itinerary, Plouer-sur-Rance. So we drove to that town based on my superior navigational skills and just hoped there would be a billion signs for the place when we got there. And THERE WAS! So we made it just fine.

The first day in Brittany, we drove along the coast between St. Malo and Mont St. Michel. The views were spectacular. We got out of the car and played on this beach with an island home in the backdrop.Along the way, we stopped and bought some Calvados, a French apple brandy, from a guy selling some from outside of his van. Sweet. He also sold some of the best apple juice and raspberry apple juice I've ever tasted.

Finally, we made it to Mont St. Michel and were greeted first by crowds of people and then HUGE rainstorms. Luckily, we got some family pictures before that began:

After hiking uphill towards the abbey and taking the stairs, Michael decided he was tired and ready for his nap:

Don't know how he got so tired when he didn't actually DO any of those stairs! :o) We signed up for an English tour of the abbey and were so glad we did. Despite all taking turns taking care of Michael, we all learned a little bit about medieval times and society. Some random interesting points:

• None of the stones used to build the abbey were from the actual rock island it sits on. The land/material from the location is considered sacred so it was not used.
• Quicksand and the fast rising tide are 2 of the dangers of the abbey.
• Pilgrims have been making the religious trek to this location since the 900's.
• It is suspected that the abbey was built structurally to represent the heirarchy of their society and religious life.

All in all, a very informative and beautiful stop. For dinner, we ate at this funny little Restaurant du Terroir, which was not only open, but practically empty, good, and reasonably priced. And to boot, they had 2 goats. Which once Brian and Michael discovered that the goats would eat anything...well....brings new meaning to "dining entertainment."

Brian spent the rest of the meal asking us, "Are you going to eat that vanilla bean? Let's see if the goat will eat it."

And Michael running around asking each of us, "Do you want to go feed the goats?"

I would not have been surprised if those goats had the runs after what Brian and Michael gave them to eat!

Well, after taking a bit too long in Normandy, we decided to extend our stay by one night in Brittany. After asking our hotel owner and stressing him out a bit and changing our train tickets, we found ourselves on vacation for another night.

The next day, we set off for Dinan, a town in Brittany. It was a normal European town, small, quaint, with cute architecture. We enjoyed the rampart views, despite the rain:

We finished with Dinan by early afternoon and decided to visit Dinard, a cute beach boardwalk town. But on the way, the entire car fell asleep and a storm cloud rolled in and spoiled all the fun. So we just relaxed for the remainder of our last day.

On our travel day back to Paris, we headed to St. Malo and wandered along their ramparts and enjoyed their beach views with sailboats.


Brian got our train tickets switched to get back to Paris an hour earlier! So there we were. At the end of yet another successful trip exploring France.

La Belle France. I could go on and on about how absolutely delightful the countryside is in France. Paris...you can take Paris from me and I would be absolutely fine. But in my heart, I'll always carry around my memories and sights from Collioure, Sarlat, the Cathar castles, and driving along yet another small windy country road in France.

It is THOSE moments that have made my stay in France something to write home about.