Second Stop France Fall 2006 – Mont-Saint-Michel

Camillo and I have traveled in South America and in Europe many times in the past 18 years. I have been lucky enough to see many grand cathedrals, many museums and walked the streets of many small and charming towns. In my experience, the abbey at Mont St Michel is one of the most beautiful.

By using Camillo’s native Italian, his Spanish and Portuguese and his smattering of French, we are able to move around with ease. When we have used the European train system and the information desks, we have managed to find the right trains and to find hotels and restaurants as we go.

 

After leaving Versailles in mid-morning, we made our way using 3 different trains to Pontorson in Normandy. We arrived in Pontorson at dusk and found the train station closing for the night – the one ticket salesman was in a hurry to make it home for dinner. No taxis, on his instructions we walked about 2 km to the hotel, pulling our big bags all the way, checked into our 2nd floor room which overlooked the back courtyard, and then went out to walk around this little town for a bit. We walked back by the Train station for find out about the bus the next morning to St Michel … the train station ended up being about 3 blocks from the hotel….  it is difficult to understand directions when spoken in hurried French. 

 

The bus time schedule was impossible to understand.  We decided that we would use a taxi in the morning….. this was not a wasted exercise – in this case planning ahead allowed us to reserve one of the very limited taxis, and set our own pace for the next morning.   St. Michel is one of the few places that we reserved a hotel for the night in advance. We wanted to stay on the island, not make a hurried trip worrying about bus schedules, times we would have to be at the bus stop, and the effort to get our bags on and off the bus. The cost of the hotel was much higher than we normally pay but it was on the island. 

 

At this point we still were under the impression that the tides would surround the island leaving us - at some point – stranded. We learned from the taxi driver that the modern causeway kept the island accessible 24-7.    The story we had heard was from the past – the only time water surround the island in modern times is in (some) October – November when the northern storms move across the English channel driving high waves and creating tides 4-10 feet above normal.

  I have 217 photos in my Mont-Saint-Michel folder – how to choose the right ones for you? I will do this as a photo album. just click the link and view the photos in full page slide show.

 

     

Mont Saint Michel, Normandy, France VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

After walking up the 900 or so steps to the entrance to this church, the inside of the church brought chills to my arms and neck. I sat on a bench at the back, sat in silence with tears in my eyes. Never have I reacted as I did in this chapel. Centuries of silent prayer and meditation has left a feeling inside these wall of faith, of holiness.
   

We never regretted the stay over, expensive hotel and restaurant or not, at about 6pm all the tour busses leave and the island is inhabited only by those numbers that fit into the hotels. We walked the narrow, medieval streets, passed along its walls, watched the sun set and sun rise, then said goodbye and began our train ride into the Loire Valley.

 

     

 

     

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gearing Up – Our Christmas trip is just around the corner

On the 16th Camillo and I will leave Friburgo for Rio, on the 19th we fly to France.   We will spend 3 days in Rome visiting Camillo’s sister and then 7 days in Paris, including Christmas Eve and  day.

 

This is not our first time traveling in France.  There have been multiple times in transit through the Charles de Gaulle, two times with enough of a stopover to take the train into Paris for lunch or dinner. 

 

We also have had two trips where we stayed in Paris once for 4 days and in September of 2006 we took the train, well several trains, and did a two week tour of the northwest corner of France, visiting Versailles, Mont Saint Michel and going up the Loire Valley as far as Amboise.

 

That two week trip into France was before I started posting about our travels and I just went back into the blog to verify – I have never talked about the places we visited, and here we will be making another.  I thought for several days this week I would backtrack and show you some of the photos from 2006.  Then you will be ready to see more of Paris.  Christmas in Paris. 

 

I have loved our trips by train in Europe.  It is becoming more and more necessary though, to be smarter about what we pack and the sizes of our bags.  During the trip in 2006, we found that even though the trains still arrive and depart on schedule and are comfortable and clean, they no longer have porters or even carts to help with the luggage.  By the end of the 2006 trip that became a real problem for us and here we are almost 4 years older.  - Sorry that was a side-track – no pun intended.

 

Versailles: 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We spent only one day and two nights in Versailles. The hotel, within walking distance was okay (can’t remember any disaster so must have been okay) but I do remember that we had trouble finding a good restaurant for dinner…. in France?

We toured the castle and saw a show in the evening that was outside on the grounds. The building’s architecture, Versailles itself, is ‘wondrous.’

I am sure everyone is familiar with the history so I am going to just show some of the photos. I will try and show photos of detail that may not be in publications readily available. Incredible!

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Actually none of the photos, mine nor the pros shows the grander, the size of the HOME of this King and his court – you have to walk through it to understand just how royally the royals lived.  Talk about a big gap between the rich and the poor.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tomorrow Mont Saint Michel -

My Town Friday Shoot-out – Weather during the Christmas season

If you Google for weather in Nova Friburgo, you will find that this is not the best time to visit. For me it is not Christmassy in the least. There is not much variation in the temperatures nor in the amount of rain each day. The Chart below is about Nova Friburgo proper, up at our house at a 1000 meter or 3000 feet, the temperatures are about 3 degrees cooler and the rain much heavier/fog more constant.


5-Day Forecast December. 10 - 14

Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday	Monday
23° C 20° C 74° F 68° F	27° C 20° C 81° F 68° F	28° C 21° C 83° F 70° F	29° C 20° C 85° F 68° F	23° C 19° C 74° F 66° F

 

  You can wake to the sound of rain, go to bed at night to the sound of rain and thunder and when not fully raining there is mist in the air that leaves trees and flowers covered in moisture. Dripping endlessly. The average rainfall for the months of November, December and January are 6.7, 9.4 and 8.2 inches respectively for a total of more than 50 inches a year. The Rainy Season = the Christmas season.

 

 

 

 

 

All this humidity brings swollen rivers and mud slides.  If a road is going to collapse it will be at Christmas time. One year when we were up here visiting from the States for Christmas, we drove into Friburgo for supplies the day after and found the city covered in about a foot of mud. The river that runs through central filled with a mud slide up in the hills and barreled down through town overflowing the banks, inundating the whole town.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The advantage is when the sun is out the colors of the forest is GREEN and the colors of the flowers vibrant.

 

 

 

 

 

The Taste of Home.

Wait – let me stop and unbutton the top button on my jeans. 

Okay now I can take a breath and tell you this story.I almost named this post ‘Ode to a hamburger’  but on second thought, maybe that would have been too romantic.  On maybe Wednesday of this week, Camillo said, “I stopped at the butcher and bought hamburger meat so you can cook us a hamburger.” I almost groaned out loud thinking ‘oh hamburgers here are sooooo baaaad.  not at all worth the calories.’  Background:  to buy hamburger meat you have to stop at a butcher and have it made fresh, that sounds good but they double or triple grind it – put it through the grinder until it has the texture of water soaked bread and there is no fat on the meat (good thing for your body) to add flavor while grilling.   But to the shock and dismay of the butcher Camillo insisted on only one pass through the grinder and to use type A  meat.  (whatever that means)

By Friday my mind (and body) got into the idea and I started planning the meal.

This morning I thawed the meat and thought about going to spinning class so I deserved to eat a hamburger with BUN.  But didn’t – sat in front of the computer reading the news, making comments on FSO blogs and answering emails….. I know I burned at least 250 calories doing this finger tapping workout.   This afternoon at exactly 1:00, I put the meat in a bowl, salt and peppered it, added about a tablespoon of vegetable oil and set it aside.  Cleaned and thin sliced a couple of medium sized white potatoes – set them aside.  cleaned lettuce, sliced tomatoes, sliced onion put on two small plates and set them on the table….

NOW the good part.  Sautéed in butter - mushrooms, onion and crushed garlic in a small pan.  Removed them from the heat…. put the drippings on a flat skillet and grilled 3 hamburger patties.  (rare!) Meanwhile in a small pan I fried the potatoes in hot oil till crispy (here called batata Portuguese) at home maybe could be considered homemade potato chips.

Removed the hamburgers, sliced the buns (store bought Brazilian style buns) toasted them on the grill, set the hamburger with mushrooms and onions, open faced buns and potatoes (chips) on a plate with the lettuce etc. on the side.   Did you notice I don’t have a photo?  Jeeze, they were so good.  They tasted just like home….. sorry I forgot to stop and take a photos – next time okay?

Friday Shoot-out – A few of my favorite things

I really struggled with this week’s topic. My favorite things, hiking, nature photography, mountain views off my veranda, the grandkids (both mine and Camillo’s), the young people at the gym, all of this has been talked about so many times I couldn’t come up with something in Brasil that is a favorite thing of mine. What to do, what to do?

Coming home from the gym today I saw flowers, flowers on fences, flowers on gate, and flowers on trees. YES! what better for ‘flowers and more’ to feature than the flowers that I have around me every day this time of year. So here are a few of my favorites…..