Mont St. Michel and Saint Malo

After our trip to the American WWII Cemetery, Danuta, Michel, Dad, and myself stopped by a field full of cows with a view of the distant Mont St. Michel. As we continued our drive post lunch, we could see the mount in the distance as we rolled through the hills of north western Bretagne (Brittany).

When we finally reached our destination, we walked from the car toward the fortress/castle/monastery/cloister/village that is Mont St. Michel. It was impressive enough from the outside alone, but once we crossed the drawbridge and entered the bustling city, it was incredible. As if we'd been transported back in time to the middle ages during a festival, there were banners and colorfully painted signs, narrow paved streets and suits of armor displayed at every other window. I envy the people who still live here and get to experience it on a daily basis because it is truly spectacular.

We climbed the twisting, steep streets, and climbed countless stairs. If there was one complaint about the day, it was that there were too many stairs. I got blisters on my blisters despite being in good, comfortable shoes padded with moleskin. But it was absolutely worth it and entirely beautiful.

I've had incredible luck here with the weather, its been more than a week and every day has been sunny and warm. The day at Mont St. Michel was no exception and so though we perspired as we traversed up the mountain, the sunshine on the water and surrounding greenery was magnificent.

Once we reached the monastery itself though, everything became cool grey stone, it was almost chilly. Winding staircases led us to wide rooms full of historical importance and architectural detail, we passed a giant wooden wheel that was somehow used to lift food to prisoners when the island was used as a prison during the Revolution, and at the very top found the cloister gardens surrounded by some of the prettiest, most intricate stone work I've ever seen.

Once the tour was complete, we made our way down out through the town, tired but satisfied with our journey. It was getting late and we still had a two hour drive before us to get back to Nantes, so Dad and I expected our trip to Saint Malo to be cut. Instead, Michel insisted not only on making our way there, but stopping at various tourist points along the way.

It seems like every single tourist point in France has a set of steps you must climb in order to get the best view or full experience or whatever else. We climbed up the side of a cliff that overlooked the ocean, and at that point I was so tired I was ready to just jump into the water, it looked so cool and inviting after our previous hot walks.

Finally, we made it to Saint Malo. It is a gorgeous seaside town and if you ever have two days to spend in the northwest of France, suggest you spend them visiting Mont St. Michel and Saint Malo, but not both in the same day if you value both your feet and your sanity. After climbing up one last tower to look at the city and the ocean, again, we descended and began looking for somewhere to eat and found a little creperie that was just to our tastes. We shared a bottle of cider which is not like the American version I quickly found out, but was still very good regardless. I had a chocolate banana crepe because after a day of walking, sometimes all you really need is chocolate.

Our drive home through the dark was quiet, I think we all fell asleep from exhaustion, with the exception of our driver and zealous tour guide. All in all, it was a lovely day, I just wish we hadn't had to walk up those last six flights of stairs in the apartment in order to get to bed.

Day 2: another new time zone. sweet

Greetings once more from the lovely Nantes!

The title of my post comes from the difficulty I've had adjusting to the new time zone. This morning I woke up at 5:45am....the time back home which wasn't exactly concurrent with the 11:45am France time. Ooops.

Once he hauled me out of bed, Dad and I walked into town to mail some things to the cousins in Italy, and a few letters that Danuta asked him to send. I thought I knew French, but when trying to communicate with the worker at the post office, things got quite turned around and she and the other patrons thought we were Italians. Apparently because it was the last language I learned my numbers in, those were the numbers I was using. Whoops once again.

We had two hours to walk around before Danuta wanted us back for lunch, so we walked around the beautiful streets of Nantes, and got a few pastries to soothe our slightly ruffled feathers after the post office difficulty.

Dad got a red fruit crumble, I got a chocolate eclair with chocolate creme inside. We ate the

pastries on the steps of the cathedral with some university students taking their lunch break.

Afterwards, more trekking around and trying to familiarize ourselves with the city and find the epicerie, grocery store, to get the things Danuta had given us a list of to bring back. A very kind security guard at a department store pointed the way: down the stairs. This was a very classy looking establishment, not unlike a Macy's or other nice department store, but it had a legitimate grocery store in the basement, complete with ev

erything from fresh produce (and the little sprinklers keeping them moist) to a ham on display in the butcher section all decked out with the little chef's hat things on it's lopped off limbs.

Lunch was more of Danuta's brilliant cooking, a chicken/apple/rice salad, and tomatoes with vinegarette to start, followed by some kind of fish that I made myself eat (I am a strict non-eater of fish of all kinds in general) it had a hollandaise sauce on it and honestly wasn't half bad. There were also some delicious buttery potatoes, and of

course, baguette with any of three different kinds of cheese (I had Camembert).

After lunch we all had a brief siesta and the Marie took us on a tour of the chateau, which is absolutely gorgeous. While walking around the ramparts I leaned out one of the windows and a boy sitting in the grass by the moat below blew me a kiss. Very storybook like. The tour only strengthened my resolve to get a castle of my own, there's really no beating the thrill of looking out over the city with a moat rushing beneath and splendid gardens all around. Plus, it's a castle. And it made me feel like a princess.

Sadly, I forgot my camera for that bit of the trip, but afterwards we walked along the streets while Marie made another trip to the post office, Dad and I kept safely out of the way this time. After more walking around, we stopped and had some ice cream. Dad got caramel and butter, Marie got cafe, and I stuck with the good old mint chocolate chip, only they called it After Eight and it tasted more like real mint than the American stuff. Yum.

We returned just in time to help prepare for dinner, which I managed to sneak a picture of.

The first course was a salad of grapefruit and prawns with a sauce of mayonnaise and creme fraiche. I'm not a huge prawn fan, but apparently today was a fish day because the prawns were followed by some salmon, and more of the potatoes from lunch time. Then came the salad which I made under Danuta's tutelage. It had a nice vinegarette, apples, cheese, and walnuts that I made a huge mess of cracking before Dad stepped in to show me. Apparently he's quite the pro at it because his family actually cracked walnuts around the dinner table when they were in season. Cheese and bread followed, and then of course dessert which was the same chocolate cake that we had last night.

I skyped with Mom and my brothers today, and of course the cats. We had a lovely chat and as of now the youngest brother and I are at war with awkward pictures we take of each other and then post to Facebook.

Overall, we had a great day and I'm really looking forward to tomorrow! But you all must wait for that because, despite of the 5:52pm time stamp this might have, it's actually almost midnight here and we have to get up early.