On to Bretagne!

A couple of pictures from our balcony; beautiful view! Then some pictures walking through Vannes.

Friday, May 22, 2009

Bonjour, and happy Friday!

We are still waddling from all the food at Graciela & Alain’s! After a good nap yesterday late afternoon, we came downstairs to a discussion on what to have for dinner! Robert had the deciding vote, with
Graciela’s soup and a salad the winning decision. A delicious home-made vegetable soup, along with a salad of garden butter lettuce and mushrooms…followed by cheese…followed by a wonderful tarte
citron with meringue! Wow! Just amazing, but we were STUFFED! We all sat in the kitchen and talked until almost midnight! Whew! Want to get on the road (fairly) early in the morning, as we are heading to Brittany!

Got up around 7, and down for breakfast by 8, all re-packed, assembled and ready to go. Another breakfast of wonderful French breads and Graciela’s home-made jellies and jams – would LOVE to take back some of the orange with vanilla, but she gave me 4 heads of RED garlic which I’m going to also try to get back home…what will Agriculture think of me?! Very sorry to say goodbye to our friends, but Alain has promised that they will come to visit in Arizona, and we are going to hold him to it!

Out by about 9:15 a.m. and used Emily (re-titled Jack, after the American voice, as R could NOT stand Emily’s English pronunciation of French words!...I however, prefer Em!) to find our way from St. Leu-la-Foret to the freeway outside of Paris. Wound through some beautiful areas, and along the Seine, but eventually found our way to the Peage (pay expressway). Lovely driving; very easy, as with yesterday (Thursday) being a national holiday, many people also had today off as well, so freeways weren’t bad at all! Out past Le Mans and Rennes, and finally broke off toward Vannes. Arrived at the Hotel Roof about 2:45 p.m. – about 5 ½ hour drive; not bad at all! [Note here: There are Magnum ice cream bars here, but so far, I haven’t been able to get a Classic! Katy, are they all in Espana? Have so far had vanilla with almond (not bad) and Magnum Temptation (also not bad) – but FINALLY found a Magnum Classic, but wasn’t hungry at All! Hopefully tomorrow…]

We first stayed at the Hotel Roof three years ago, when we were following the Tour de France. It is in a lovely location, right on the Golfe de Morbihan, about 3 km from Vannes. Talked about coming back someday, and today seems to be the day! Got to the hotel, checked in, and headed to our room. View is TERRIFIC, looking right out over the bay; lots of beautiful boats everywhere! (This is also Semaine du Golfe – not Golf Week, as I’d originally thought, but Week of the Gulf!) Then gathered up all our dirty laundry, as we knew from our last visit where the laverie automatique was! -- local Carrefour, just a few km away. Found it, no problem; it was deserted, and we loaded up two machines! -- out and dry in under 1½ hours; very happy to have clean clothes again, as we’ll be able to get all the way back to Tucson again now!

Back to the hotel, and R got lots of good information on things to see/do in the area. Still not sure what we’ll do tomorrow – probably a boat cruise of some sort, but there are also many Neolithic monuments – menhirs and stone circles and the like – as well as a couple of museums that are of interest. It is supposed to be another beautiful day (yea!) so hopefully we’ll get in a cruise of some sort or another at some point!

Decided to head into Vannes and see the sights. When we were here before, we skipped town entirely, but since found out that it’s a fairly interesting medieval city; walls and gates and everything! So, drove into town and found parking at the main square, Place de la Republique. Took a lovely walk – followed walls, walked through gates, and a wonderful pedestrian area. Found an Italian restaurant (mostly pizza) actually built on the ramparts, so decided to stay for dinner. It was EXACTLY what I needed after our last couple of days of eating! R started with a green salad with a great mustard vinaigrette. I had an insalada caprese (tomatoes, mozzarella and basil) – but boy, French tomatoes do NOT taste like tomatoes from home, that’s for sure! They’re GREAT! We both had pizza marguerite after that – that is, plain very thin-crust pizza with cheese and tomato sauce. Very simple, very good! Almost 9 by the time we finished (although you’d never know it from the fact that the sun has just now gone down!) Back to the hotel, and in for the night now…

More tomorrow!
Much love,
m