Euro 2014 - Catching Up...aka Allez Á La France

Since last Saturday we've been on a whirlwind that is just now winding down so I will try to put down here in more or less chronological order what has taken place.

On Saturday the 3rd we left Belgium early getting on the road to drive to our rental house in Brittany, France.  It was a projected 7 hour + drive and we wanted to get into the rental early enough that we could go out food shopping for the stables you need for a long stay.  Our rental is in small town on the coast of the north central part of Brittany named Plougrescant.  Our drive was uneventful.  The early start and driving on Saturday led to us missing a lot of business traffic as we were going through some pretty major international trade thoroughfares.  Then by the time we got down to southern Normandy and into Brittany, it seemed all the heavy traffic was going the opposite direction as we.

The directions to the rental were pretty straightforward and we had little difficulty finding it (not always the case with these things as we tend to look for the 'out-of-the-way'.  We've been using a Tom Tom GPS system for a number of years.  It has all kinds of idiosyncrasies but is pretty darn good for the most part.  We were able to find our local grocery store and stock up on food, wine, and booze (very important for these trips :).  We were pretty tired by then so we crashed.

On Sunday the 4th, there was a little market in the morning in Plougrescant.  When our landlady told us 'small' she wasn't kidding.  There were maybe 4 vendors!  However one was a local farmer who was selling these huge, beautiful artichokes.  So I got four of them.  I also found a local butcher who had some good cured meats so I got a few of those as well. 

Wife was busy getting laundry started while I went to the market.  One of the things that is nice about these longer term rentals is you can completely unpack and stop living out of suitcases which is a pain as you transition from clean to dirty cloths.  The laundry and dish washing machines in most of the rentals we've been to in Europe take a long time per cycle.  Plus this place doesn't have a dryer so we have to hang things up to dry.

The weather these first five days has been pretty consistent with it being cold and cloudy in the morning then clearing up and getting sunnier and warmer in the afternoon.  We were scheduled to pick up our friends Barry and Melissa in Brest where they are flying into in mid-afternoon.  We had a quick salad for lunch and then went on our way.  Where we are is off of any major roads so it always takes a good bit of time on small roads before we hit the major east-west highway the N-12.  (If you've done any driving in Europe, you know what I'm talking about.  If not I will try to post some pictures later to give you the feel.) It took about and hour and forty minutes to get there.

We got to the Aèroport de Brest in plenty of time, got our friends and headed back to the rental.  Once back they got settled and I made dinner.  The kitchen at the rental is pretty well equipped and they have a very nice pressure cooker.  I was able whip up a braised chicken dish quickly, steamed some of the artichokes with an aioli sauce.  We all pretty much crashed after that.

As Melissa and Barry are only going to be here for a few days and we are going to be here for three weeks, we wanted to give them an opportunity to see the things they were most interested in.  Unfortunately none of us really factored in the distances and driving times.  We had our first day, Monday planned but got going at a fairly late hour.  As we were driving we realized that it might take close to three hours to get where we were planning for the first stop.  Melissa wisely aborted the plan.  We stopped for a coffee, looked at our trusty Michelin Green guide and found an interesting city only about 15 minutes away, Dinan, a great old city with a wonderful history (more detail on this when I post pictures).  We found a restaurant recommended in the guide just a couple of minutes away and had a lovely lunch.  Then we split up as Wife and I are more into exploring and picture taking and our friends are more into browsing shops.  It was 4 PM when we linked up.  We made the decision to try and do another site, a point overlooking the sea with a lighthouse.  I think this was a mistake as we were too rushed for time with driving there, needing to do some shopping before we got home and wanting to try the little oyster bar in Plougrescant for dinner.  I was driving like mad to get us back before the local's closing time.  I made it only to find that they are closed on Mondays!  It was pretty late by the time we got back and we did the French picnic lunch thing for dinner.

Tuesday the 6th, we said we were going to try and ramp things back a bit as we had a busy day planned for Wednesday.  Our friends did some laundry in the morning (this Brittany stay was just an interlude for them as part of a long trip).  We went up to the village center in Plougrescant and had our delayed meal from Monday with Barry and I having our first oysters.  There will be more on this later with another gastronomic post.  Then we went to the closest town of size, Tréguier, which turns out to be another pretty well preserved place like Dinan.  We puttered around and got some local items like Bretton single malt whiskey made from a place close by and some other specialties.  For dinner, I took the leftovers from the chicken and made a soup.


Wednesday was devoted to things gastronomic.  Wife and I wanted to go to the larger market in Tréguier to get veggies and stuff for the week ahead.  Then Melissa had made a reservation for a restaurant in Cancale she discovered the specializes in galettes Breton (a savory buckwheat crepe) with some modern twists.  Crepes and galettes are found everywhere in Brittany but this place has an unusual selection of ciders, mostly apple but with a pear one she said was to die for.  Cancale is also the mother lode for oyster raising.  It is also a place with special meaning for me because it was a very special place for my father and mother and a very good French friend of theirs.  I'd heard of it and its oysters forever but had never visited .  This was again a very great gastronomic experience that I will cover in a later post.


 Barry is a lover of the very ripe French cheese.  In Albuquerque we frequently get together for 'stinky cheese' nights where the only thing served is the ripest French cheeses I can find, bread and red wine.  Well we weren't going miss out on the chance of doing this the right way in the homeland. Finding wine and bread of good quality was not a problem.  But the cheese was another matter.  I don't know if it is just that Brittany is not a big cheese culture place or if the overall changes in France with the EEU, food safety Nazis, and health fanatics having changed things.  We'd have to go to some other locales to figure it out.  Anyway it was impossible to find a specialty cheese shop, something that 15 or 20 years ago would have been in every town.  I finally ended up in the supermarket (there are many, many, many more of those now than there were 15 to 20 years ago) and I was able to get a good selection which we enjoyed with gusto that night.

Thursday we took Barry and Melissa back to Brest in the morning for their flight back.  It was a nasty day.  We had planned to go into Brest but didn't want to make a long day of it because I was pretty darn tired from all the driving I've done the last week.  But we couldn't find a gas station that was open.  Turns out that Thursday was a national holiday.  We did stop at a church on the way back and were able to find a grocery store that was open briefly and amazingly enough a guy in truck selling fish.  I picked up some for dinner.  I also found a gas station open on the highway so was able to take of that.

On Friday the 9th, I was able to explore and find the hiking trail that was a highlight of this rental.  There are trails all over and around Brittany.  This particular trail is the coast trail and goes (ultimately) almost around the entire peninsula.  I went out for about an hour and it goes past all kinds of bays and rocky outcrops.  There will be another post about this too! :)  Then we took a drive to another nearby town, Lannion,  that has the only cheese shop we could find via research.  We had a lovely meal there.  Then I came back because I had a phone call I needed to make for business.  After the phone call we drove around the coast to find some of the better picture taking spots before we came home again.

On today Saturday the 10th, I collapsed.  We did laundry and hung around the house all day.