Touring France, the Suscine Chateau

Oct 18, 2004

We woke up to the sound of Franz calling to us from the kitchen. Jason called back that we’d be up in a minute, so Franz left again. We showered and woke up Nate and Robyn, before heading out to do some touring.

Our first destination was the Suscine Chateau, where we just had to take the full tour. I adore old historic buildings, and this was right up there with Notre Dame on my list of sites to see due to my family’s historical past in that area.

On our way back we stopped at a tiny little village called Roucheford that was just as colorful and beautiful as Vannes, but in miniature. There were tiny little shops along both sides of the street, and you could almost imagine that it was the street Disney used to create their storyboard for Beauty and the Beast. It looked right out of a fairytale.

One of the buildings had a tree growing right up against the wall, and the shopkeeper had actually trained the trunk to split and embrace the building. Wrapping its enormous branches around to cover almost three sides of the store, like a giant wooden belt. It was amazing!

The rest of the day we just puttered around Franz’s chateau, feeding apples to the neighbors sheep, and enjoying the beautiful gardens out back.


Next: Mont Saint Michel Abbey >>

French Monoliths, and OMG Human BONES!!

Oct 17, 2004

We were up 8:45 on our first morning in Berric, France. I’d gone to sleep a bit earlier than my three companions, and had quite a bit less to drink the previous night, but everyone was in a foul mood. Jason was particularly cranky, which made breakfast rather unpleasant.

French people love their breads, and for good reason. Baguettes and soft cheese, or fresh croissants, are treats that I enjoy anytime. But the French people like to eat them every day, and often for more than one meal. So despite our attempts at staying in the range of our normal fiber intake, we were starting to feel a little plugged up. The hangovers from combining good Absinthe with cheap beer didn’t help our overall physical condition.

Robyn decided that she was feeling icky enough she wanted to stay back at the chateau, while the rest of us headed out to visit the nearby monoliths. Unfortunately they were gated and it was a Sunday, so we could only walk around the outside of the field and take pictures.

As we were walking around the exterior we came across an amazing old cemetery. Some of the headstones were so old that pieces of stone were actually rotting off from the headstones. The two guys headed down an eastern path while I headed north. A few seconds later I was freaking out and calling them both over at the top of my lungs.

At my feet was a freshly turned grave, which I merely glanced at until I noticed an eerily bone like object near my foot. Crouching down I pointed it out to the guys and they verified that it was a human finger! Oh my god! With three pairs of eyes now on the site, we were suddenly seeing more bones, including teeth, scattered throughout the churned up earth.

We couldn’t figure out why someone would simply grind up an old skeleton like that. It seemed extremely disrespectful to just chop it up and leave pieces of it all over like that! The only thing we could figure was that the town was limited on cemetery space so they decided they needed to dig up an old grave to plant a new body. I would have freaked out if they’d done something like that to one of my ancestors, but all we could hope was that it was a relative of the first occupant.

That was about all I could take of cemeteries. Seeing Jim Morrison’s grave was pretty awesome, but seeing human bones being trampled all over like this was an entirely different story. That was the last cemetery we visited in France.


Next: Suscine Chateau >>

Vannes, France - A colorful and beautiful piece of history

Oct 16, 2004

We were up at 8:30am, apparently the jet lag was starting to wear off. Franz had already been up and down to the local bakery for fresh baguettes and croissants! We soon learned that we better go to bed when Franz did, because he’d be knocking on our bedrooms doors bright and early every morning from that day on.

After breakfast we headed to Vannes for the open market. Vannes, France is AMAZING! It’s like stepping into a storybook or fantasy movie. There is so much detail even in the signs, so much color, and so many historic buildings to visit! If you ever get to France, I’d definitely recommend Vannes as a place you really need to add to your itinerary.

We had crepes for lunch in a little underground shop that served some great hard cider. It’s the first I’ve ever tasted, and had a crisp sweet taste that I loved. After lunch we drove down to the beach. True to the season it started raining as we were turning around to walk back to the car. We ran for cover and sat beneath the overhang of the only building on within running distance, which happened to be bathrooms built to support tourists during the summer months. They were locked up, but there was enough space near the doors for four sodden people to huddle and laugh about their predicament.

On our way back home we stopped at a coffee shop, slash bar, for warm drinks to drive the last of the cold wind out of our bones. To our pleasant surprise there was a big black bulldog mix that apparently belonged to the shop owner who patrolled from table to table like a miniscule waiter to check on each customer. With big brown eyes like that, I’m sure he got more tips than the woman who brought us our coffee, but his tips came in the form of tasty tidbits and admiring pats.


Next: French Monoliths >>

Berric, France - The French Countryside and Green Absinthe

Oct 15, 2004

Franz is an accomplished musician that came to America a few years ago to study. Here he met Jason’s uncle, a masterful musician himself and they began a steady friendship which lasted even after Franz was called home to Germany when his father became ill. After the death of his father, Franz stayed in Germany to keep up the estate there and inherited the beautiful chateau in Berric, France that his mother long kept as an exquisite bed and breakfast.

When we arrived at the chateau we gazed in awe at the sheer size and magnificence of the estate. It was amazing! Ivy and climbing flowers covered aged stone walls, and were framed by lush green fields.

God bless all friends and family! Franz told us we could stay as long as we like for free, if we wanted to buy our own meals. That certainly wasn’t a problem for us, especially after we’d visited the local markets and discovered that we could get top shelf wines for the price of bottom shelf wines in the United States. Another pleasant surprise for us was presence of green Absinthe available in every store. Anyone who has seen the movie Moulin Rouge should recognize Absinth as the alcoholic drink that made the drinkers think they saw the ‘green fairy’. It’s banned in the U.S. because of the thujone in the wormwood, which is the herbal ingredient that gives it the strong bitterness.

We soon discovered that the wormwood had the affect of making you feel ‘mellow’ after just one glass of Absinthe, where it would take several bottles of beer to get the same affect. Yet despite four bottles of green Absinthe during our stay in Berric, none of us saw any green fairies.


Next: Vannes France >>

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Berric, France "City of Life"

Weathered and aged, but of goodly spirits
Cheerful despite the weather
Like a plump and wholesome country grandmother
A smile and a cookie to ward of the storm
Moss creeps up the stone
As age creeps up on the old
But there is life and joy of life
To keep even the old age pleasant
A soft eyed cow
The bleat of a lamb
Life surrounds and uplifts the weary pilgrim
Here there is life and laughter
In the wind even the trees sing of it
Storms blow and rain falls
But open hearths give heart
Open doors give warmth
Open arms give joy...

- Taliahad Oct 15, 2004

Jim Morrison's Grave, the French Countryside, and Vacation Paradise

Oct 15, 2004

With the jet lag still messing up our natural timing, we all woke up about 4:30 in the morning and couldn’t seem to get back to sleep. We all laid in bed until 6am before deciding that breakfast was probably ready downstairs and it wouldn’t hurt anything to start the day early.

Being the big music fans that we are, there was one site that wasn’t on any standard tour which we just had to see. Buried in a Paris cemetery within walking distance of our hotel was the final resting place of Jim Morrison. He was THE singer for The Doors, but in about 1971 he went to Paris in an attempt to get his life back on track and failed. His girlfriend found him dead in the bathtub. I guess the French adored him enough that they didn’t want to let him go and buried him in the Poets Corner of Père Lachaise Cemetary.When we got there it was kind of hard to find him surrounded like he was with so many other tombs right up against his. But we found it!! We were running late on time, so we had to hurry back to the hotel and grab our luggage. It didn’t feel like we’d spent nearly enough time in Paris, but we had a German friend meeting us at the Eiffel tower that we didn’t want to miss.

Lugging heavy bags we hiked to the rail station and bought tickets out to the Eiffel tower, still somewhat amazed by the dirty looks we were getting from Parisians. Any time one of the guys would stop to ask directions they would get a snotty comment at best. Robyn and I at least got admiring glances from the men, until we opened our mouths and English came out.

We reached the Eiffel tower and were surprised to find more of the postcard carrying beggars scattered throughout the crowd. Fearing the loss of our luggage or valuables, we kept them on our backs as we waiting for Franz to show up and take us to Berric.It must have been less than an hour before French police cars began pulling up all around the tower. They were completely blocking off the road and traffic started backing up all the way down the street. We could see immediately that Franz was going to have a problem getting to us, so we sent Jason out with a sign to walk up and down the street looking for him. It’s bad enough trying to find someone when you’ve never met, but trying to find someone in traffic like that looked impossible.

To our great relief a silver car squeezed through two parked trucks only moments later, and it was our lost driver Franz to the rescue. We were amazed that he’d been able to weave his way through standing traffic, but I guess if you’re driven enough anything is possible.

Unfortunately the car was a little smaller than we’d anticipated. Especially considering that our bags were almost as tall as we were. It didn’t help that the French police were trying to break up the congestion caused by their previous road block, and that we were now hindering their progress. As quickly as possible we crammed two giants bags in the trunk, laid a third bag across the laps of the two back seat passengers while the fourth (and smallest) of the four bags had to sit on Jason’s lap in shotgun position.

Amazingly the doors closed and we were off on the next leg of our vacation. On our way to a beautiful estate in the French countryside town of Berric.


Next: Berric France >>

Tour Paris France, the Louvre, Notre Dame and Arc de Triomphe

Oct 14, 2004

We woke up at 6am to shower dress and enjoy a French style continental breakfast, with fresh croissants! I adore fresh croissants!
Then after some quick shopping at a local grocery store for baguettes and cold cut meat, we packed ourselves bag lunches and headed out to see all the historic Paris sites we’d been dreaming of.

Notre Dame was incredible, but even though it was the off season there were a LOT of tourists milling around. I love gothic architecture, and the cathedral was absolutely magnificent. It was filled with large paintings of saints or other religious themes, which unfortunately they didn’t allow pictures of. There was some repair work going on at one side of the exterior, but for a seven hundred year old cathedral it was amazingly well preserved. The gargoyles and saint statues were awesome, but the stained glass windows were the best. We got lots of pictures of those. I bought myself a little prayer card in French for a souvenir.

From Notre Dame we crossed the river Seine to visit the pub, and saw a beautiful fountain depicting the Angel Michaels battle with Satan. From there we headed up to see the Arc de Triomphe, and artist’s square where we were bombarded by women claiming that they were refugee’s and needed money. They all had postcards with the same desperate sounding message printed on them, in English. It was obvious that they were preying on the tourists’ sympathy.

The Louvre was next on our list and we wandered its floors for over four hours before deciding that we would never see it all in time. I was exhausted and told the other three to go on without me. I found myself a little coffee shop on a balcony overlooking the main entrance and settled down to people watching. Within minutes I was joined by a pair of Chinese business men who were in Paris on business, but found themselves with a free afternoon before they needed to fly back home. We engaged in a lively conversation which ended in a firm command for our group to come out to China and visit their homes. They assured me that China was “even more beautiful” than Paris because unique style of their historic architecture.

With weary legs and soaring spirits we didn’t return to our hotel until very late that night. Exhausted, and a bit jet lagged to boot, it was all we could do to eat a light dinner and fall into our beds.


Next: Jim Morrison's Grave >>

Paris, France "City of Darkness"

Paris "City of Darkness"

Old buildings, the work of masters
Nature against man
Wind and rain, moss and earth
Battering buildings, eating the stone
Seagulls of the sky
Sparrow and pigeon afoot
Beautiful on the wing, but battered and torn
The city cries of age and growns beneath it's own weight
The people carry an air of depression
Reclusion
They dress in dark colors and scowl at outsiders
They walk beside the ghosts of their ancestors
Which is dead? Which is alive?
They embrace the darkness that surrounds them
The old...
The new...
The city claims them
The weather ages them
They become as one

- Taliahad Oct 13, 2004

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Oct 13, 2004

We left the immigrations area and walked out into the main body of the airport to look for our luggage, then nearly turned and ran back to the counter when we saw two armed guards with fully automatic weapons heading our way!! Thank god they kept on walking, and we realized that security in France was a little different than it is in the United States. Apparently in France the guards carry around enough firepower to bring down any elephants that might try to sneak past their country's customs. Yikes!

None of us spoke fluent French so we had to rely on Robyn’s one semester of French in high school and a travel sized French to English language dictionary. We stood outside on the sidewalk for over an hour trying to use French bus maps figure out which route would take us to the part of the city we wanted to be in.

We at last found our bus and were on our way to the heart of Paris and the true beginning to our vacation. As if to counter our bad luck with the flight over and the airport personnel, we even met a man on the bus who was full of great advice on places to stay and sites to see. He introduced himself as “a Texan from Mississippi” and told us that if there was one pub we had to visit it was a small place located on the Seine River roughly a block kitty corner from Notre Dame. Before parting ways at the end of our bus ride we assured him we’d be sure to check it out.

After another two hours as lost tourists wandering the streets of Paris with heavy packs on our backs, we at last found a hotel with vacancies within walking distance (or short bus ride) of all the major sites in Paris. We promptly dropped our bags to the floor and crashed on the beds for five hours of badly needed sleep.

When we woke again it was already dark outside. We found a little restaurant for dinner, and discovered that if you didn’t speak French and you came to the city in the tourist off season, you were pretty much considered an annoyance that nobody wanted to deal with. Three times we had to send Jason out to find what happened first to our waitress, then our order, then the bill. Parisians didn’t want anything to do with Americans, especially considering the recent events in the middle east.

We headed back to our hotel a frustrated with the snobbish attitude every Parisian we met seemed to have in sixes, and soothed our battered spirits with a little wine and good sleep.

Next: Louvre and Notre Dame >>

Vacation Flight From Hell, and Illegal Immigration

Oct 13, 2004

The flight from Atlanta to Paris, France was horrible! None of us had really slept well, if at all the night before the trip, so we were eager to catch a few z’s on the plane. Wasn’t going to happen. We were stuck in coach, and in chairs that wouldn’t recline to save a life. As the stress and excitement of the trip wore off, headaches from lack of sleep crept in. And to top off the experience, an infant began to wail with earsplitting screeches which didn’t stop for the entire flight across the ocean!

We landed in Paris and literally ran for the exits only to find massive lines backed up from the emigrations counter. We found the line we were supposed to be in and prepared ourselves for a long wait. There were four or five airline personnel behind the counter, but only three of them had lines in front of them. We assumed there were simply no flights coming in for the last station, when he suddenly waved us over.

When you get an opportunity to cut in front of a hundred tired passengers you should probably consider the potential violence the act may incur, but to our surprise nobody moved to intercept us. We were all smiles as we handed the fellow our passports and disembarkation cards. Those smiles quickly turned to concerned glances amongst ourselves as he tossed the cards into the trash can and handed us our passports back unstamped.

Was there a problem? Did we fill the cards out wrong? He smiled at us and told us to enjoy our stay, then waved us by. We all hesitated, although for different reasons. Jason is an experienced international traveler, and knew that if we stepped past that fellow we’d be entering the country illegally. I, on the other hand, was miffed that I didn’t get the stamp in my passport because I wanted the bragging rights!

Despite our concerns, the four of us were too exhausted to question the man’s purpose and obeyed his command to move on. I was barely off the plane on my very first visit to France, and I was already a criminal in the eyes of the country.


Next: Paris France >>

Travel West Coast to the East Coast

Oct 12, 2004

Tuesday morning we woke up feeling anything but rested, and scrambled to load our travel gear into the car and get to the airport on time. Despite our early arrival at the airport, we got held up in airline security.

Nate was wearing a pair of hiking boots that looked as if they had shanks in the sole or something. We were expecting to see him dancing naked before they let him go. Jason gave Nate a hard time until his bag went through and also got flagged.

There was a solid black square in the middle of the pack that none of us could figure out. They pulled it off the belt to search, and the sheepish look on Jason’s face was perfect as airline security pulled out his solid lead flask.

There must have been a lot of people held back in security because the flight was twenty minutes late reaching the runway. We waited in line for take off, and all of us breathed a sigh of relief as the plane at last went airborne. We were on our way to France. After a quick change of planes in Atlanta we should be reaching destination Europe in the morning.


Next: The Flight from Hell >>

The Night Before Vacation, and all through the house...

Oct 11, 2004

We spent the night before our flight out to France filling up four full sized backpacks. Jason has a funny way of wanting to take everything we might possibly need on a trip rather than just taking the vacation essentials and just making due with what we have. So despite the fact we were flying out to Europe, which is far from being a third world vacation destination, my luggage was loaded with everything from a tent and sleeping bag to a folding stove and tiny cooking pots!

Originally we all thought we might try to tour Europe in the common fashion of poor students. Staying at hostels and shopping the supermarkets for good deals. We really had no idea what to expect, but we knew our goal was to keep the whole two week vacation, airline fares included, under two thousand dollars.

Nate and Robyn stayed at our place that night. We wanted to get to the airport early because we were riding on buddy passes, and needed to check in with the flight attendant as early as possible to assure we got on without any problems. Despite the early morning plans, we stayed up late surfing the internet for last minute changes to our vacation itinerary and potential tourist attractions we might want to see. Stonehenge, the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre Museum… were dancing in our heads like sugar plums in a child’s dream of Christmas Eve.


Next: From West to East >>