ZE TRIP - PART ZE FIRST

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Well, in the interest of keeping Geewits happy (cause I have to keep Geewits happy otherwise she harasses me by email), here are some pictures from the trip.....

We arrived in France on Friday, spent the night at a friend's place near Paris, and Saturday morning... ok, more like Saturday noon, we were off:

See, ze French road, ze French sky, ze Quebecer toes and ze lovely GPS we had the presence of mind to buy before leaving. And of course ze French car... which was actually an Opel, so technically it was a German car...

Brittany is far far away from Paris it is. A good 6 hours away. The next person who tells me France is tiny and distances are really small will get slapped upside the head. Yep....

The view from N&R's deck. They live just outside a tiny Breton village called Hôpital-Camfrout, so called because, it seems there was a leper hospital there back in the 1100s or something. Though I can't help but think a hospital back in the 1100s is definitely a place I wouldn't want to be...

Lucky for us they live close to the ocean. The ocean!!! Getting a regular salt water fix is important to my sanity, so it just couldn't get any better.... The pretty boat parking lot in Camaret. 

Look!  A Breton fisherman! Totally could be a fisherman anywhere in the world. But he's Breton he is!

And his boat was in much better shape than these...

The church on the pier (or whatever it's called - I'm not much for the right terms, as you might have noticed when I pointed out that "pretty boat parking lot") where I guess fishermen stopped off before they set out...

And the inside of the church. Isn't that ceiling cool? I love that it looks like the bottom of a boat. I actually saw several churches like that...

The fortifications:

Course we had to wander around town, more old stones for you Violetsky.

And some really old stones. Dolmens left by the druids thousands of years ago. Funny, really how you expect these places to be all silent and spiritual, not standing 20 meters from a bunch of modern houses.

The next day, on to Concarneau, a great town with a wonderful medieval walled town.... Obviously, this isn't the walled town... Just me and Mr. Jazz on the pier in front of the city... Ain't it nice that Mr. Jazz is able to keep his eyes open for a photo? One of his many talents it is. A talent that obviously I am sorely lacking.

A church where drunken homeless sailors could take refuge. There were, apparently, large numbers of drunk sailors in Concarneau, which is a major seaport...

A Concarnese cat checking out the pigeons... you could pretty much see the lust in his eyes. If he'd had wings...

A tavern that's been there for hundreds of years. It used to be out in the outskirts of town - it's about 300 meters from the walled town: the Korrigan Tavern. Korrigans are, according to Breton folklore a sort of fairy or dwarf-like spirit. At dusk they appear beautiful, but in the daylight they are ugly, with wrinkled skin and red eyes, so they tend to hid out during the day. Unfortunately, as I have to earn a living, I cannot hide out during the day when my eyes are all red and I'm not looking my best. Amazing what candlelight can do for your looks. Maybe Korrigans were actually just middle aged ladies in the times before good makeup and lighting.

The entrance of the walled town.

Inside the walls...

And to finish off the day - a purty French flower....