France in a Nut Shell

Trip Start Jun 15, 2004

Trip End Apr 03, 2005

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Flag of France Paris, France
Thursday, September 23, 2004

After our very short stay in Spain we boarded a train to Bordeaux in the southwest part of France. Famous for its vineyards, we were anxious to do a little touring and, perhaps, a little wine tasting. Clearly Jacquie is twisting my arm on the latter but I'm a trooper and I'm willing to go along. We arrived around noon and we were almost immediately accosted by a man at the train station. He only spoke french and apparently Jacquie did not pay enough attention in French Class so we were not able to communicate very well. We finally figured out that he was asking us if we wanted to work cutting grapes in the vineyards. This is a pretty good indication of how we looked when we got off of the train. We had plans and he wanted a weeklong commitment so we turned him down. We found a hostel this time as the campground was way outside of town and we felt that we had earned a bed up off of the ground for a few nights. So much for the honeymoon though as without a reservation there were only single sex rooms available

A few to see Mona

. Oh well. I was the first to go to bed that night as I was feeling a bit under the weather. I left Jacquie with a 1/2 a bottle of wine (she tells me that she only had a glass then gave the rest away), a good bar of chocolate and her book and headed up to my room which I was sharing with 3 other guys. There was no one in the room when I got there and three of the four beds had covers that were messed up. Only one bed was perfectly made up and, making the natural presumption, I got undressed and climbed in. There was a suitcase under the bed which obviously belonged to the fellow that was on the bunk above me so, being the samara tin that I am, I moved this to the end of the bed so that he would have easier access to it. I promptly fell into a nice sleep. At about midnight the fellow came into the room and made an outrageous amount of noise. He slammed his suitcase around, coughed loudly and slammed doors. I thought, "what a mutton head" and tried to ignore him. He finally settled down and the other two occupants of our room showed up a bit later and everything was quiet. The next morning at breakfast I was telling Jacquie about the "mutton head" and she told me that she didn't even have a blanket and sheets never mind a nicely made up bed. We didn't think anything more about it until that night when we learned that we had a room to ourselves for the next two nights and that we could grab our sheets and blankets from the big bin beside the front desk. Ooops, I guess the "mutton head" was a little upset to learn upon arriving in the room that there was a big "galoot" sleeping in the bed that he had so nicely made up

Arch De Triumph

. That and the fact that he spent the night sleeping in someone elses dirty sheets. Dave the diplomat strikes again!

So Bordeaux was very nice. Lots of beautiful old stone buildings but most of these were very dirty and blackened with a couple of centuries of soot. There is an ongoing project underway as we speak to sandblast all of the buildings in the city. The ones that have been done so far look amazing. All of the ornate carvings are clearly visible again. Bordeaux is a university town so, once again, there is a good buzz around as school was just getting underway. Jacquie had to poke her head into the school of dentistry as well as every church in the city. We took a wine tour out to the Medoc region to the north of the city. This was very informative, explaining all of the rules and regulations that the various Chateaus have to put up with. We stopped at two wineries in Medoc and had tours and tastings. The vines were so heavy with fruit as it was about a week from harvest time for the red grapes. I asked what the vinyards do to keep the birds away. They told me that the birds were full and there were too many grapes and not enough birds to be a problem. Just before leaving the first vineyard, Jacquie snuck into the field and picked a handful of grapes for the road. Not really drinking and driving is it?

After Bordeaux we caught the train a little further north to the town of La Rochelle, Home of a terrific public aquarium and Jacque Cousteau's boat Calypso. Also home to a campground full of gypsies in town to help out with some of the grape harvest. We know this because we were also staying at the campground. Pretty wild to see a campsite with a really big tent and a refrigerator, free standing behind the tent, plugged into the camper hook up

Eiffel tower

. The campsite was about a 40 minute walk along a seaside trail into town. We went to the aquarium which was excellent and found a bakery that always seemed to have warm chocolate croissants. So much for losing weight in Europe. The town has a funky little harbour which has been around for a very long time. During the middle ages they built a tower on either side of the mouth of the harbour and pulled up a chain during the night to keep out the pirates. We didn't see any pirates and in fact the only thing that we had to worry about in La Rochelle was avoiding the copious amounts of dog poop on the sidewalks. In Canada kids yell "car". In La Rochelle the yell "poo"

Anyway, after a few days in La Rochelle we headed to Paris. We had a great time. The people were friendly (really), the city was clean and easy to get around and they have Starbucks. Finally a cup of coffee that doesn't come in a thimble. We camped about 1/2 hour outside of the city centre and got pretty good at using the underground metro system. We spent two days walking around the city seeing all of the tourist sights including the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, Arch d'Triumph etc etc. Did we mention that they have Starbucks. We spent almost a full day at the Louvre. We didn't leave after 5 hours because we had seen everything, we left because our minds were in overload. Wow, what a huge place and wow, what a lot of stuff in it. There are paintings from all over Europe, an entire wing for Egyptian artifacts, sculptures and tapestries. There is also the apartments of Napolean which is attached to the Louvre. We were pooped and in need of fresh air so we wandered out and spent another hour wandering through the Louvre Gardens. I think we then went to Starbucks. We could have easily spent another week just wandering around the city. The architecture and the narrow streets, Starbucks, croissants, baguettes and camembert

Morlaix France

. Alas we had to leave and we packed up early on a friday morning and caught the train to the ancestral home of the Guyaders, Morlaix, France.

Morlaix is on the Brettony Peninsula about 3 hours west of Paris. We arrived fairly early in the day and checked into the Boisvert Hotel (the Guyaders will get a kick out of that)and headed into town to see what we could see. The town is built around the end of a long inlet and the harbour has a dyke (no giggling) whereby the lock is closed during the tide change to ensure that there is enough water in the harbour for the boats. We wandered up to the cemetery to have a look for any relations. There were several graves marked with the family Guyader and an older one (the owner died in the late 1800's) under the name Guiader. There was even a couple of Le Guyader's. It was interesting to see that many of the other names in the cemetery also started with GU. It was an interesting way to spend an afternoon. We had to check out the churches in town and found the oldest which was built in many stages but started in the mid 1400s. The old part of town is well preserved and the people, including the baker, were very friendly. Not much english spoken here but we managed to get by with Jacquie's slowly returning french skills. I was just happy that I wasn't escorted out of town immediately upon giving my name at the hotel. Never know what the family had been up to in the 1800's. Well that about does it for France. We are going to head north again, this time to Belgium for a visit with Jacquie's friend Sophie.

Still travelling well

Jacquie and Dave

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