PontifiKate

Playing Catch Up, Part 4 of 4

Day 9: Sun. Oct. 30th -- ROUEN, CAEN

This day was kind of a bust. The plan was to go to Rouen’s Notre Dame Cathedral (the subject of a series for which Monet did almost 30 paintings) for mass and then catch our train to Caen, where we’d make our way to the Côte de Nacre/Omaha Beach site and anything else that interested us. We went to the cathedral for the 8:30 service, tried to go in, but the man at the door wouldn’t let us, saying something like that it didn’t open until 8:00. Huh? But it’s 8:20! Whatever. So we walked to the nearest church (closed for renovations) and the next nearest (no service times listed and closed-looking). Plan B: breakfast. While on the way we saw a huge clock that was just hitting 8:00. What?? We stopped, discussed, and finally pulled out my calendar to find that Daylight Savings Time had indeed started, and that yes, apparently they do that in France, too. Sooo not on my radar! We had breakfast, attended mass, and took the train to Caen. The Office de Tourisme was closed, so we were on our own. Some free advice from me to you: if you want to see Omaha Beach, go during tourist season or rent a car. Public transportation completely failed us and it was too far out of town to walk. Daa-aaang. We hurriedly saw the Château Ducale, the Musée de Normandie (can you say free bathroom?), and the Abbaye-aux-Dames, but since we (ahem) liked Rouen better, we took the early train back. We went to a showing of Corpse Bride in honor of “Halloween Eve”.



see my “Caen, Normandy” photo set

Day 10: Mon. Oct. 31st -- ROUEN, PARIS, BREST

I liked Rouen, too. It was bigger but not big, and most importantly manageable in size. It had character, history, and a river to boot. Anyway. Mary Ann and I had decided to go to Bretagne because it seemed a shame to be so close and not go. Plus, we wanted to glimpse the Atlantic coastline that was supposed to be breathtaking. To get there, we had to backtrack through Paris once again! Brest was a very different kind of town as it has a port, a naval base, a château, and is fairly modern due to its being subject to bombings back in WWII. We went to the Tour de Tanguy, which is now a museum documenting the development of Brest over the centuries: fascinating. We took a walk with a good view of the Château de Brest, naval port, etc. which was nice. We walked and shopped. We dined at Le St. Ex Restaurant. I ate a good, full meal and ventured a calvados at the end (a regional digestive). Stuh-rong! Definitely the strongest alcoholic drink I’ve ever tried -- but boy, did it do wonders for helping me digest all the food I’d just eaten! We had to walk all the way back to our budget hotel (post-buses, you know) which was fine, save that it was Halloween and things were minorly strange. But it really wasn’t bad because Halloween isn’t very big over here yet, so only pockets of people were “celebrating”. It’s on the rise, though. :o)



see my “Brest, Bretagne” photo set

Day 11: Tue. Nov. 1st -- BREST, PARIS, AVIGNON, CAVAILLON

This was a big travel day. We got up early so that we could have a leisurely breakfast for once before boarding the train. Ha! No such luck. This was a French holiday, so there were no buses and we had to walk all the way to the station. We, once again, had a rushed breakfast before scrambling on the train. :o) We had to hurry again in Paris because my train to Avignon left from another station with not much time in between. Mary Ann was kind enough to see me safely to my train, and then we parted ways. She was a great traveling companion (and will be again very soon, it seems!). More rushing in Avignon because, once again, I left from a different station than the one I arrived in. Blaaah! I actually took the bus from Avignon back to Cavaillon. Eva (German) and Helen (English) were kind enough to take me in that night, as my French family didn’t get back until the following day. I got to meet their landlords and Eva’s family that evening, which was fun even though I was road-weary. I didn’t think about it at the time, but Eva and her father had picked me up when I arrived in Cavaillon rather than letting me walk to the apartment, as is normal. It wasn’t until later that I found out about the riots and the unrelated local murder. Yikes. Welcome back to real life, Kate!

So there you go: my journey through the Loire Valley, Normandy, and Bretagne. The trip was very, very good on the whole. I hope you enjoyed reading about it, even though it’s more than a little after the fact! Oh -- did I mention that this break was in honor of Toussaint or All Saints Day? Three cheers for the French academic calendar and four 10-day vacations!

posted by Kate @ 2:32 PM