Fin des vacances

Nous sommes arrivés à la maison; fin des notres vacances en Loire-Atlantique et Bretagne! We’ve had a marvelous time and during our second holiday week we managed to do a lot and also nothing at all.

We relaxed at the cottage we had rented…

We walked in the nearby woods…

And saw beautiful things like the thousands of prehistoric menhirs lined up around Carnac…

… and had dinner in the picturesque town of La Roche Bernard…

We did a boat tour in the gulf of Morbihan, from Vannes to the prehistoric cairn on the island on Gavrinis. The prehistoric grave (built around the time of the pyramids) contained many geometrical carvings, it was just beautiful and fascinating to be there…

But not only the prehistoric site was fascinating. As we were on the island, low tide set in and, boy, did the water move fast! It was like watching a river with a strong current. Boats going against the tide were struggling to get ahead…

When we had left Vannes on the boat, it had been high tide. By the time we got back again some 4 hours later, the tide was low. Where there had been water you now saw land and the jetty, which had been horizontal when we had boarded, was now angled.

The boat trip itself was a lot of fun too, especially on the way back when there was more wind and we even got splashed (especially Mr E) due to going up against the tide in the wake of some other boats that had made waves.

We also went into Nantes again for a day, to see some of ‘Les Machines de l’Île’, just as Rachel had suggested (thank you!). The park is inspired by Jules Verne and Leonardo da Vinci and houses mechanical (partly fantasy) animals, also on carroussels. We didn’t go into the exhibition areas but we did ride the mechanical elephant!

We then went into the centre of Nantes for a late lunch and a gander around the castle grounds (which had been closed the first time we visited due to demonstrations in the vicinity)…

As we had some time to kill before dinner time and we didn’t want to walk anymore, we drove to the nearby town of Saint-Philbert-de-Grand-Lieu where Mr E and I visited the 9th century Carolingian abbey, while mini me napped in the car.

We drove back into Nantes again after and had a lovely dinner at fellow blogger Agnès‘ home with her partner and her lovely daughter who is the exact same age (only 3 hours older) as my son. Thank you again so very much Agnès and family for your hospitality, for the tasty dinner, for sharing your art and your cats, and for the lovely time we had!

Last Saturday we had to leave our rented cottage and started on our 4 hour drive to Paris. We stopped in Chartres for an hour, for the sole purpose of visiting the cathedral there and seeing the stunning 12th/13th century stained glass windows…

We arrived in the Paris hotel at the end of the afternoon, dumped our bags, and then walked to the Eiffel tower which was about 10 minutes away on foot…

From there we took a train to Notre Dame and Quartier Latin where we had dinner. We walked around a bit after and then mini me and I walked along the banks of the Seine to a metro station while Mr E went off on his own.

Mini me and I had tickets to go up the Eiffel tower and as we got there at 9 pm, the Eiffel tower started to sparkle!

I have been up the Eiffel tower several times already but mini me couldn’t remember the last time she had been up, aged 4…

… so she was really excited to go up now, especially in the evening, looking out over all the lights of Paris…

We even (half) saw a proposal happening at the top. We heard applause, looked around and saw a young man get up off his knee and hug a young woman who had apparently accepted his proposal.

And that was it, the end of our French holiday. The next morning, on Sunday, we drove home again, only stopping for a lunch along the way. We got home in the afternoon. Junior was at work but the cats were there to greet us, just like they had greeted him when he had gotten home from his holiday in Portugal 6 days earlier. Our old red cat is outside a lot but did come by for a little attention and all our black cat wants to do is lie on top of one of us every single second of the day.

Time flew by on this holiday and we’re sad the travel part is over but at least we get to be with Junior again and Mr E and I still have one more week off work and yes, the cats are a bonus of being at home again as well.