37 - Dogs, and cats and butter, oh my!!!!

This was a plaque on the wall at our house/pet sitting job in Mohon.  We thought it apropos!

So, we told you last time that we'd exhausted our time at Charlie and Deborah's wonderful house in Annecy.  We thought it was funny that we drove from France to Geneva, Switzerland in order to catch a flight back to France (it sounds funnier than it was - we basically just went from the east coast of France to the west coast - but we're easily amused).   

Anyway, we landed in Nantes which was about 2 hours south of Mohon where we'd arranged to house/pet sit.  We'd never been to the area and didn't imagine getting the boat there anytime soon (we would love to go back by boat someday), so we thought this was a great way to see someplace new plus get some animals to love on for a few days.

We arrived a couple of days early so we could explore the town and take pictures of churches and old buildings.  It is amazing how all of these towns look the same.  Once you've seen one you've seen them all (OK, so that was Pedro typing in case you wondered). 

 

One of first things we realized was that there were no longer mountains in all of our pictures.   Nantes is at the base of the Loire river and only about 50 km from the coast - so we were back to looking at ships rather than mountains.  

The weather was overcast at best and drizzly at times but we still walked all around and loved the city.  Yes, they have wonderful old churches and buildings (I think Pedro was typing again) but they also have an amazing castle.  We would love to go back when the weather is better.

So, we were driving around as the city was beautifully lighting itself up and the castle was especially stunning.  I asked Pedro to take a picture for me (yes, I said a picture of the castle) and this is whatI got!




Nantes also has an amazing indoor market with more seafood than we'd seen in one place in a long time. We were in heaven.  If we ever get back to Nantes, we’ll spend a couple of days just eating seafood.  Since we didn't have any way to keep food fresh on our long journey, we settled for some pastries and wine to take to our hosts.
 

Here are more pictures we took in Nantes:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/Tmx2vmTj6KXu8Ut7A

The weather didn't seem to be interested in changing and we were still early for our "check-in dinner" (our hosts invited us an evening early - and for dinner - to get acclimated).  So, rather than walk around Nantes in the rain, we decided to take the long way to the house and headed for the coast.  

We drove straight out to the coast to Saint Nazaire (adorable beach town), Pornichet (great coastline, cute town and nice little marina) and then La Baule (another absolutely adorable beach town and home to the chocolate pastry we'd bought in Nantes).

The area we were in is called Bretagne (Brittany in English) and was inhabited by the Celtic people until the Roman invasion by Julius Caesar in 56 BC.  The various towns we visited (especially as we continued heading north) reminded us a few of the British towns we'd previously seen.  

 

 Next, we arrived in Vannes.  This was the first "big" town that we came to.  Vannes' old town is surrounded by fortified walls, towers and gates all built between the 3rd and 17th centuries for protection. The Ramparts de Vannes is are still in relatively good condition and overlook the Jardin des Ramparts (a gorgeous huge green space garden built after WWII and opened to the public in the early 1950's).

 

Finally, it was time to start heading towards our pet/house sitting gig in Mohon. Our sit was for Phillipa (Pip) and Allan, a nice British couple, who were going back to the UK for 10 days.  Our duties were watching their dog (Jaz), their cat (Guinness) and basically taking care of their house.  We were just excited to have our own pets for a few days! 

We arrived to this adorably refurbished farm house (it's actually the former barn) and the smells of a wonderfully cooked chicken stew (absolutely delightful)!!

We spent the next day getting acquainted with the house and the animal's routines.  

 

 Jaz, a lab/chow mix with a great personality, REALLY enjoyed his walks.  Guinness, a large black and white cat, just loved to be feed and petted (in that order).  We were in heaven!  The house is rustic looking with an amazing chef’s kitchen and a wonderful wood burning stove that kept us all toasty.  We were put up in the master bedroom with a great en suite and a fabulous bay window.   For the first couple of days, Jaz slept on the floor by our feet and Guinness was nowhere to be found until breakfast time.  Then suddenly, Guinness decided it was fine to join us (he's a bit of a bed hog but we didn't mind) and we all slept very well in that cozy huge bedroom

 

Once things settled down with animals and humans comfortable with each other, we humans decided to go see the area.  Within a 2-hour driving distance, we quickly determined that there would be more places to visit than we had time for but we persevered and visited many of them.   We set out for the bigger cities with the idea that we could stop at many of the others on the way.

 Our first big outing was a day trip to Rennes, the capital city of Bretagne.  From about the 16th century until the French Revolution, Rennes served as the administrative area of the Kingdom of France. In 1720 much of the old city was destroyed by fire.  Then, the city was also bombed and partially destroyed during WWII.  But you'd never know it today.  They've rebuilt keeping the original style and flair.  It's a colorful lively city full of half-timbered buildings along with restaurants covering every ethnicity we could think of.  Adorable and perfect.  (Pedro typing again - "See, told you nothing but old building and churches!") 

 

Hera are a few more picture we took in Rennes:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/XXfahaW4Yw1Aj7bf8

 Our next major outing was closer to home. Josselin is another adorable town full of history.  Most notably is the Chateau de Josselin.  What we see today of this castle was built in the 16th century and touts that it has been the home to the Rohan family for over 1000 years. 

   

 The castle is located on the canal that links Nantes to Brest and it was pretty cool to see the locks in our section of the canal.  Obviously, it wasn't boating season but we'd love to have seen it operation. 

Next to the castle near the water was a very interesting area where the washer women did laundry.  It didn't look like a lot of fun but it was pretty innovative for its day.  

 

Of course, Josselin also has a huge beautiful (but closed the day we were there) cathedral.  It too is called Notre Dame.  We loved this history we found (old buildings and churches! - per Pedro) Legend has it that in 808 a plowman who cultivated the land, where the church is now, found a statue of the Virgin in the brambles. He takes it home, but she returns to the place of discovery. With, the event occurring several times, the bishop approves that it be worshiped. Next, the farmer's daughter, blind from birth, recovered her sight. The news spread and, quickly, the pilgrims came and a church was built.

 We also found the farmers market in Josselin and even got to take "our" puppy dog (yes, he's 9 but both MaryAnn and Jaz thought he was a puppy).  At the farmer's market, we bought boudin (it's a local sausage that our hosts didn't love but we had to try - we'd had it in New Orleans before but forgot what it was), roasted guinea fowl with amazing potatoes and onions (the vendor threw in a couple of huge ham bones for Jaz) and some amazing oysters at €5 / dozen (we bought 3 dozen).  Since Guinness also got some of the Guinea fowl, I can safely say that we were all very happy!!!!

 

Here are few more pictures of Josselin: https://photos.app.goo.gl/gmqFpFZ6LjKpNf9V7

 Next, we decided to go see the Carnac stones. These are an exceptionally dense collection of stone alignments, stone tombs, burial mounds and single standing stones. More than 3,000 prehistoric standing stones made from local granite were erected by the pre-Celtic people of Brittany, and form the largest such collection in the world.  Its estimated that the stones were erected around 3300 BC, but some may date to as early as 4500 BC. It was very interesting to see this huge area.

 We then decided to again head towards the coast to see the city of Quiberon.  This town was another adorable coastal town but, as with most of the other beach towns, it wasn't quite alive on a cool February day.  Still, it was worth the drive and we found a great fish smoking house nearby where we picked up some smoked salmon and mackerel for dinner.  Both were delicious (just ask Jaz and Guinness).

 From there we decided to check out the town of L‘orient just because we liked the name.  The town was cute but nothing like the others so we walked a bit, grabbed a late lunch and headed back home.

For the next few days, we stayed close to home, loving on Guinness, taking Jaz on a few excursions and just enjoying our adorable little area.

 

 We then decided to head to the town of Saint-Malo.  It's completely adorable and probably my favorite Brittany city.   St. Malo got its start as a haven for pirates.  However, St. Malo’s most famous seafarer was the explorer Jacques Cartier who set off in 1534 on his first voyage to the New World to establish "New France" in what is now a part of Quebec. On his second voyage, Cartier sailed up the Saint Lawrence river and established what today is known as Montreal which is the home city to our adorable Frenchie. Yet another reason to love this town!

 Unfortunately, St Malo suffered extensive bombardment during WWII, both by the Germans and the Allies, and a large part of the old city was reduced to rubble.  The rebuilding of old Saint Malo was one of the great heritage restoration projects in the aftermath of the war. While the old city center was not rebuilt exactly as it was before, it was built in the same style, without any changes its skyline.  Walking around it today, you feel like it's exactly as would have been when it was first built.

Not only was this one of our favorite cities due to its architecture and views of the water, but we also had the best meal we've had at a restaurant in France.  Hard to go wrong when the restaurant is named "Maison du Beurre" translated to house of butter.  We sat down to amazing bread with 8 flavors of butter including: salted, lemon, buckwheat, Japanese, red onion, spicy, seaweed and olive oil.  The red onion and spicy were our favorites but i think we ate most of all of them.  MaryAnn got the plate du jour which was 3 courses of wonderfulness and Pedro got the pork belly cooked to perfection.  We cannot recommend both the town and the restaurant enough.

Again, here are more pictures of this adorable town.  If we'd had more time, we definitely would have stayed a couple of days!   https://photos.app.goo.gl/CzrPywMts2enoySs5

For our last big outing (and actually very close to home), we decided to check out the Pampoint Forest also known as the mythical Forest of Broceliande.  This forest touts itself as the enchanted home of many of the tales for King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. 

 We found the monument that's supposedly the Tomb of Merlin. It was believed that the megaliths were built by the Druids and legends were attached to them. We also walked further into the woods to find the so-called enchanted Fountain of Youth.  Sadly, we didn't have any way to get water without getting wet ourselves (the ground all around was pretty wet and muddy) but we feel like just being in proximity should give us some benefits.

 Following our guidebook, we found the Sainte-Onenne Church, in Tréhorenteuc - nicknamed the Grail Chapel.  So-named because of its symbolic decorations which were created after WWII by two German prisoners of war. Stained glass windows show the appearance of the Holy Grail and the Round Table.  There is also a really gorgeous window showing the signs of Astrology (we saw it on the brochure and from the outside but couldn't get a good picture because it was in the office area that was closed off).  A local gentleman we met explained that this was one of the few churches in the world to mix both pagan and Christian elements. 

 

Next, we took a hike into the woods and found the Arbre d’Or (the Golden Tree) a piece of art created by a local artist in 1991. After a devastating fire in 1990, the Arbre d’Or - covered with real gold leaves - was to symbolize the rebirth of the forest.  Despite the spitting rain and the muddy ground, the walk through the woods was wonderful.  

Finally, our time in France was over as Guinness and Jaz's parents were returning and we needed to get back to Portugal to check on the boat.  We are really going to miss those babies.  We had the most amazing time on both coasts of France and cannot wait to explore more as we start our travels into the Med (as soon as they let us start moving).

Until next post!