Posts tagged with "travel"

UK Detour: Day 10, Chartres to London

On my last day in Rochefort-en-Terre, I receive an e‑mail ask­ing for sup­port for my Wu Wei theme. This isn’t uncom­mon; ear­li­er this year, Wu Wei was cho­sen to be part of the offi­cial WordPress.com repos­i­to­ry, and I’ve been flood­ed with such e‑mails since. What stood out about this one, from a Michael Harvey, was the fact that he was in London, read from my blog that I was in France, and offered to show me around if I hap­pened to be stop­ping by.

I told him it’d be love­ly if I could go, but I’ve no place to stay, as I’d only planned on going to France. On a whim of his own, he offers to let me stay with him, and tells me I’d feel at home as they have two cats.

For a while I turn this idea over in my head, as there’s most cer­tain­ly a risk involved in liv­ing with some­one you’ve nev­er met, least of all whether or not you’d even get along. Eventually, I decide that I could­n’t give up on the chance to see more of Europe. Fate opened a door, and I only had to step through. I could­n’t say no.

And so, armed with a tick­et for the EuroStar and a box of assort­ed mac­a­roons (one of the spe­cial­ties in Chartres) for my new host, I set off for London.

Chartres train station

In Chartres, wait­ing for the train to Paris — Gare Montparnasse.

Continue read­ing “UK Detour: Day 10, Chartres to London”…

France: Day 9, Rochefort-en-Terre

It’s so nice to be accept­ed into anoth­er fam­i­ly, and to be able to live the way they do for a bit. You get a taste of some­one else’s life and habits. That’s when a trip is more than just a vis­it to a dif­fer­ent place, and becomes an expe­ri­ence.

And on our last day in Rochefort-en-Terre, there were still things to do and dish­es to eat.

cleaning mussels

Cleaning the mus­sels for steam­ing in white wine and onions. This is how Frédéric won Misun’s heart.

Continue read­ing “France: Day 9, Rochefort-en-Terre”…

France: Day 7, Rochefort-en-Terre

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.

Continue read­ing “France: Day 7, Rochefort-en-Terre”…

Call me McNgangus

Somehow, I end­ed up on the north­west coast of Scotland, with new friends, a much tighter sched­ule, and a re-affir­ma­tion of life.

Scotland

Europe 2010 travel diaries

France: Arrival

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.

Continue read­ing “France: Arrival”…