North-West France

For our classic summer trip, this year we decide to go back to France and visit what remains for us, that is the north-west especially, but above all Normandy, Brittany and the Loire... if only because, being a fan of the Second World War, I had the chance to see where the D-Day landings took place and all the remains of the Allies who fought against the Germans. The first stop is a visit to Tours and everything around it; for us the city turns out to be a quiet place to pass through, even though its cathedral is really very beautiful! Nearby, the castle of Chenonceaux proves well worth seeing, a beast of a castle that practically takes up more than the size of the little village! The castles of the Loire are really many... and we plan to visit at least a couple of them, like the one at Ussé and the one at Villandry. The first I liked for the way it's built...

typically Gothic style, with lovely blue turrets (which is also my favourite colour!), the one at Villandry very beautiful not only for its shape... but also for its gardens, very well kept, and a really nice maze, in which I nearly went mad trying to get out! It's time to visit the capital of the region... Nantes; our aim was to see as many castles and churches as possible... and here too we had no choice, since the city offers a large number of churches (the best being the cathedral of St. Pierre) and the castle, although the castle of Chambord, which we're about to see, we like decidedly more... and it's easy to guess why, heheh! Set just outside the village, it looks like the perfect castle for the way it was built, and seeing it from above we also get a fantastic perspective, a real sign of wealth. We leave the Loire for good to enter Brittany, the westernmost part of France...

which welcomes us with a very strong wind and freezing cold... welcome to the ocean!! Our programme includes a visit to practically everything, except the bigger cities, Rennes and Brest; in fact we don't intend to go into the cities, but to enjoy the region village by village... hunting for the various lighthouses along the coast and looking at what the small towns in particular have to offer! Quimper is an exception... but only because Dad is mad about churches, he wouldn't miss one, practically! By now we only aim for villages with a maximum of 1000 inhabitants... Locronan is another of these, a village really, heheh, that gives you a feeling of extreme tranquillity, where everything flows flat with nothing that upsets people's daily lives. The area of lighthouses west of Brest is really as I'd imagined it...

little villages where the only attraction is this gigantic lighthouse, with an appropriately threatening sea... and having always wondered what a lighthouse is like from the inside, I got proof of what it's like... and so that I'd never, ever live in one!! You really have to like a solitary life to stay there, also because it's a job of great responsibility, and just the thought of climbing all those stairs already put me off!! I can't wait to get to Normandy... the journey continues pushed along the coast, wandering among fishing villages and one storm after another; at last we reach Arromanches and then nearby Longues... so we can admire the remains of tanks, gun batteries, machine guns and trenches of the famous D-Day... what a sight! Having always dreamed of seeing them, I'm beside myself with excitement... and I imagine what happened on that famous 6 June 1944...

Our trip should end here... I say should because, on the way back down towards our homeland, since we're at it we gladly return to Mont Saint Michel... it's always fantastic to admire the tide coming and going, nature really is bizarre! A little town that's accessible only at low tide, and conversely you can't even go near it if you don't want to sink; but it's still worth a visit, if only for its abbey that towers over the town... I'd say an extra day was well spent before heading home!