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France, Day 8: La Roche-Bernard

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La Roche-Bernard is a small com­mune 30km due south of Rochefort en Terre, with about the same pop­u­la­tion. It’s said that the town has more boats than peo­ple; the rich leave their ves­sels in the port until they have a few weeks of vaca­tion, and take off from here after arriv­ing by car or train.

It was orig­i­nally a viking colony, taken up as a fort because it con­trols access to the river that runs through it. The hills above are still pock­marked with stone walls and canons on the hills above.

La Vilaine

La Vilaine is the main river run­ning through La Roche-Bernard, flow­ing out into the Atlantic Ocean.

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Date  December 2, 2010
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France: Day 7, Rochefort-en-Terre

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We drove nearly 400km into Brittany along the west coast of France to Rochefort en Terre, a small town of only about 600 people.

Normally this would take about four hours, but the high­ways have a 130km/h limit (off­set by a toll to access the high­way), and this cut an hour off our travel time. Not that it mat­tered, as the French coun­try­side is won­der­ful to watch, pop­u­lated with hills and a vari­ety of colour­ful foliage. There are also end­less cows roam­ing the pas­tures; I finally under­stood why cheese, but­ter, choco­late, and cream are so promi­nent in French cuisine.

It’s strange to be in a place that’s so remote. To go for orga­nized sports, you have to drive to the near­est city, which is 30 min­utes away. At the same time, all the ameni­ties are a 5-minute stroll away. There’s no traf­fic here, no light pol­lu­tion, and no noise save for a bark­ing dog or two. In this part of the world, the cul­ture is rich in his­tory, but the life is rel­a­tively untouched by the com­pli­ca­tions of urban living.

cat

The first cat I’ve seen in a week. He’s grown old and docile, and luck­ily, this means you can pick him up, put him in your lap, and he’ll be just as happy as by the wood burn­ing stove.

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Date  November 30, 2010
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France: Day 6, Paris

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It’s been rain­ing almost non-stop across France ever since I got here, so when I woke up to a sunny day, I had to take the chance and head out to Paris. I decided to see how far I could get on foot from Gare Montparnasse, my goal being a cross­ing of the Seine.

Paris is divided into arrondiss­ments or dis­tricts, spi­ral­ing out­ward from the Louvre like a snail shell, with each one hav­ing a char­ac­ter­is­tic feel. I began my walk in the 14th arrondiss­ment, and trav­eled north.

After about four kilo­me­tres, the stiff­ness in my legs told me I should head back. But Paris is dense and full of cul­ture and his­tory at every turn; on every block over there’s some­thing that catches the eye, and you never want to turn around.

Fountain of Saint Michel

Fontaine Saint-Michel, located in the 5th arrondissment.

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Date  November 13, 2010
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France: Day 5, Chartres

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I’ve been step­ping out of my com­fort zone. Having far too com­fort­able a life at home meant I grew com­pla­cent. I had no wants, which meant I didn’t find the same plea­sure in the sim­ple things as I used to. Here, I live with­out a cat, with­out a ukulele, with­out a reg­u­lar chance to shower, with­out locks on the bath­room doors, with­out speak­ing the language.

I needed to be reminded of how other peo­ple live, and expe­ri­ence things I never felt com­pelled to do in Ottawa. It hasn’t been easy. I mem­o­rize French phrases, and hope no one responds out of a pre­dicted path. Even then, I fall back on an English-French dic­tio­nary, and Pouvez-vous par­lez plus lent­ment, s’il vous plaît, just in case. It’s some­thing I’ve been forc­ing myself to do, and at the end of the day I’m never disappointed.

Daty croque monsieur

Various styles of croque-monsieur, a grilled ham sand­wich with cheese melted on top of but­tered pain de mie, a pack­aged French bread that’s per­fect for toast­ing. Every bak­ery and fam­ily has their own ver­sion of this.

In the back is shred­ded guyère (a medium-bodied cheese), being sliced is mont d’or (very creamy and salty, and stuck to my teeth), and already halved is Camembert (which was super rich with a smell rem­i­nis­cent of a garbage, but cer­tainly didn’t taste like it…still, I had a hard time get­ting over the smell).

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Date  November 10, 2010
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Categories  Daily Life Photos

The Partisan

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The Partisan, orig­i­nally titled “La Complainte du par­ti­san” in French, has always been one of my favourite Leonard Cohen songs. The lyrics are from the point of view of a sole par­ti­san secretly fight­ing an occu­py­ing force in his coun­try, but I had no idea it was specif­i­cally about the French resis­tance to Nazi occu­pa­tion dur­ing WWII, as the only ref­er­ences to this are in the French verses.

You hear of sol­diers nowa­days with iPods and their mur­der mixes; playlists of heavy metal, used to keep them moti­vated (or, in some cases, inhu­man so they can com­mit inhu­mane acts). I’ve long held the belief that if I was ever fight­ing in a war, this would be my song — the only one I’d lis­ten to, and on repeat — because the nar­ra­tor is so cold and stoic in his purpose.

Members_of_the_Maquis_in_La_Tresorerie

A group of par­ti­sans join­ing forces with the Canadian army at Boulogne, in September 1944.

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Date  November 8, 2010
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France: Day 3, Chartres

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It’s been a great pace so far. No plans, no sched­ule, no goals, no stress. I didn’t want to cram a bunch of activ­i­ties on this trip; I’d much rather take it easy and enjoy myself, so I can absorb as much of the cul­ture as possible.

People would ask me if I was excited to come here, and I couldn’t say that I was, prob­a­bly because there wasn’t any­thing spe­cific I felt com­pelled to see. Sure, I’ll prob­a­bly end up vis­it­ing some of the touristy, must-see sites in Paris, but more impor­tantly, I want to live the life, to be a local for a while.

girl buying bread

The defin­i­tive image of France: a young girl dressed smartly in cha­peau and tights waves to the baker, who comes from around the counter to hold the door for her as she leaves the store. Of uncor­rupted inno­cence, sim­ple rit­u­als, and fresh bread.

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Date  November 7, 2010
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France: Arrival

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Getting here was most cer­tainly the most gru­el­ing trip I’ve ever taken. From door to door, it took me 21 hours to travel almost 6000km, car­ry­ing with me nearly 90 pounds of lug­gage (which isn’t that much of a stretch from my body weight).

I was mainly focused on mak­ing it safely and with all my stuff, so tak­ing pho­tos wasn’t a pri­or­ity. Traveling alone is cer­tainly a lot more dif­fi­cult than with a com­pan­ion, because you can’t leave suit­cases with some­one and do some­thing quick like walk down a street to find a sign, or go to the bathroom.

talking to a pigeon

Giving a pigeon a stern talking-to. Birds are brave here.

At Gare Montparnasse.

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Date  November 6, 2010
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Categories  Daily Life Photos
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