I took a long weekend to visit the Pearces in France again. I mean, it IS the same time zone! The thing is, I'm not the biggest fan of France, and I don't have a clue about the language, but seeing the Pearces is always fun. Now, THEY are getting good at French. They even have
French driving licenses now.
This was a road trip. They used the new licenses to get us from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean.
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| We started near Rocheron (upper left) and ended near Perpignan (middle right) |
Friday, they picked me up at the Nantes airport (off the map) and we drove to
Ile d'Oleron (near Rocheron) to visit Anna Wilk, who used to work with me at WesternGeco. Love made her move to France, to be with her husband Klaus, and 6 months ago they had the most beautiful little boy, Aston!
Tom was a BIG hit with Aston!
Anna and her mom, always smiling and laughing.
Klaus, Anna, Shirley and Tom in front of their house.
We had a wonderful dinner at Klaus' family restaurant,
Le Piano Bleu (the Blue Piano), while watching a beautiful sunset over the marina. We invited Anna out and then she insisted on paying! They served us the best champagne we had ever had, too.
Saturday was walk-around-the-island day.
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| Breakfast in a café, first. |
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| These pics are from the Citadel |
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| Shirley told me the French for "Fishing by Foot", but I don't remember it. Low, low tide. |
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| Shirley and Tom |
We had to leave soon to pick up Calla Pearce at the Bordeaux airport. We got there just in time!
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| She will need all that wine - she's on furlough because of the government shutdown! |
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| It was a little tight in the car. :) |
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| Carcassone! We stopped here for dinner and a walk-around. |
Dinner was cassoulet - my next cooking adventure. I loved it. It is white bean stew made with fat meats, such as bacon, sausage, and confit duck leg. What is confit duck? It is duck, fat, and duck fat. They used to preserve their meat in fat in medieval France. I will probably settle for fresh duck leg in Norway, but it was delicious in Carcassone!
We made it to
Alenya, near Perpignan, late in the evening. I'll continue the journey in the next blog post!
Tom was a BIG hit with Aston!
Anna and her mom, always smiling and laughing.
Klaus, Anna, Shirley and Tom in front of their house.
We made it to Alenya, near Perpignan, late in the evening. I'll continue the journey in the next blog post!
I stumbled upon this very happy blog while looking for details of life in the southwestern corner France. It’s obvious natural beauty and sweeping history captivates me, from the first anatomically and cerebrally true sapiens wandering a thawing Europe after the last glaciation (the Rb1a haplotypes who elbowed Neanderthalensis out to the last few inches of Gibralter?) through the agriculturalists from the Levant, through Celts migrating from Hallstatt through the Gaulish tribes championed by Vercingetorix to the Frankish peoples united by Clovis and eventually with many Germanic and Italic tribes under Charlemagne, the Holy Roman Emperor and Father of Europe, and then the Sicilio-Norman, German and Iberian pivot under Frederick, Stupor Mundi, and finally the disintegration/reconsolidation of Euro nation states—Anglo, Hellenic, Italic, Balkan and Slavic—all with France as THE continental power of continuing regard. My captivation follows that of millions of others, but should I live there? Could I? Would I be happy? Advice welcome.
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