Bordeaux

On Wednesday morning we left the rugged coast of Brittany and the studying of rudimentary rock formations, to drive to the Haut-Médoc region of Bordeaux, so we could now study the gravel layers of soil...and the wines they produce!

Stopped in the medieval town of Guérande (Gwenrann).  We entered through the fortified wall and were happy to find that it was market day and the streets were alive with the locals shopping.   Randi got right to it, purchasing soap at one of the first stalls we walked by.  We had an espresso outside and were able to watch some sort of short street performance, before getting back on the road.

We stayed at the swanky Château Grattiquina in Blanquefort.  It was a beautiful 250 year old manor home (fairly new), with just 10 luxurious rooms.   

It sits at the entrance of the Haut-Médoc region of Bordeaux, right next to the Garonne river, which like us, is making it's way from the Atlantic towards Toulouse.  We could talk about the wide sweeping staircase, with huge windows and marble floors, as well as a secluded Hollywood-looking pool out back.
But the most astonishing amenity we found right away was the wine machine! in the one reception/small dining room.  They had given us a card with our room key and mentioned the card had $50 on it for wine.  I didn't really understand but just knew that it was important.  Just slide your card into the wine machine and you had a choice of 7 or 8 different special bottles from all the different regions of Bordeaux.  I could get a single pour of a 2015 St. Emillion Grand CRU for $5!...and it "seemed" free when all you had to do was slide the wine card!

We went for dinner that night in the Haut-Médoc region at a newer boutique restaurant called the Nomade in Labarde. It was owned by a cute young couple (shown in my sneaky 'over the shoulder' selfie) who made sure everything was excellent.  At times I wasn't sure what we were eating but it was good.  I took a pic of the menu to go with the entree pics below.

                                       

The Alignments of Carnac!

We wanted to beautiful Quiberon and it's rugged coastline but we were also interested in the mysterious alignments of Carnac! ...or sometimes referred to as da Great Carnac Stones.  These are monolithic stones that allegedly were put in place back in 4000 BCE!  Come on!  Really?


They seem to be in alignments with each other but no one knows why and not many people care why.  Come to find out, there are a lot of these stones found around in Brittany.

We went for a beautiful ride on the coast, looking for a heart rock that I had heard of on the web, knowing that our hearts are aligned perfectly!!   When we found it, I tried to straddle the rock :)

Also just down the road within a mile of there was a great little seafood restaurant, Le Vivier, high up on the rocky coast, with an excellent viewpoint for the Cote Sauvage!
For the rest of the trip and still today, when I can't get Randi out of my mind, I tell her I feel like I'm going 'cote sauvage' :)

Drove to Saint Anne d’Auray to see the massive cathedral and museum dedicated to Saint Anne (Jesus’s bopi).  We had dinner in Carnac that night and walked the small beach town afterward.  We ended up in the little Exit bar.  We had a cozy booth in the back, near the restrooms, where I accused Randi of checking the mens room alignments.

On the Road to Brittany

The car rental turned out to be a bit of an adventure and almost a catastrophe.  Both the pickup and return were slightly stressful events.

We had a car reservation for 10am at a Hertz inside Paris.  When we got their at 9:45am the door was locked and lookin through the window of this little store front was just a desk and a chair with no one inside. Around 10:15, after a couple more knocks and still no found through the window, unless they were hiding from us!  We reached someone on a Hertz 800 number and they said they didn’t know why...possibly with a shrug?  The Hertz guy then said he couldn’t make outgoing calls to try them either. What!  Come on! Unbelievable.  So we sat outside at a little restaurant next door and had coffee.  We had a lot of driving planned for this day.   Finally around 10:40am the guy showed up to say ...“you have an 11am reservation, no”.  No!

To get our Citroen C4 Cactus we had to walk a couple blocks away and go like 5 stories down into a parking garage to find the guy who handles Hertz cars.  We went over the car quickly with him. He gave us the paperwork, but apparently it turns out he did this without signing off on whether it had any dents or not.  This would turn out to be helpful when we returned it a week later in Toulouse :)

Driving out of Paris was a bit nerve racking. We couldn’t easily figure out the built-in GPS...this wasn't gone over with us much by Hertz.  We couldn't get it to speak Anglais.  While playing with this we went through a tunnel and I couldn't find the lights.  Didn't need em before the tunnel!  We couldn’t see a thing for like 5 seconds, maybe longer! ...then I found the headlights. Everything's fine.

With our late start we decided to not to stop in LeMans or detour to Fougeres (pronounced Fockgers) or stop in Rennes. We mad a lot of miles to do that first day.  We wanted to get to our ocean side hotel sooner than later.  We did roughly a 6 hour ride directly to the Le Plancton in Carnac, just outside Quiberon. Checked in and then quickly went to have a drink at a beach bar across the street.  After that we walked barefoot on the grand la plage! Felt terrific!  For dinner that night we went to a Restaurant Le Cavok in the heart of Carnac Plage.

In the Heart of Paris

Saturday

Patisserie our the door

Long way to the flea market

Saint Chapelle

Seine dinner cruise was really good. We finished everyone’s wine. We went to the Effeil lawn for wine. Talked to joe and tiffiny from New York. Young kids. Went to Corcoran Irish pub for a night cap.

Sunday

Woke up late

Saint Severin

Hotel de George Cluny - pillars of the boatmen

Fondue near saint Severin

Drinks near Shakespeare book store. I had a mojito that tasted loaded with rum but apparently was a virgin. So we found a piano bar where I made sure the Long Island iced tea was not virgin. Felt so good. We had pizza that was excellent.

Back in France Again

Back to tour de France 10 years later.  And we would accept no less than a plan to go from Paris to Cassis by car.  And then fly back starting from Marseille. It had to be done!

When we made our flight reservations for the trip, it was done kind of quickly, with time running out and fares going up and us finally having the resolve to say to ourselves...yes, we have so much going on at home but we'll never be invited by good friends to come to France for a party again.  And what a special party it was.

We found that the best fare had us flying Iceland Air and connecting through Iceland before arriving in Paris.  It's too bad we didn't figure out a night or two in Iceland to try to see the Northern Lights   We were so happy to finally nail down all the details of our adventure in France that we couldn't fit Iceland too.

However, shortly into our first leg on Iceland Air I realized the northern lights were inside the plane!  "Ladies and gentlemen, the Captain has turned on the aurora borealis. If you haven't already done so, please stow your carry-on luggage underneath the seat in front of you and focus on the overhead bin."

After the long flight and the 40 minute train ride in from Charles De Gaulle, to come up the steps of the Saint Michel metro and out into the sunlight of the Latin Quarter was so surreal.  Just an incredible feeling to suddenly be in the heart of Paris.

And we were so excited to know our accommodation was right there in the Latin Quarter, just a couple blocks from Place Saint-Michel. When we got to our door we found our airbnb instructions to get into our place were exactly as stated.  When we opened the apartment door it was obvious that the pictures taken for the Airbnb listing were all taken from standing in the exact same spot. The accommodation was true to it's neighborhood, in that it's size was only a quarter of a normal apartment. The kitchen was ridiculously small.  But it really didn't matter. It was a terrific location, with a comfortable bed and a balcony view of Paris life.

After dropping off our stuff we got right back out there.  Not sure we how it happened but we ended up on a hop on and off.

We didn't have a plan for that day of arrival and ended up for dinner near apartment at a touristy spot we felt.  But we were tourists too.  We were there to see the city's history and maybe get a glimpse of the real Parisian life elsewhere.  We had a table outside on a beautiful night and we made it there.