(Vitré, Brittany, France)

Jumping back to Vitré, before returning to Paris…

A few posts ago, I mentioned my concern about having enough to do in Vitré:  we were going to be in this small town from Friday noon until mid-afternoon on a Sunday.  That turned out to be the least of our worries!

Vitré is an appealing place, but it is also some distance from both the English Channel and the Atlantic Ocean.  As a result, the summer days can get VERY hot and humid.  Our biggest concern quickly shifted from (a) having enough to do, to (b) trying to stay cool.  Our hotel was characterful and ideally located but, alas, lacked air conditioning.

Not too many restaurants were air conditioned either, so we found a large and shady civic garden complex and had a picnic for Saturday’s lunch.  It was very peaceful and we managed to forget about the heat for as long as we were there.

Trying to stay in the shade also found us wandering off the beaten path in a riverside park.  We came much closer than expected to various cows and goats, as the town quickly turned into farmland.  There also seemed to be some kind of gathering for tough-looking characters in the park, but they were deeply engrossed in conversation and had no interest in  hassling tourists.

Later in the evening, we saw part of the ongoing Bastille Day celebrations on television.  We saw virtually every French music legend…and, if Johnny Hallyday were still alive, I’m sure he would have been there too.   Much to our surprise, Patrick “Born to be Alive” Hernandez turned out to be French as well!  He performed his big hit, of course.  Could he possibly have imagined, when he first released the song in 1979, that he would still be singing it in 2018?  Or that one of his background dancers (none other than Madonna!) would be the one to go on to sustained global superstardom?

The castle in Vitré was naturally also not air conditioned, but the relative lack of windows in the stone structure kept the internal temperatures down.  Some of the online reviewers were not too impressed with it as a museum, but it more than fit the bill as a place for us to escape the heat on Sunday.  Too bad that only about 8 rooms were open to the public!

Most importantly, however, we ensured that we knew the locations of Vitré’s gelato vendors.  We might not have it that often at home, but it is a decadent way to beat the heat when we’re on the road!  This being Brittany, they even had apple cider gelato.

Stay tuned for more on…Paris!

(Vitré, Brittany, France)

When planning this trip, I had no problem establishing our first three destinations of Rouen, Bayeux, and Saint-Malo. It was also obvious that we should spend the last few days in Paris. However, it took a little longer to fill in the two days between Saint-Malo and Paris.

I had originally intended to select a town on the Atlantic coast of Brittany. Perhaps Carnac, with its prehistoric tombs and standing stones?  However, we really didn’t want to spend so much time on trains.  I love rail travel, but it can wear you down if you have luggage and need to change trains frequently.  So, searching for something near the TGV line between Brittany and Paris, I stumbled upon an interesting medieval relic called Vitré.

There was a castle, it was old, it had regular trains to Rennes (the biggest city in the area), and it looked to be somewhat undiscovered.  Without any more than that, the decision was made to visit Vitré, a town that was literally at the gateway to Brittany…being some distance inland from the coast and only a few kilometres from the historic boundary between Brittany and France. 

Yes, Vitré was somewhat random and we didn’t know much about it.  After arrival and check-in, we started to wander around without really knowing where we were going or what we would find.  For today’s post, I’m going to continue that theme.   Here are our jumbled first impressions of this mysterious place!

Compared to Saint-Malo, hotels were smaller and much harder to find.  We also weren’t surrounded by camera-toting travellers or dodging buses once we left the protective walls of the old city.  We got the impression that real people still lived here.  After visiting beach resorts on the coast, that realness was quite appealing.

Not all of Vitré was polished and sparkling.  Some of the medieval half-timbered homes were leaning precariously, as in Rouen, but the risk of collapse seemed just a little bit higher.  A few of the buildings were downright scruffy, something you would rarely see in a coastal beach resort.

After ensuring that we could visit the castle at pretty much any time, and ascertaining the location of the July 14 (Bastille Day/fête nationale) fireworks display, we continued our wanderings and ended our first afternoon with dinner at a highly-regarded local crêperie.  Another galette seguin…filled with chèvre, honey and nuts…this is becoming a delicious habit!  We also discovered a new beverage called cidre blanc (white cider).

We may not know much about  Vitré  yet, but our visit here has had a great start!