promenade

Even though I am so very far from the farmette and far from this week's Wisconsin weather (snow), I miss the spring that should be there right now. How long before the last snow melts? Before the ground is warm again? How long before the grass, so ubiquitous and green here, in Brittany, comes out of its brown hibernation back home? How long before I can plant? How long before I can sit on the porch all day long?

Too long.

It is to be another walking day for me, even as I notice that the skies are mostly gray. Except for a band of gold at the horizon.





The forecast says possible showers later on and so I decide to move quickly and to keep the walking down to a loop that can easily bring me back to town in case the rains come down.

So again, a small breakfast -- of honey cake (and I mean honey cake: the ingredients say 40% honey and 10% figs, with buckwheat flour, milk, eggs and butter making up the rest), an apple, and chamomile tea. I am saving the flower and propolis tea for home. Too special to fritter away on a rushed breakfast.






And this time, I head south. First, to town -- to ditch my recyclables. And to take in the town vibe on this nonmarket day. Then, on the quiet rural roads, toward the coastal path.






But here's the thing -- I have hit low tide again! You have to really watch the tides in addition to the skies to hit it right! I have yet to feel the full force of the sea. It's always on the retreat when I approach it.






Never mind: there is always the rugged Breton countryside around me.






This, too, is Brittany.






A year-round harvest of chou and a constant tending to the fields of artichoke.











My long loop brings me back to town. It is early afternoon, but there's  no rain yet. Should I eat now? Oh, the weighty decisions of being elsewhere, shunning routine, indulging in the trivial, so that eating or not to eating becomes the crucial issue before me. Nothing more than that.

I pass a creperie. Is it a good one? It's nearly empty now, but then, I am past the French lunch period. By 2 pm people across this vast country are digesting.

I go inside. There's a set three course meal for 10 Euro. And the buckwheat crepes sound so good!

I see that there is one other person eating at a booth in this rather austere space. A woman my age. We smile and there is a tacit acknowledgement that we are both the silent type. We will be friends in silence.

But I am not without companionship. The family dog comes over and sits stubbornly to my side.





Is he hungry? -- I ask the owner.
Oh no! Just old. And he doesn't hear well.

So I rub his ears fora long while and then ignore him. And at that point he goes to my other eating companion -- the woman sitting alone to the side. He fares better with her.  
Ah, so you're hungry after all! He may be deaf, but he hears that note of invitation. He returns and waits.

I eat my delicious creamy endive soup and then a buckwheat crepe with cheese, egg and salmon, dabbed with salad and the Roscoff onions. With a glass of Brittany cider. (This is one of the few regions of France where apples dominate. No vineyards here. None at all.)






Pooch likes the crepe as much as I do! Satisfied, he lies down next to me with that look of complete gratitude and contentment.

Me, I proceed to the last course -- a dessert crepe with a choice of toppings. That's not hard: local honey!






Of course, this is just lunch. I must think of dinner! And maybe a dessert? And a fresh baguette for the cheese back home? To the bakery then. As always, there comes to be only one bakery. Your favorite bakery. That's not hard. Mine will be the place where madame is so kind, each time asking me something about myself. Each time offering me the warmest smile. I see that they have a lovely Far Breton -- the pastry of the region. Sort of like a flan, loaded with prunes. Perfect.






So that should be the end of the adventurous part of the day. I should retreat now. Read, write -- all that, in my warm little house by the chou fields. But the weather flips on me. Or rather it changes its mind. Rather than raining in the afternoon, the sun comes out and the world takes on honey tones -- ones that become Brittany so much! A sunny day here is such a treat: it reminds you that even the most stern countenance benefits from a smile. So just before dinner, I go out again. In the direction of the coast, though taking a different set of roads.

And I discover the most delightful loop, taking me to the town park -- a gorgeous space, especially now, in the early evening of a full spring day.






Not surprisingly, the grandparents are out, walking their little ones.






Up and down the grand avenue of the park. And then all the way back to town.






Going for a walk -- especially in the evening, or on a day off from work -- that's such a Polish thing! Or perhaps a European thing? Une promenade (fr), una passeggiata (it), spacer (pl)... Why don't we practice the art of the walk back home? We don't even have a good word for it in English. Let's go for a walk. How bland that sounds!

My promenade ends with flowers. And so does this post. Because this is spring. Brittany tells me springs is here.

the point is to walk

It is, hands down, one of my favorite things to do when traveling. To walk, to move, to see something new around the bend. City walks are great -- there's so much to see! -- but a good country walk has the benefit of quiet and of good air. I was raised believing that a hefty inhale-exhale of fresh air would clean the lungs and put you in good stead to face the future. It's almost automatic for me: when I step on a rural path and the breezes blow in from the ocean or the mountains, or the forest -- I take in a deep breath. Inhale, exhale.

And so when the skies dawned blue, with just a wisp of cloud at the horizon, I was in a hurry to walk. Rather than going into town for breakfast, I brewed my flower and propolis tea, cut into my honey spice cake (with figs!) and called it breakfast.






The most obvious hike from St Pol de Leon is the one along the coast: northwards, toward Roscoff. By road, it's an hour's walk. Along the coast -- at least double that.

You'd think that you don't need a trail marking for a walk along the coast -- I mean, how can you go wrong if the sea is to be your constant companion! But Ed and I did a five day hike along a different segment of the Brittany coast and losing the trail was a frequent and frustrating event, leading to retraced steps and lengthy delays.

Here, it's not quite so dramatic. You may lose the trail, but you'll pick up a road and eventually it all leads to Roscoff.

So, off I go, first on the road, to the sea.






And looking back, over my shoulder, I see where the fishing boats are kept.






Once I find the trail, I'm almost sorry to be off road. All those winter rains? They have made slushy mud out of the dirt here. Within minutes, I am splashed to my ankles (and beyond) in mud.

Must go on, must go on. I get a break when the trail goes down to the sea.






Yes, here are the grandparents, putting up with their grandkids on school break, while the parents work.






But the trai quickly veers up into the fields again -- artichoke and cabbage, everywhere the two Brittany cousins stand side by side. I am surprised how much human labor still goes into agricultural production here.The guy below is tidying up the artichoke bed by hand.






And now, finally, I come across the stone homes with the slate roofs and sure enough --  I am in Roscoff.

What can I tell you about this town: well, it's half the size of St Pol de Leon (so about 3500 inhabitants), but it feels busier. It's a more popular tourist destination (it's cute) and, too, it has a ferry link to the UK. Both for people and for agricultural produce. And if you asked Roscovites what the town is known for, probably they would unanimously proclaim -- onion johnnies! Not too long ago, French farmers would harvest and ship their very uniquely special pink onions (to a French person, every product grown in every region is uniquely special) to England, where they would go door to door, riding bicycles, selling bunches of these French gems to the bedazzled (so they say) English people.

Roscoff, is, of course, a fishing port as well. Here's a view of the old harbor, walking in.






And I happen to be here on market day. Half of the stands are the same as those in yesterday's St Pol de Leon market. Here are some mighty crabs though that just came in...






And, too, there is another prepared foods person, selling not paella and not chicken stew, but this:






But I'm not buying today. I walk briskly on, through town...






...until I come across a small card store. I look inside. There are racks of postcards, but they aren't the usual glossies. There are funky scenes of Breton country life and of colorful fishing boats and I'm quite taken by all of them. So I pick out a handful and I take them to Monsieur Louis who is sitting there, behind the counter.
He tells me -- you know, I painted the ones you chose. He shows me his originals.





I'm delighted. I tell him -- I like the joy in them!
I clearly said the right thing, because he smiles and digs out an article in the local press. It's about him and he shows me the title -- artist paints joie de vivre.
He says some niceties about my French and then mumbles -- I know English but I refuse to speak it.
Too difficult to communicate? -- I ask.  Oh, I guessed wrong on that one!
He is agitated now: No! I detest the domination of the English language! He is full of percentages and statistics about who speaks what and I am feeling apologetic about humanity out there even as, after all, this whole discussion started with a nod toward my French so that it's not clear why I should apologize for the anglification of the world at large. But I do. Because he seems so upset.

As always, when passions soar, it's best to change the subject: do you know of a good sea food place where the locals eat?
But I can't win. He tells me the name of one and asks me if I know what that stands for and I'm thinking -- it's probably the name of a local poet and I am going to show my ignorance of French-Breton culture if I say that I don't recognize it. After all, there are so many streets named after poets around here... let me guess that it's a poet. So -- is it a poet?

Another wrong calculation. It is actually a pirate who steels for his king and I get a lesson on this as well and before I make any more wrong guesses, I best be off, in search of his favorite seafood place. Which turns out to be closed for the day.

Never mind. There is an immensely popular spot (called La Bonne Etoile) just up the street and they have a good deal on a set lunch menu and so I eat a salmon salad, a fish of the day and I finally finally I have my morning coffee, even as it is now past 1.





On another day, I'll come to Roscoff to take the boat out to the islands, but for now I just want to keep on walking and since Roscoff is at the tip of a tongue that juts out to sea, I can stay on the trail along the coast and then eventually turn inland to return toward St Pol de Leon.

And I remember this about the northern Brittany coast: the tides here are tremendous. Your entire view changes, depending on when you look out toward the sea. We're at low tide now. Can you tell?






Here, the coastal walk is easy and mostly along a quiet road. But when I turn inland, I get lost on the many many rural roads and paths that cut through the landscape. (And in Roscoff, it is a slightly different landscape. Remember? They're all about onions here. Planted, of course, by hand.)






And as we get closer to Saint Pol de Leon, we're back with the chou. For this farmer, it's in the form of cauliflower.





I completely mess up with the trail home. It's hard to understand how I manage to do this, but after an hour or two of walking, I am nearly back in Roscoff again. It's time to get off the paths and stick to rural roads. Walking in circles is only fun if you don't have a destination in mind. I have a destination in mind: home.

On a quiet country lane, I come across three Breton lads. They have slingshots and they're practicing firing them but they pause as I approach them. They see my camera and ask for a photo. I oblige.





And they're curious boys so they ask where I'm from, and I tell them, and of course, they are surprised. You just don't expect to find someone from "north of Chicago" on your path through the chou and onion fields in early March. So they ask me how I like Roscoff and I shower the superlatives and here's the thing -- they say thank you! Instinctively. Thank you for saying nice things about our town. How many spunky kids out for a good time would think to say that? I wanted to find their parents and tell them what a good job they're doing in the rearing department, but thought better of it. The boys seemed concerned that I noticed their slingshots. Maybe they would not have liked parental notification on that score.

And now I am almost home. I can see the towers of St Pol de Leon churches. The last hill, the last farmstead...






Home. And it is almost evening, though you can hardly tell. Even though they don't do daylight savings until the end of March, they are at the western most edge of a time zone (Poland, on the other hand is on the east of it) and so the sun even now does not set until close to 7.

I eat a supper of bread and cheese and then I go out again. Just to take in the warm evening colors. And here, I can show you my little white house at the edge of the chou fields. Mine is the one with the rounded roof, next to a neighbor who has an even more modern structure.






I'll leave you with a photo of that flowering cabbage -- the Breton cauliflower. Because every day should have flowers in it, right?

rekindling a lost love

Sometimes a song sticks in your head because something about it is fitting. And then you hum it to yourself over and over, even though the lyrics in their entirety resonate with your life not at all.  It's sort of like singing somewhere over the rainbow because you happen to see a bluebird fly by.  My song du jour is Far Away (the Boys and Girls rendition) and the lyrics that bounce around in my head go like this:

I will live my life as a lobsterman's wife
On an island in the blue bay
He will take care of me, he will smell like the sea
And close to my heart he'll always stay

I will bear three girls all with strawberry curls
Little Ella and Nelly and Faye
While I'm combing their hair, I will catch his warm stare
On our island in the blue bay

Far away, far away, I want to go far away
To a new life on a new shore line
Where the water is blue and the people are new
To another island, in another life.

(I know one Ocean commenter will appreciate the reference to a lobsterman's wife, as she is that. Me, I'm sort of drifting in "where the water is blue and the people are new"  lyrics.)

*****

I wake up to a day of pink clouds and, at least initially, faintly blue skies between them. This is the view toward the fields in the back of my small house.





Yes, this is Brittany. I'm dusting off an old love here. She was my favorite. She was to be the place I would covet, long for, return every chance I got. But, I turned my back on Brittany when Ed and I discovered Sorede in the south. And now that Ed has had his fill of Sorede (and I surely will never go there alone), I am back, courting my old flame, my Brittany, begging for forgiveness, proclaiming my loyalty henceforth. And admiring her beauty anew.

At first Brittany pouts. That wisp of blue sky? That was just at sunrise. Quickly the clouds take over. And this is not uncommon here. Sorede does, in fact, have more days of sunshine. Indeed, when Aurelia parked her car in a lot by the St Pol de Leon swimming pool, I asked if that was an indoor pool because there were quite a number of cars there. She had laughed -- we could not have an outdoor pool here. Even in the summer, it can be quite cool.


If I strain my neck, I can see the sea now from my little house. But as the clouds take over and the color of the sea fades to that of the sky, it becomes difficult to distinguish one from the other.





There is, all morning long, a threat of rain. And by afternoon, the threat is realized and it rains. And rains. And rains.

*****

Even had it rained in the morning, I would have hiked to town. Tuesday is market day in St Pol de Leon. I surely want to see that. And, too, I want my morning cafe-croissant.

And so I head out. My little house is on the outskirts of town (whereas the one I was to be in was smack in the center), but in St Pol de Leon, this hardly matters. The town is small. It's twice the size of Sorede, but still hardly more than a village. At last count, there were about 7000 Saintpolitains (that's what residents here are called) and the number is steadily declining. (I note that the owners of my first problematic rental and, too, of my current little house are both of the younger generation and both of them live in Paris.)

I walk to town between the stone homes and the fields of harvested chou. Classic Brittany: stone walls, artichaut and chou.  Chou means cabbage. And there are many varieties: chou blanc, chou rouge, chou fleur (cauliflower!), chou frise -- in the grocery store, they're all lined up for you, one next to the other. So, my walk to the center ( a mere ten minutes or so) is past this:






And as I get closer to the heart of town, I come across other familiar sights: the decorative lace curtains in doors and windows.






The hearty Bretagne folk, pausing, of course, to exchange greetings and stories from the week.






And everywhere, there is that stone: the building material of choice here for hundreds of years.






Let me give you an overview of the main street in town and then we'll scoot right to the market.






....where they're selling, well, cabbage.






...and another Brittany favorite: crepes. Either sweet or buckwheat. You buy them by the stack. For future use.






I leave the market for a little while. I want my coffee. There is a lovely little bakery -- I had purchased bread there last night, and I go there now because it has a few tables -- perfect for a cafe creme and morning pastry. What to eat? Oh, easy -- I want what she's having!






Heaven on a plate. (With a light almond paste inside and almonds on the outside -- mmmm.)






I spend a while at the cafe. It's a warm room with a friendly staff. Madame remembers me from the other day, frantically buying bread and asking about WiFi; they in fact have it and she tells me I can surely use it now. I smile: no no, not necessary. During the day, I am cut off from the rest of the world.

Other patrons? Varied. Since it's a school holiday, there will be the child and parent. And this lobsterman, who comes in dripping with water, even as he is clad from head to toe in rubber garb. He comes in, shakes his wet hand with this person, that person and sits down to read the paper and drink his coffee.







Okay, time to leave. That threat of rain is not to be taken lightly. Yesterday's storms are still in my head. I'd like to stay dry for as long as I can. Time to pick up a baguette, a bag of meringues and to set out.






I'm back at the market now, not to look, well -- only a quick look. For instance, at the small handful of lobsters and crabs,  and at the bucket loads of shrimp and langoustines...






...but really, I am now in the buying mode. I pick up a honey cake (did I tell you about Brittany honey? They say it has the distinct flavor of the sea...), and an herbal tea made of local flowers and propolis, a few stalks of endive and, too, a portion of prepared chicken stew. If there'll be rain, I wont feel like searching for a place to eat. At every market I've ever been to in France, there is always a stand where you can pick up a container of prepared food: either paella or stew. Today I find a stand selling aromatic chicken tagine and couscous. This will be my supper.






One last glance at the market, at the kids who amuse themselves as grandparents -- the baby sitters of choice during school breaks -- shop...






And then I do a quick side step to the tourist office for maps and another side step to the super marche for a six pack of mineral water and a bottle of rose wine. Along the way, I pass a garden square which speaks to the fact that spring has come to northern France.






(People back home -- take heart! Surely yours is the last snowstorm of the season!)

In that small square you'll also find a statue. If I had to pick an icon for Ocean, I would consider it.





It comes with a stone at the side, engraved with the words -- celui qui regarde passer les autres. One who watches others passing by.   Ocean words.


And now I return toward my small house by the fields where a new crop of cabbage is being harvested, even as the skies release the first drops of rain.






*****

I spend a leisurely afternoon reading and watching the French news on TV. I know I can read about the crisis in the Ukraine on my computer, but I want to improve my French vocabulary and so I listen to the French voice-over of the Putin press conference.

I have a flashback then to the words of a rather nasty commenter to my Friday post. I almost never post nasty comments, or comments of people who have a history of being disrespectful, but I published that one because I thought it spoke to the odd notions people develop about countries that they have never been to and that they do not really understand. The commenter admitted as much. He wrote something to the effect that he doesn't "get"Poland.

And I'm thinking now how I lived in Poland in the years when it was recovering from the most brutal attack at the hands of our western neighbor: Nazi Germany. And, too, I lived in Poland in the year when the Soviet army marched into Czechoslovakia to the south. And now, here I am, about to go back to Poland as the Russians mobilize forces to the east, in the Ukraine.

Historically, has the Baltic Sea (to the north) been Poland's calmest neighbor? Imagine living in a country where no century passes without a stormy threat to the west, or south, or east. Or north, really, because the Baltic Sea is never fully calm.

I'm remembering, too, the short bus right to the plane that brought me from Poland to France. A young mother was explaining everything around us to her very young son. And he is delighting in all of it: the bus, the planes and now he points to a military helicopter and he is excited because he knows the world for it! Helicopter! Her mood changes. She frowns. And she tells him -- you don't have to get excited about that. I don't like it. It's a war helicopter. Boys, playing their war games.  The boy looks crestfallen at her suddenly dampened enthusiasm. After a pause, she smiles again and points to the Wizzair plane we were then approaching.

Poland is scarred by centuries of invasions. Of war.

I continue to watch the news. You don't need a huge vocabulary to understand what's going on in the Ukraine right now.

*****


It's nearly six and I notice that it's not dark yet. And that the rains have settled into a fine drizzle. That's walkable! I have a jacket! I need a gaze in the direction of the sea. Brittany is the province with the longest coastline. It is cabbages and artichokes inside, but it's all about the ocean at the edges.

So I walk toward the water and I take note of how wet this winter has been and how wet it remains today. Wet artichoke fields, spilling out to the gray ocean waters. (This part of Brittany is just where the English Channel stops and the Atlantic Ocean begins.)










It's an invigorating (if somewhat damp) walk. A wonderful encounter again with the Brittany that I once loved and am prepared to love again.

*****

I end the day with a hearty bowl of chicken tagine. With bread and cheese and a glass of rose wine.

Monday revisited, or -- when things go wrong

It was, as I said, a delightful Parisian morning with my friends.





Truly delightful.

I had read that there were to be winds and rains, all the way to the Atlantic coast of France, but it hardly mattered. It's a travel day for me. And trains, unlike planes, are indifferent to such forecasts.

And indeed, the train trip is absolutely perfect. I doze, but not too much (fear of missing my stop is very real when I am sleepy). I eat my packed lunch...





I read my book and I gaze out the large window. The changing landscape on a day that vacillates between wet and sunny is beautiful to observe from the warm shelter of a speeding train. Four hours and 530 kilometers later, we approach Morlaix...






This is nearly the farthest western point in France. And from this rather large town, the rail link continues to the coast, but you have to take a rail operated bus. It's all part of one rail ticket: segment one -- to Morlaix, segment two -- to St Pol de Leon, only now by bus, leaving ten minutes after the arrival of the train.

Unfortunately, the rain now is whipping at us from left and right. I say "us" because there is another guy who is looking for the bus to St Pol de Leon. A curious young fellow, chomping incessantly on M&M peanuts, dressed in those jeans that hang more than halfway down your butt. He wasn't traveling from Paris. He just wants that segment that would take him, like me, to St Pol de Leon.

I look for the bus. Not there. I ask inside. Madame looks at my ticket and shakes her head.
The 16:25 doesn't run today. It's school break. (hiccup no.1)

It turns out Brittany children have a week off now and when that happens, the schedule of every form of public transportation changes. But of course, this is no big surprise. Why was the ticket issued then for a segment that doesn't exist? (I had purchased it at a rail station, when I was in France in December.)
Madame at the ticket counter shakes her hand, as if to indicate that there are some mysteries of the rail system that just cannot be explained.

All is not lost! She tells me to report to the Chef d'Escale (station manager). She smiles wickedly: they will have to pay for your taxi to St Pol de Leon!

Well now, that is terrific! A taxi ride costs more than my entire ticket from Paris to St Pol de Leon! And the French Rail is comping it? How nice is that! (It is particularly nice since they could have just told me to wait for the evening bus, which, for me, would have been truly disastrous, as my Airbnb hosts are waiting to meet this earlier bus and I have no way of contacting them to tell them of a change.)

And so my chocolate covered peanut chomping guy, who profits from their mistake towards me, climbs into the taxi with me and we zip up the twenty or thirty kilometers north, as the scenery gets more and more Brittany-like: artichokes and cabbages and mixed skies of an unsettled day.






With the sea, popping into view now and then.





The cab driver lets us out at the once functional but now deserted train station of St Pol de Leon. The wind is brutal! The first feeling of cold creeps in. I want my hosts not to be late!

And they're not late. Or, rather she is not late. Aurelia, driving up in her mother's car to take me to what is actually her Parisian brother's newest project: the apartment rental in downtown St Pol de Leon.

She parks her car in one of the narrow alleys off the square and we make our way to the little apartment that is curiously spread out on three levels: entrance hall on the ground, kitchen and living room on the next floor and bathroom and bedroom on the top. Each room has an individually controlled radiator and they're all turned off for now. (Hiccup no.2) Understandably, I suppose. This form of heating is expensive.

She shows me the rooms, they are fine, if cold. I want so much to get to those radiators, but first, there are things to learn: the mechanics of the place. The washer. The stove. The shower. The lights. The keys. They usual. I thank her for the basket of Brittany goodies they have left for me: fish soup, a packet of crepes, salted caramels, lots of fruit, cider.

And then I smile and say: let's make sure the WiFi is working. The grin is there because I have been such a pest in corresponding with the brother: I have questioned and insisted on a functional WiFi so many times that it's almost a joke by now.

You'll think that it's because of Ocean that I am so insistent on WiFi. It's not that. I have blogged for many years where WiFi in my inexpensive quarters was but a dream. For Ocean, I can always find a cafe where I can load ready photos and publish a text written off line. I love the internet because it makes solo travel less lonely. I am connected round the clock with people whom I love. I keep up with what's happening at home. I love Skyping Ed, checking in just before I fall asleep and when I first wake up in the morning. I can be without it all day long, but as the dusk creeps in, I want my link to the friendly world of the familiar faces. Especially now, as I am so exhausted and still reeling from a set of days that sent me spinning.

And so Aurelia dictates the code and it's a long one and I wait for the familiar bars to take hold and they don't. (Hiccup no.3) We assume I mistyped. Then we assume she misremembered. Then she unplugs and resets. Then she calls the company and they troubleshoot. Then she calls her brother in Paris and finally her father (whom she refers to, in very French English, as un geek). He tells her he will bring a new box as soon as he is done with work.

It is cold. It is raining. (Hiccup no.4) I ask about the nearest place to eat. Oh, a creperie! Across the alley! A great one, she tells me. Only we look in and see that it's closed for the week of the school holiday. As is the one next to it. And the others don't respond when she tries to call them from her "mobile." (Hiccup no.5)

Aurelia is so apologetic! I feel sorry for her, I really do. And, too, for the brother who helplessly waits in Paris. But, I am cold and wet and the hours are passing and I hate to walk from floor to floor now, while she is here, to turn on heaters in all the room -- so I just turn on one, in the kitchen where we are standing, only it never quite fills the space with the warm air that I so very much would love to feel right now. Tiredness makes you that much colder.

Realizing that I may have trouble finding a place to eat on this stormy night (because the weather has been upgraded to the level of an official storm), I tell her that maybe I should go to the grocery store to stock up for supper. She drives me there and to the bakery and I get the bread, the cheese, the bottle of wine which I so want to crack open and start drinking, right now!

Her father comes and changes the box and tries to fix the line outside and in so doing he crashes the curtain rods and I just feel so badly for them all, because they are such good, Bretagne folks and this new project which was supposed to be a little boost for the brother is turning out to be such a headache.

I worry that Aurelia is away from her baby daughter and so when everything fails and they have no more answers for today, I send them home and I take my computer out in the pounding rain in search of a bar with WiFi and I find one, though it is nearly closing, but I sit there long enough to connect, to post, read a few emails from home and to send a message to my Parisian host, telling him that I am willing to give it a day or so, but then I'll have to move on.

But lo! He sees I am on line and he responds instantly! He has been at work looking for solutions from Paris and he found one! Another home (not theirs, just something on the Internet) for me, just outside of town! Aurelia will pick me up and take me there to stay as long as the issues at their apartment remain unfixed.

Dear, dear Aurelia -- a year younger than my youngest daughter, waiting back at the apartment, flushed but happy to be taking me to a warm and connected home just at the edge of the artichoke and cabbage fields of Brittany.

She apologizes incessantly as she drives me there and to take her mind off this apartment stuff, I ask her about her work. She wanted to be a teacher, but she ends up selling the fish caught here, in Brittany to restaurants in Paris.
What's in season now?
Sea bream, scallops are starting. Lobster is so expensive, because of all the storms we have been having!

And so we find the little home by the Brittany fields, with a view toward the sea, only I don't know that yet, because it is dark when Madame Herveline welcomes us to her daughter's rental project -- a brand new house, spiffy and big enough to accommodate a family of eight! And best of all, it has floor heat (it takes a while to catch on, but when it does -- bliss!) and a speedy Internet and here I will stay, for a while at least, even as the winds rage and the rains come and go -- it all does not matter, I am warm and dry and connected.

Monday

 I'm running on sleep borrowed from another era. My head stubbornly refuses to embrace the new normal of European time. Sleep before 3 am? Nonsense!

Another part of me, equally stubborn, is ready to get up and get going early, very early. And so the struggle continues and the stored supplies of rest are getting thinner by the day.

All that notwithstanding, it was extremely delightful to wake up in my friends' little slice of Parisian heaven, on the corner of the Place des Vosges.

We took it easy though. Plans to eat an elaborate breakfast elsewhere fizzled and Diane and I went out to pick up bakery items and bring them home.

And so it was a leisurely morning, a leisurely breakfast and then I am, once again, off off and away.


When you plan trips in advance, it's sometimes easy, sometimes hard to anticipate what your mood will be at the time of travel. I had had an ambitious agenda for these two weeks in between my stays in Warsaw, but I am quickly abandoning it now. I don't want to visit new cities, I don't want to have any agenda, sightseeing or otherwise. So I'll stay in France, splitting my time in some yet to be determined proportion between the coast and Paris (depending on the expenses involved in balancing the two).

First, the sea.

This part I am truly looking forward to. I wrote now some years ago how my idea of a perfect getaway in France is Brittany. A place of gentle weather (not too cold, not too hot), of invigorating sea breezes, of great walks (rather than taxing climbs), of cider and crepes, seafood and artichokes -- a kind of down to earth, or rather down to the sea region that restores every part of you.

There are any number of places along the northern Brittany coast where I would have been quite happy. I chose one with an attractive rental -- an Airbnb place owned by a Parisian couple with roots in the region. It's in St Pol de Leon, which is a small town just a few paces from Roscoff (Roscoff being a seaside destination that Ed and visited whey back when).

And so, equipped with lunch, I take the noon TGV (high speed train), all the way to the farthest western corner of northern France. In Morlaix, I am to get off the train and continue by bus to  St Pol de Leon (I have never heard anyone abbreviate it to just St. Pol and so I must conform and use its full and stately name).


And this is when troubles begin for me. Travel troubles. I can list about five things that unravel, but I wont say more than that, because I am sitting in a cold bar on a cold and stormy night and the bar is about to close and I have no other way to access the Internet tonight. (Obviously, you'll have determined that access to the Internet is one issue, but honestly -- it's not the only one.)

To sunnier skies and warmer rooms and good connections -- Internet and otherwise!