Zumstegs on the Go

Last Friday we saddled up the trusty old Renault and headed to Brittany to celebrate a bunch of birthdays. Our friends Jamie and Hervé Rufin, who have vacationed on the Presq’ile Quiberon for a number of years, last year bought a beautiful house there and invited three couples to join them over a long weekend; three of the four wives were celebrating birthdays that weekend, Laurie’s is not too far away, and one husband’s was the day before we arrived – a plethora of reasons to celebrate!

First, where were we? The Quiberon Peninsula is on the southwestern edge of Brittany:

Here are some pictures of Saint-Pierre-Quiberon:

On the other side of the peninsula is the Côte Sauvage – the Wild Coast. It reminds us a lot of the Oregon coast.

We walked a lot on the Côte Sauvage, especially at low tide; very beautiful. I even went into the water, and though I tried to stay in, I couldn’t make it warm enough, so I didn’t last long.

And there were birthdays to celebrate. We arrived on Friday, July 31; Saturday was Valérie’s birthday, Sunday was Mary’s and Monday was Jamie’s (and the day before had been Yves – Valérie’s husband.) And they decided to include Laurie, whose birthday is only a month away. So there was some serious celebrating to do.

We went out for a wonderful – at the time – meal Saturday night, then Sunday night we had dinner at chez Rufin, where the kitchen was in full swing, and Gilles took over duties as Master Barbecuer and Carver.

Unfortunately, early the next morning three of us encountered a serious side affect of something, as Jamie, Laurie and I all had what can only have been food poisoning. The one thing we ate in common was oysters for a first course Saturday night, and there are indeed, food poisoning bacteria that take 24 hours to develop. The three of us pretty much spent the day in bed Monday. That was Jamie’s birthday; what a way to spend it. Fortunately, by Tuesday she was still tired, but had recovered enough to have a small celebration.

Monday, the group – less Valérie and Yves, who had family commitments that took them away –  went to one of our favorite places in the world: Carnac. This is the home of the largest collection of menhirs (standing stones) in the world. This time, we took an excellent tour (in English!) inside the fences that surround the alignments. Because tourists were causing damage to the alignments, they were closed off twenty-five years ago and the only way to get inside is to take a tour, so we did. We learned lots and though you can see the alignments well from outside the fences, it was great to get inside and see them from a close-up and personal perspective.

There are about 3,000 menhirs still standing, and archeologists believe that originally there were about double that amount. Over the years, some were removed to build houses and then, at some point, a bunch were removed so a couple roads could be built! Really? Damage a 5,000 year-old unique-in-the-world site to build a road? What were they thinking?

These alignments were built over a span of 2,000 years, ending about ten centuries before the pyramids of Egypt were started. Our guide said, “You can ask me ‘Who? When? How?’ and I can give you an answer, but if you ask, ‘Why?’, no one can answer that.” Gotta love the mystery.

Wednesday – a day later than planned, as we decided to spend an extra day recovering – we took one last walk on the beach, had a wonderful lunch of moules-frites (mussels and fries) and headed for home.

Jamie and Hervé and their family have been coming to Presq’ile Quiberon for many years; this year they realized a dream when they bought their house there. We have come to Presq’ile Quiberon twice now and though we likely won’t be buying a house there, we will return. This truly is a beautiful place and we understand why les Rufin love it so much.

When we were in France two years ago, we went to La Rochelle after reading Ina Caro’s chapter on this historic city in her book, “Paris to the Past.” Like her, we immediately fell in love with the place and returned later that year. Since then we’ve looked forward to a trip back to La Rochelle and Monday, off we went. We are happy to report that we love this place even more than ever.

First, our hotel. The first trip two years ago we lucked into the best room in the place: top floor, seaward corner. From its balcony we can watch the hundreds of boats going into and out of the harbor, many of them sailing students in classes.We can watch the tide covering and uncovering Richelieu’s Dike, watch the sunset, and just generally enjoy life. This trip I had requested that room when I booked online but when we arrived, we learned that I had mistakenly also asked for a room with twin beds (I don’t remember doing that) and so we had a different room. But the two managers on duty leapt into action with their computers and fifteen minutes later, had re-arranged room assignments so we could have our favorite room. Talk about customer service! Here’s why we like that room:

La Rochelle is quite an historic town. For many years it was one of several towns that had permission of the French king to be Protestant. However, in 1627 that paragon of religious tolerance Cardinal Richelieu decided that he’d had just enough of that and laid siege to the city, building a dike across the harbor mouth to prevent La Rochelle from getting food and military supplies from the sea. The city, fearing surrender would mean a repeat of the Huguenot slaughter of 1572, held out. After 14 months, the population had dropped from 28,000 to 5,000 and the city surrendered, losing all its rights to religious freedom. I think the Cardinal forgot the “love your neighbor as yourself” part of his religious training…

Today the city is centered around its old port, which is not much changed from the days of the siege.

We were a little worried about what it would be like here in the middle of vacation season for the French. It was indeed jammed with French (and some Belgium and Dutch and British) tourists, but we loved even that part; La Rochelle is big enough to absorb them all and they all seemed to be in the area around the old port. There were thousands of tourists – all ages, sizes, shapes, many families, enjoying vacation in the great weather, just as we were. We walked back from dinner at 10:30 the last night, and the area around the old port was jammed. It was great fun, actually.

Laurie is an inveterate shoe-watcher, marveling at the variety of not-exactly sensible footware, particularly since most of these old cities have old cobblestone walks. She made me take this picture of the perfect strolling shoe:

On the other hand (foot?), it was all I could do to keep her from rushing in to buy these shoes:

109€ = about $125. They were on sale!

I talked Laurie out of buying those shoes by pointing out that she had just bought another pair, specially for the trip to La Rochelle. Here’s proof: Laurie’s feet in her new shoes (and our favorite red wine):

Laurie’s new shoes. Not quite $125, fortunately; they were $3 on sale at Carrefour.

Laurie loves to dip her toes in the Atlantic ocean when we’re at La Rochelle. Here she is standing on the only remnant of Richelieu’s dike (see above):

One thing we find interesting about La Rochelle is that the buildings of the downtown area all seem to have survived 300-400 years, not recently restored but continually maintained (not always well). In Paris, you’ll see blocks of beautiful old buildings with a modern monstrosity right in the middle; here, there’s none of that, so the streets have a distinctly ancient feel to them. Take away the cars and the modern stores on the ground floor, and you’re in an 18th century city. Here are some pictures of the downtown area.

And you just have to love the sign on this pharmacy:

“Founded in 1764”

We had some fine meals in La Rochelle, as you can imagine for two seafood-loving souls. Dinner our last night was at an excellent restaurant, Le Thiers Temp, where we both had swordfish. Now, I love swordfish and have it every time I can, and I can tell you that this was the best swordfish I’ve ever had, anywhere.

If that restaurant was a bit upscale, the night before? Not so much:

Le P’tit Bleu – we had grilled mussels (every restaurant in La Rochelle must serve mussels) and grilled calamari. You order, get a table in the back and a few minutes later a server shows up with your food, still too hot to eat. Both mussels and clamari were great. We actually love Le P’tit Bleu –  great food, low cost, sitting right next to the water of the old port on a warm night. Pretty nice.

La Rochelle has a huge market that seems to be there every day. Want strawberries or raspberries? We got ’em:

Want olives? We got ’em:

Want shoes? We got ’em:
Indeed, this market had pretty much anything you’d want, including a pig’s head and horsemeat. I declined photographing those…

That’s La Rochelle. It is our favorite place in France and right up there on our list of favorite places in the world – maybe at the top. We already are looking forward to returning next year.