Nantes Jaunt

I spent this past weekend exploring another corner of Bretagne (Brittany). By "exploring" I actually mean "eating my way through", à la Eric Carle's very hungry caterpillar. This trip was organized by our French office assistant who has a taste for the gourmet, so we took full advantage of all of the fresh fish, kouing aman pasteries, salted caramel, crêpes and non-Parisian prices the region had to offer.

We started in Nantes, the capital of Bretagne and the 6th largest city in France, which was cute if rather bland. With a tram system, a small "ethnic" quarter, a medieval center and six-floor white buildings with wrought-iron balconies, it felt basically felt like a smaller, cleaner Paris with less people and wider streets. Highlights were visiting the little fortified castle in the town center, where you could see an old German war bunker from the WWII occupation as well as the site where the Edict of Nantes was signed. Before leaving Nantes we payed a visit to the Île des Machines exhibit, a "robotics" museum/workshop where one can see/interact with mechanical wood artwork vaguely inspired by the imaginary universe of Nantes-ian writer Jules Vernes. The coolest robot by far was an enormous wood and leather elephant, which is big enough to fit 40 passengers for a short jaunt around the square.

Next we hopped on a bus and continued on to a Muscadet vinyard on the edge of the Pays de la Loire Departement. The couple that owns and single-handedley runs the vineyard gave us a tour of the still rather dead-looking vines and the production facilities of their award-winning wine. I learned about wine production I hadn't known previously. Apparently you don't leave the grape skins in wine (too sour) and red grapes can therefore be used to make white, rosé or red wine depending on the delicacy and time-frame of the juicing process (for example, apparently all "authentic" Champagne comes from red grapes). Even if they don't do much for the taste, however, the skins are the source of the yeast, which ferments the wine by converting sugar into alcohol until such a point that it dies from the alcohol concentration it has created. (The difference between grape juice and wine is therefore simple pasteurization, which kills off the yeast before they get a chance to start making alcohol.) Afterward the wine-making lesson we were treated to a wine tasting of a young 2009 Muscadet (sweeter, almost bubbly, and more acidic) and an older 2003 one (drier, smoother). I liked both, but opted for the older as my souvenir.

We spent the night in La Baume, a small coastal town that was pretty, though pretty much like any Maryland or Delaware beach town in the off-season. The water was still a little cold for swimming but we enjoyed a stroll along the sand to find some shells, and our five course dinner was in a restaurant literally on the beach.
Saturday started with a trip to the marshes of the Presqu'il de Guérande, where the famous "fleur de sel" sea salt is harvested by hand from seawater channeled inland and concentrated in a series of canals and shallow pools. We toured the salt pools, then visited a co-op to purchase some local food products: jams from local berries, a seaweed tartar (also harvested from the swamps), Bretagne's famous salted caramels, and of course, salt. The salt looks like greyish rock salt and is valued by gourmet chefs for its delicate flavor. I'm not going to lie, I don't quite "get" it, but considering that a wholesale bag was only a euro I figured I'd give it a try.

A later boat ride through the swamps made me nostalgic for the Chesapeake Bay, whose shallow waters, grassy duck blinds, herons and crabs are surprisingly similar to those in Bretagne (although, of course, better--Maryland pride!). We ate lunch in the fortified medieval town of Guèrande, then walked around the picturesque village of Khérinet to see the rustic houses with roofs made of swamp grass. By the time I finally got back I was gorged with gourmet food, exhausted, and highly satisfied: both to have seen a little more of the "real" France beyond Paris and to have that feeling of returning "home" attached to Paris on the train ride back.

Bumming around Brittany

A trip to Bretagne (or Brittany, for you anglophones) has been at the top of my French "to visit" list for several years now, and thanks to trustfundergrad tuition I was finally able to make my pilgrimage to the land of crêpes, cider and cobblestones. Our first stop was Didan, a picturesque but otherwise unremarkable town known for its crêpes. I had a savory sausage and potato crêpe, followed by marzipan and salted caramel à la mode crêpes for dessert.

The next stop was St. Malo, a tidal beach town encircled by a medieval wall. A popular tourist destination during the summer (especially for British tourists, who can take a ferry across the English Channel), it's apparently not so balmy in March, giving us a chance to experience Bretagne's infamous and incessant wind and incessant rain. We shivered as we followed our great local tour guide aro und the rocky coastline, envying her outfit that wouldn't stand up to Parisian fashion standards but was definitely more practical: a windbreaker, a warm winter hat and rain boots.

The coolest thing about St. Malo is the fact that its waters are extremely tidal, meaning that huge stretches of beach and even a salt-water pool magically appear at low tide (the pool's diving board is still visible above the waves at high tide, to rather comical effect). Low tide also reveals a "path" (sandy ridge) leading to the tomb of writer Chateaubriand, who was a town native and fought for the right to be buried on a small island just offshore. Although I'm not a huge fan of Chateaubriand's work it was cool to once again witness the appreciation the French have for their literary legacies, which was also evident at the Hôtel Chateaubriand that we stayed at, located right next to the shrine-like site marking the writer's former house.

We also found a cute, childhood-themed bar, whose walls were adorned with dolls and old games and whose barflies sat not on stools but on swings! I was in love with the ambiance and the non-Parisian prices, although I was a little sad that we couldn't stay late enough to find out what happens when drunkenness and swings come together.

The next day put us just over the provincial border into Normandy for a hayride-esque romp through the tidal swamps with a few local fisherman. A tidal trap and seining net allowed us to examine some of the local sealife (see the skate pictured here), and the fresh sea air satiated my recent nostalgic longing for the Chesapeake Bay. Accompanied by a bunch of land-lubber NY-ers, I also realized how much practical aquatic knowledge I acquired as a result of my years camping with my family and studying at St. Mary's. I quickly found myself explaining how crabs breathe and how to pop off a shrimp's head and tail and the difference between flounders and dorade to a bunch of clueless underclassmen.

Our last stop on the tour was Mont St. Michel--a beautiful fortified island topped by an impressive abbey and cathedrale. This also gave me a chance to witness the Brittany/Normandy rivalry (ownership of the Mont has been and still is contested) as well as their fierce regional pride...natives of both places referred to their provinces and France as if the two were separate entities, as in fact they were in fairly recent history. (Both, however, are united in their scorn for the British, who were historically the reason for such intense stone fortification.) The Mont was pretty amazing, although more touristed than I had expected--apparently it's the top tourist destination in France after Paris. We wandered through steep and narrow shop-lined streets, enjoyed a shellfishy lunch, and toured the religious sites at the top, leaving in time to reach the mainland before the meter per second tide came rolling back in to cover the road and once again cut off the island.