Big and Bad Enough?

I have come to realize that I have about 3 months of travel in me before I get restless and want to get back to normal. I have been gone since early November and the 3 month mark has come and gone and I have lost a good bit of motivation to get out and about. Luckily, I still didn’t have internet or watchable TV at my Tours AirBnB so I was forced to keep coming up with ideas on how to spend my days. Now that my AirBnB time is up, I had to move on but even though I was really ready to go home, it’s still winter back on the property and there are some friends on my list that I needed to see while I was over here. They weren’t expecting me for a few weeks so still had to fill some days.

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed France so I decided to stay here, just somewhere else. My only real plan was to take the ferry to get to England when the time came. That made the decision to head north from Tours easy. The train and a bus took me to Caen. I didn’t know anything about it other than the map showed there was a ferry terminal nearby. It turns out that Caen is another nice sized old French city that actually wasn’t all that old since it was leveled during World War II. It was nicely rebuilt with an eye to keep its French Brittany coast charm. I only stayed for a night though. I had my fill of mid-sized towns and there were other things to see.

The good thing is the Brittany Coast is not well developed so there’s a lot of beautiful scenery. The bad thing is the Brittany coast is not well developed so that beautiful scenery isn’t so easy to see. Most just opt to join the tour bus herds. I didn’t. I rented the cheapest car I could get, a tiny Fiat 500. And it was a hybrid. Not a macho chick magnet for sure but it was a manual transmission which I only stalled a couple of times. So I was at least able to renew my man card or at least extend it a little while longer. 

I drove along the Brittany coast stopping at all the D-Day landing sites, memorials and cemeteries. I was glad I went on an off-season cold gray winter day. I was able to roam around without the tour bus crowds clogging the paths and museums. I was able to take in most of the landing sites, pay my respects and get a lay of the land in just an afternoon. The main memorial center is at Omaha Beach and it is the one to see if you have to choose.

I have seen pictures of Mont-Saint-Michel for years and years and have always wanted to see it. It is a monastery and little community on a tidal island on the coast. You have to time your visit for low tide, get in and out while the path was above water. If the road floods while you are there, you are in for 8 hours of $20 sandwiches and $15 beers. It worse then the airport when your last flight out today gets cancelled. Never fear, they have built a new high and dry bridge to the island with continuous shuttle bus service running all day. The lost income from the stranded tourists is made up for by charging exorbitant parking rates on the mainland.

I got there after dark with the hope of trying to get some night picture of the monastery. It wasn’t very well lit and not worth the effort. I found a cheap room and went out for my favorite french food, a Gyro, FRENCH fries and a can of coke.  I went for a good night’s sleep instead. For some reason I was up and out long before sunrise the next morning though. I decided that I might as well get an early start and maybe see a nice sunrise. I hiked the mile across the bridge in the dark. The lack of stars dashed my hopes of a good sunrise.

I finished a quick walk around the dark quiet cobblestone streets of the old town with 3 hours to wait for the monastery to open. Nothing was open. I tried to get a vending machine Nescafe but my Euros disappeared into the slot never to be seen again and nothing to show for the effort. I went for a walk on the tidal flats to kill some time. under the cloudy sunrise, it was hard to tell where the gray sandy clay of the tidal zone ended and the sky began. I had no idea when the tides were supposed to reverse and my old shoes where holding back the water that was there so I headed for the rocky shore just in case.

The rocks weren’t smoothed from the relentless tides over the years except for one. The one I slipped on and fell face first into its rougher neighbors. I was able to prevent stop myself with my right arm before I before my face did. I was pretty impressed with the reaction time for an old guy. I recovered and head back thinking I should just wait in line for the remaining 2 hours.

The self guided tour was quick. Pretty place but mostly just a lot of huge empty but architecturally stunning rooms. Probably would have been better with a knowledgeable guide. I finished up and walked back the across the bridge just as the first of the days packed shuttle busses were rolling in.

With Mont-Saint-Miche in my rear view mirror, My must do in Brittany list was complete and I still had a day and a half on the rental car. I just kept driving. The Fiat was surprising zippy and fun to drive. I don’t think I could own one though. I spent too much time trying to keep the battery side of the hybrid charged up. It was surprisingly stressful trying to keep the battery charged. Because at $8/gallon, I did not want to burn any more gas than I needed to. I spent way too much time watching the battery meter and not the road but it did help me to figure out that it only charged when I was coasting and in a gear that matched the speed I was going. As there is not a lot of opportunity to coast on the relatively flat backroads and highways, I had to speed up then let off the gas and coast as long as I could. It was a fun little game. But as the old saying goes “Its all fun and games until someone gets hurt or you pass a well hidden speed camera”. I knew that as soon as I and saw the flash in the rear view, it was true. I am still wondering how a speeding ticket in a hybrid Fiat 500 affects my man card status but at the moment I am leaning towards pretty cool.

I ended my trip by roaming around the really cool town of Saint-Malo. It is an old Brittany coast city with a very Britannia feel to it. I would definitely like to stay longer next time but a Ferry was waiting and I wanted to be on it.

 

 

Pictures for the Brittany visit are on my google picture folder.  All the trip pics are inked on the IG-ish page.