to Paris

Part 1: Brittany

With each day that you stay (live?) in a place, you add another layer of information. So often day two will correct the hasty impressions of day one. And then day three will make new adjustments. You think you got it right. And some things remain just so, no matter how long you stay. But, on day four subtle (or even not so subtle) adjustments will again be made.

On my last morning in Brittany, I wake up, as usual, late. I've been in such a hurry all these years, but in Brittany, I stopped being in a hurry and I make up in sleep for all the hours that I should have slept, but didn't. Years and years of missing sleep, indulged in here.

I had the morning programmed. You do that when you get older. Leaving things to the last minute inevitably means that you'll have left your passport on the nightstand and half your underwear hanging in the bathroom. So I tick off my list of essential tasks: pack suitcase, clean out the kitchen, take shower and ... what's this? The doorbell?

Ah, Madame Jo, mother of my original Airbnb home owners, is here -- presumably to pick up the key which I still hold, but also to pass on a satchel of fruit and a box of macarons. She hopes that when I come back to St Pol de Leon I'll give them another chance. Oh, I don't know. I've grown fond of the little house by the cauliflower fields, with the heat coming from the floors and the little pastry magnets all over the refrigerator. But, one never knows. The family of the original Airbnb surely has been supremely decent.






And now, with most things packed, put away, cleaned, I set out downtown.

It's market day again! I've had a week here and it's Tuesday once more. How long ago last Tuesday seems! This time,  I give the market only a fleeting glance.



(looking through used books)





(always time for a few words)





(crepes, of course)





(oranges look good on a cloudy Breton day)





(leeks -- so many dishes here call for them)


No buying, no lingering even. That ocean mist that again hides the sun makes for a cool day and the wind is whipping things around some. I head for my favorite bakery.

And I set up shop there. Meaning I take out my computer, intending to finish yesterday's post. It's a pleasant routine. It is my one "social" time of the day, in that I watch the comings and going of people who know each other, greet each other, and otherwise show their humanity by being concerned about the fate of the other and of the larger world out there.




(the newspaper is passed around all morning long; his mrs. is off chatting with others while he reads)


As I half listen, half stare at my screen and of course munch on the absolutely perfect pain au chocolat...






...I hear the owner, the terrifically nice Madame who gifted me the pastechou that first morning here, talking to one of the locals. Did I get that right? No, it can't be!

Yes, she is Polish. Her history is a variation of so many of our histories: she goes to England as an au pair, meets handsome Frenchman, they fall in love, move back to France and they buy this bakery-cafe in the town not too far from where his parents live. Their children are bilingual even as their dad doesn't speak Polish. She maintains ties to her family back home.

Like other Poles living abroad, she feels the pull toward her home country. None of the ambivalence that I've felt all my life: she feels solidly Polish.

We spend a good number of minutes chatting because, of course, we move from the status of stranger to friend instantly when we find that our paths have been so similar (even as they are in many ways completely different). I ask her about doing business in this town and eventually, as M. Pecheur comes in, I ask her about him too.
Oh, he's been coming here for years! Before we bought the place.
So, is he a fisherman?
No, not really. A farmer. Grows carrots, I think.
Lonely?
Well maybe, but a bully too. Insists on things his way. The paper, coffee, right away. A difficult guy.
And so I was wrong about him. Or at least I have this new layer of information, a different perspective.

Of course, I had been wrong about the owner of the bakery, too. She appeared to know everyone and be on friendly terms with the whole lot of them. And I heard her roll her "r" in the way that Poles do, but I heard other Bretons do the same. Bonjour here is often spoken with a tiny roll at the end. I attributed her accent to Breton rather than Polish.

So this is travel for you. People say that you learn a lot by being somewhere. Well yes, but I have to remind myself (and I've said this on Ocean before) that much of what you see and hear is not any less free of bias than if you were reading a book about a place. Your impressions may correct themselves the longer you stay or the more often you visit, but at the end of the day, they are only your impressions.


As I tell Madame Baker's Wife that I have to get going, she gives me a fresh loaf of pastechou. Oh, how I would love to eat it all day long, but I decline the gift. I know I wouldn't be able to finish it and so it seems a waste.  I buy instead a baguette with cheese and tomato for the train trip and we say our goodbyes. The cafe is busy now in any event. She needs to get back to her work.



Pani Agnieszka


On the way back to my little house, I run into my landlord. She is just driving to see me. She is a woman of many words, spoken rapid fire and without interruption, but finally she does accept the fact that I am in a hurry. But can she take me just really quickly to her other little house that she rents out? This one is older and I gather that it once belonged to her daughter. In any case, she thinks I might like it for the future. It's a little less modern and therefore even less expensive. And the view! -- she tells me. Right to the bay! Well, maybe not so pretty today with the mist... She pouts a little. But a nice garden! And privacy. Your neighbor only comes here in the summer. He's a doctor from America.

So he lives his Brittany dream in this way? By the sea, by the sea, by the beautiful sea... And does he miss home when he is here? His loved ones? Or do they come with him for the summer?

I thank Madame for all her help, tell her I'll leave the key under the mat and hurry back to pick up my suitcase and head for the station...



(one last look at the cauliflower fields)


.... where I hope a bus will come to take me to Morlaix...



(he waves to the train engineer)


.... from where I catch the TGV to Paris.


Part 2: Paris

I wrap my heating pad around my back, slip on my jacket and roll my little case along toward the station. My, but the pad is warm! The instructions warned that those over 55 (that's me!) should not put it right next to the skin. Well fine, it's over my shirt. Toasty warm nonetheless!

The connections to Paris are seamless. Bus only a minute late, plenty of time for the transfer, train punctually arriving at Montparnasse (station in Paris) four hours and seven minutes later.

And the metro ride is without issue. The heating pad and magic French pill do their job and carrying a suitcase up and down stairs is, if not easy, then certainly doable.

My hotel of choice is still closed for renovation but a sister hotel -- de la Sorbonne (so named because it is across the street from that university) has a good priced room and I settle in for a four night stay.



(the moon shines brightly over the Sorbonne)





(the hotel)





(mirror in tiny room)





(the vibe here is definitely of the university)



Initially I was to be in Paris only one day and so I was sure to reserve dinner at my restaurant of choice (Pouic Pouic) for this evening. And even though I am now here a bit longer, I keep the dinner in place. I like that I am coming back to a familiar world. I'm not much in the mood for anything new right now.

By now, they recognize me here -- probably because I always dine alone. Ah, here comes Madame Camic who can never find anyone to dine with in all of Paris! At Pouic Pouic (which may be the only restaurant I know here where no one uses restaurant voices) that's rare.

I eat their pumpkin soup, an escalop de veau, a lemon tart -- they're always well prepared. Always with clever twists but not fussy. The chef -- a guy with a thick, beautiful pony tail -- is visible from the dining room. Watching him prepare food for 32 people (the place is always full) is gratifying.








(lemon tart with blood orange ice cream)


And so passes my first evening back in the city that has never once disappointed me. And that's saying a lot.

a week later...

Someone once said that looking forward to travel is even better than the real thing.

I don't really agree, but I would add that looking back on a trip is also gratifying. At the end of it all, you smile at your naivete when you first arrived. You learned many things about a place and you learned not a few things about yourself in that place and it all seems now so rich and rewarding in retrospect.

Even if there were bits and pieces that you'd like to rewrite if you could.

I would like, for instance, to rewrite that bike ride on the Isle de Batz where I jolted my back so that it now is impossible for me to get up from a sitting position. (I can do it, but I let out such a howl that it surely scares anyone nearby).

So maybe I should take it easy today? Especially since a cool mist, as promised, has settled in over the peninsula.






I eat a prebreakfast...






And then, still undecided, I go downtown to the bakery (passing the ever delightful spring flowers growing against the walls of the stark Brittany houses)...






...and as it happens, M. Pecheur is walking in at the same time. But I'm used to him by now. I know what to expect. As he sits at the table next to mine, I give our multiple handshakes and pleasantries a few minutes and then I take out my computer and excuse myself to work. He's doubtful, but peering at my screen and seeing the blogger text, he recedes and looks around for other social possibilities.

Eventually, when he leaves, an older woman sitting to the side tells me: he is so lonely. So maybe that's another "should have:" more time, more handshakes and arm pats. Because I know that being alone has its tough moments. (This story to be continued tomorrow.)






As I try to get up from the bakery table, my back is protesting so much that I wonder how on earth I am to manage a suitcase, a bus, a train and a metro on the next day. I go the pharmacy next door and I explain my issues. (In France, a pharmacist truly does act like a doctor for a spot check and a treatment recommendation.) The very chatty pharmacist explains that warmth works magic (I look out at the cool misty sky and I nod my head: yes, warm would be better than the current cold air that has come in from the seas). He points me to a wrap that sends the needed relaxing heat to the back and I think -- okay. I can sit with that thing on the train the next day. (It's a one-use only item.) A little strange, but anything to keep me mobile.

He also tells me that a pill will lessen the pain. I buy a pack, though being pill averse, I save it for the evening.

And now it's past noon and there is a hint of sunshine. Just a hint. I walk the streets of St Pol de Leon, noting that children here are on their second week of spring break (two weeks! eat your hearts out, kids back home!). I see a family that seems from out of town, doing the tourist thing here too. (It's rare to see tourists in this working town and it is rare these days to see French families of seven.)






And as I walk, the sky changes from faintly gray to faintly blue and the feeling of spring comes back to Brittany.






So I have a plan: eat a warm meal in the early afternoon, and go for a hike across the fat bottom of the peninsula. From St Pol de Leon to the sea to the west.

I go to the one restaurant that mainly caters to the locals. (It closes for the high season.) It's not the best eatery in town, but I've maxed out on my eating budget and I'm going for simple and inexpensive now. I order scallops gratinee (baked in a pot, with cheese sauce, inexpensive because there are only two scallops in that little pot, but the sauce is rich and the dish is very satisfying).






And by the time I'm done, the sun is out again and I am happy as anything to set out on my hike to the sea. (My back does not bother me when I am walking. It's the sitting and especially the getting up that's at issue.)


Sunshine! My last day here will have sunshine after all!






I'm in good spirits. True, the tourist office person could not identify a good walking route west, but I know from my hikes to Roscoff that staying on the smallest roads is a wonderful way to move from one point to the next.

Skies are blue, flowers are budding, I'm off!






The good weather means that the work continues in the fields. This is the time of cauliflower harvest and onion planting. I've seen it before, I see it again now. In full force.






I'm not really sure of my bearings -- I don't have a good map of the region, but it's not hard to simply aim west and keep to the quiet roads. I come to a small hamlet. No one is around. It's a work day of course. In the fields or in town. No one appears to be at home.





Except for a dog.

As I come to the last homestead in the village, a wolf dog runs straight at me snarling and barking angrily.

This isn't the same as a pack of wild dogs in Turkey. This guy belongs to the farm. Still, he is not used to strangers walking by his home and he doesn't like it. With each growl he comes closer and I'm thinking -- there's a good chance he may bite. There is no one around to call him off. He is protecting his turf.

I talk quietly and back away. He retreats, but changes his mind and comes at me again. I don't want to turn my back to him. He may take a victorious nip then. So I keep facing him, backing off, backing off and finally he is satisfied that I pose no threat and he goes back to his farmyard.

Well now, that kind of changes things for me.

The plan to walk to the sea morphs into a plan to stick to the medium-sized roads. With the occasional tractor or car passing through. Safety in the presence of others.




cauliflower harvest




a forgotten artichoke


But, I can't quite connect to the sea. I'm off track. And so this is all you get: in the distance, the ocean. And Isle de Batz! I've come full circle.






It's time to go home.





At the little house by the cauliflower fields, I eat all leftover pieces of cheese, of pastechoux. I pop the pill for my back and let me tell you, whatever is in that little number zonks me out solid. Or is it the ocean air? Maybe. I surely have recovered here. I'm sleeping well again.

Sunday in France

Maybe it's all in my head, but to me, Sunday in France always feels special. Different. Notable. And this is true whether I'm in Paris or the countryside: I see things on this day that belong only to Sunday.

How so?

Well, so many people still do adhere to the middle of the day, family meal routine. The afternoon dejeuner where two, three generations sit down to eat. I have had one French woman scoff at this and tell me -- for us, it's like any other day. But she was in the States as she said this. Her family and her husband's family were in France, likely lamenting that their children have ruined the Sunday tradition for all of them.

Then there is the afternoon promenade en famille, or perhaps with your sweetie. I cannot tell you how many such walks I witnessed today. And here's something that is more common in this country than perhaps in any other place that I've been to: people hold hands. At all ages. a lot. You'll see this in my photos later on. And you may laugh at me for noting it. Isn't it just one of those irrelevant French things? Young people kiss in public, old people hold hands. Yawn.  But to me, it's so... life affirming. It's as if you're saying -- the world may come crashing at us from all sides, but I have you at my side and that is enough to get me through it all.

I write all this because I don't treat Sundays in France lightly. I am always aware of this special day, particularly at meal time. I recognize the importance of eating early, in a familial stting.

True, most Sundays I am here alone. My participation in any afternoon ritual is always from the perspective of an observer. I'm not one of those sitting with family and friends, I'm only watching others do so.

Still, I take great pleasure in knowing that this love of intimate connection is there and I don't run from it: I put myself right in the middle, so I can savor this aspect of French life, as the French live it.


So -- what to do, what to do on this second and last Sunday in France? I decide to go back to Roscoff. Saint Paul de Leon takes its action mostly home. Roscoff is much more public in her presentations, especially on a gorgeous day like today.

A quick honey cake breakfast...





...and I'm off. I catch the one bus that runs to Roscoff today. I'm somewhat in a hurry: I want to walk, my sore back notwithstanding (walking is good, sitting is okay, getting up from a sitting position is torture), but I want to cover new terrain: along the western shores of the Roscoff peninsula. I want to follow the coast far enough so that I can get to the sandy beaches that look out toward the ocean (and still have time enough to make it back for a big lunch in Roscoff).

And so I take the minibus along with one or two others and I begin my walk in Roscoff. And I must repeat this again and again: the day is absolutely brilliant. The tide is low now and I first walk along a small bay that is, therefore, almost without water.











But when I come to the long stretches of sand along the open seafront, I have my fill of ocean views. Not that I even consider getting wet. Only one person is swimming and he has a wetsuit. And a dog, wondering what the hell his master is up to.






At 90 minutes out, I have to turn around and head back (for the 90 minute return).


 


If I want my big Sunday meal, I must get to Roscoff by 1:30. I'll catch the tail end then of the grand repas.

I'm back at the place I ate in two days ago. It's small, intimate, crowded. It has freshness written all over its sweet white lace curtained face. Today, there are the families. Here's one right next to me. They were already eating when I arrive and they barely are at the dessert stage when I leave.






So what to order on this special day? It's time for my one sampling of the Breton seafood platter.  It is full of the shell fish of Brittany: oysters, small snails, large snails, shrimp, crab.





It takes forever to eat and you need to work hard to get out all the good stuff and typically Ed cleans up what I cannot get to, but it stands for all the good stuff the waters have to offer and it is served absolutely plain -- with only a vinaigrette at the side for oysters and a home made mayo in which to dip snails and crevettes, if you're so inclined.

It's at once a filling dish and a light dish. Seafood bare and simple. I'm enthusiastic, until I eat one too many snails and then I just count how many until the end. It is so satiating that I wont miss it for the next handful of years.


And now I still have another 90 minute segment -- the walk back to St Pol de Leon. And it is so sweetly satisfying now. I know the route, the bends, the farms along the way. The sun is in my face and I take off my glasses and close my eyes as I walk on.

In the Roscoff segment, I am, of course, surrounded by Sunday strollers.















All the way to the edges of town.

But after, I am mostly on my own.





















Except for the occasional passerby, equally enraptured by this perfect spring day (we all comment on it). Oh, and at one point I pass a picnic table by the fields. Two couples are at it, not eating, but listening while one person reads out loud from a book. Poems maybe?






As I approach St Pol de Leon I feel so much like I am coming home. My little house is just at the edge of town and I always see it there, by the fields, as one of the first markers of the town. The cabbage field belongs to a manor that is hidden in the forest to the side and as I come closer, I pass a group of four locals chatting at an intersection amicably. One of them has a plastic bag full of daffodils. And then I pass another woman and she, too, has a bag of daffodils. So I ask about them.
They're from the forest -- she sweeps her arm in the direction of the chateau.
Can I go in there? Is it allowed?
Well, it's part of the chateau, but if you enter over the stones at the end of this path, you can see the daffodils. Just stay to the edge of the property.
Can I pick one or two stems?
She laughs. Look how many I have!

Is it that there is a popular rebellion against the spoils of the chateau landowners? I don't think so. He (it is likely a he, no?) probably knows that the local folk come and pick the wildly spreading flowers and he probably looks the other way. I'd like to believe that I am here with tacit permission. But maybe not. And I've seen a dog run through these fields so I am sure not to overstay my (possible?) welcome.

Oh, but it is beautiful here! A mysterious forest, dappled by rays of the late sun, with endless patches of daffodils. Most are not blooming now (or, have they been gathered by the locals?) and still, it is a place where fairy surely play.






I do come across another woman, picking with her friend. We murmur greetings. The forest deserves a silent presence.






It is a beautiful moment.


 


They say there's an ocean fog rolling in tonight. No matter. I had my Sunday in Brittany. And it was sublime.