France, Day 8: La Roche-Bernard

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.

Before leav­ing though, we loaded up on some tra­di­tion­al French food.

cooking-galette

Galettes, or more prop­er­ly known as Breton Galettes (as they’re a very tra­di­tion­al food for the region), are like crêpes but made of buck­wheat instead of flour. With only egg, cheese (typ­i­cal­ly emmen­tale), and a slice of ham, it’s as sim­ple as it is deli­cious.

cooked galette

The pack­aged final prod­uct.

dry-cider

Served with the galettes is a cider that’s much dri­er than I’m used to, but this meant it bal­anced extreme­ly well with both sweet and savoury.

apple caramel crepe

And for dessert a caramel apple crêpe, with semi-sweet choco­late chips and ice cream.

sacrifice

I was talk­ing with Tanya about how much of a sac­ri­fice it must be to have chil­dren (not­ing she had three of her own), and she said that if you tru­ly love your kids, it nev­er feels like a sac­ri­fice. That is, until they want the last bite of your crêpe.

A walk through town

I imag­ine not much has changed in this town for hun­dreds of years; when you see how the stone hous­es have been built around the uneven path­ways, it’s like you’re step­ping into a time machine. And with so much green­ery, it’s tru­ly feels like you’ve set­tled into a lit­tle cra­dle of the earth, as it’s all around you, not flat­tened and cleared beneath you.

market place

This used to be the mar­ket­place. The win­dow ledges are par­tic­u­lar­ly deep and low to the ground because peo­ple would open the win­dows and sell right out of their homes, rest­ing their wares on the win­dowsills.

bench

 

auberge

 

bench

 

countryside

 

one way street

 

countryside 3

 

countryside 4

 

steps to marketplace

 

countryside

 

countryside

 

chorizo

Chorizo is an extreme­ly spicy Spanish pork sausage. I love how every­thing here is so fresh that you can just buy a few slices off the counter.

boats on dock

 

raised boat

If you’re excep­tion­al­ly rich, you can pay to have your boat hoist­ed with a crane and kept out of the water.

dock plugs

And if you want to live in your boat while it’s docked, the docks have plugs for elec­tric­i­ty and taps for water.

dock restaurants

 

dock tie

 

fish signs

The artist’s door. I imag­ine in a small town like this, it would actu­al­ly be accu­rate to call some­one, “the artist”.

fountain

 

green path

 

old buildings

 

old dock

 

countryside

 

pathway up

If this was a big city, a tiny path­way like this lead­ing “down­town” would be so shady.

quay sign

 

seafood market

The seafood is always fresh when you’re this close to the water.

shack

 

shoe pot

 

stone steps

 

walking dogs

 

wash basin

Before indus­tri­al­iza­tion, the women of the town would come here to wash the laun­dry in the shal­low pool.

well

 

Raclette

Dinner that night was raclette, which refers to both the cheese and way it’s served melt­ed over var­i­ous meats and pota­toes. This is where I learned that meals for the French aren’t only about the food, they’re about get­ting togeth­er with friends and social­iz­ing too.

kir

Kir is a cock­tail made from a bit of crème de cas­sis (black­cur­rant liqueur) and white wine, served as an aper­i­tif. Crème de cas­sis itself is a tra­di­tion­al French alco­hol, and typ­i­cal­ly about 15% alco­hol by vol­ume. It did­n’t make me any more hun­gry, but I cer­tain­ly had more fun just sit­ting in a chair by the fire.

raclette grill

The raclette grill. The top is used to keep the pota­toes warm, while the bot­tom has heaters to melt slices of raclette. Traditionally, raclette was melt­ed by keep­ing it by a fire.

assorted meats

 

calvados

Calvados is an apple brandy, also made in France, typ­i­cal­ly tak­en between cours­es as a palette cleanser. At 40% alco­hol by vol­ume it was a lit­tle strong for my taste (though it remind­ed me some­what of tequi­la), so they gave me a cube of sug­ar to suck on after it’s been dipped in the brandy. Everyone else was drink­ing it out of their cham­pagne flutes.

Europe 2010 travel diaries

3 comments
Leave a reply

  1. Enjoy your stay in France !!! I’ve been using your theme for a cou­ples of mon­tehs, and I am real­ly hap­py with it!
    I am locat­ed in the south west of France, near the span­ish border…I just got to your blog for the first time as I was look­ing for tech info about the theme (try­ing to change the haders col­or) and I found out about your trip ! real­ly nice pic­tures by the way ! very good! Anyway… enjoy your time here, I’ll come back to fol­low your french adven­tures!
    thanks!

  2. Your pho­tos are breath­tak­ing. I feel like I was trans­port­ed to this mag­i­cal place, though I’ve nev­er been before. I can see why Kir, Calvados and Raclette are such a well-loved culi­nary tra­di­tion.

  3. RaaaaaacLEEEEETTTTTTTTE.….….

    ::swoon::

Leave a Reply