Another two-night stop, another lovely French city. In this case we stopped in Nantes, the sixth-largest city in France. (For what it’s worth, when this trip is over we will have been in all ten of the largest cities in the country.) A fun part of the stop was our residence, the Hotel Sozo. The hotel took over an abandoned chapel some years ago and turned it into a hotel, keeping as much of the historic architecture and even stained glass windows as they could. Our room was tiny, but it oozed personality.

Another highlight was the fact that just outside our hotel was the city’s oldest and probably most beautiful park, the Jardin des Plantes. Created in 1807, it was a delight to walk through the park as we went out to explore the city.

And there was plenty to explore in our quick stop. Sadly, there were two challenges in really experiencing Nantes. First, the cathedral looked impressive but was closed for what seemed to be pretty substantial renovations. And second, lots of restaurants are closed in Nantes both Saturday and Sunday evenings, the two nights we were there, Sunday in particular. And on Sunday pretty much everything is closed except for touristy cafes, so the city center felt like more like a ghost town than we would have liked.

Still, there was plenty to keep us engaged. There was an art museum that I really liked. In many ways I am simple: I like an art museum that takes me through whatever period it covers logically and systematically. I particularly like museums that take you with clear signage from one room to the next. The Nantes museum, covering art from the 14th to the 20th centuries, checked all those boxes and had a surprisingly good collection of modern art.

Similarly, the old Ducal Palace had a museum of the history of Nantes that was pretty good. It could have used more English translations, but I’m not complaining too much. In particular, they did not shy away from acknowledging the city’s role in the French slave trade. Because of its position at the mouth of the Loire River, Nantes was responsible for just about half of that shameful history and they covered it extensively.

There is one other important piece of history from Nantes. In 1598 Henry IV signed the Edict of Nantes in the Ducal Palace here. Henry – who was born protestant but, famously considering the crown of France worthy of a mass, converted to Catholicism – upheld Catholicism as the established religion of the state but at the same time gave French Protestants significant political rights. The result was the end of the 35-year French Wars of Religion.

Finally, one more thing I learned in the museum. Mark and I were both a little confused over the fact that this was once the seat of the Dukes of Brittany but is no longer in the official French region of Brittany. What gives? Well, according to one exhibit in the museum, the collaborationist Vichy government in 1941 restructured things and put Nantes in what was then the Angers region. Today it is the capital of the Pays de la Loire region, one of 18 regions in the country, and it is still pretty controversial that it is not part of Brittany region. We’ll let them fight it out.

For us though, our memory of Nantes will be highlighted by one thing. On our last evening we were walking to dinner when I got a text from my brother Al: “Biden dropped out”. Yikes! Ever since that fateful and awful debate we’d been waiting for this. And in fact while we were walking on that Sunday evening I was getting genuinely angry at Biden for clinging to power so desperately. And then in the flash of a text it was as though a new era had opened: once again, we have a fighting chance to win in November. Makes for a pretty eventful stop in Nantes!

Next up on our exploration of Brittany was Quiberon, a seaside resort on a peninsula sticking down into the Bay of Biscay some 125 miles south of Roscoff. We stayed at a Sofitel overlooking the sea, a little over a mile south of the little town. In the 19th century the town was a center of sardine fishing and packing, but when first a railroad connected it to the rest of France in the late 19th century and then it was classified as a health resort in 1924, tourism took off. Today the town lives and breathes off of tourism, primarily, they say, French tourists.

We spent three nights here and initially I was skeptical about the whole “seaside resort” thing. I mean, the temperature never got above 65 degrees and it’s the middle of July! But then I got into the vibe a little and I started to understand. And on our last day, with the sun out and the temperature soaring into the mid-60s I spent a couple hours at the beach and loved it. By late afternoon the beach was getting crowded and lots of people were out swimming notwithstanding the fact that water was seriously cold.

A highlight of our little adventure here was that we rented bikes from the hotel and could quickly (and for Mark importantly, painlessly) get into town for meals or out to the beaches. And the great thing is that because it stays light so late we could bike to dinner at 8:00 or even 8:30, have a great meal, and bike home while it was still daylight.

A little beach time, some reading, some exercise, and a lot of food. On our first lunch we discovered a small … network? chain? family? … of local restaurants. The lunch was so good we ended up visiting two of the other places in their network and they were all really good; the owners have something figured out. And service? At lunch Mark accidentally dropped his wedding ring and it fell through a small crack into an inaccessible crawl space. So the owner called a handyman of some sort who, after we left, pulled up enough of the boards on the patio where we were sitting to recover the ring. That’s service!

After our two very quick stops in Normandy we crossed into Brittany where we plan to spend two weeks. The first stop was three nights in Dinard, on what is known as the Emerald Coast. It became a prime destination for British and even American aristocrats in the late 19th century and is still considered one of the primier seaside resorts in all of France. A town of just a tad under 10,000 people, the population soars to some 40,000 in the summer.

Now I have to admit, I didn’t quite get it. The town is nice, and indeed has some great architecture presumably as a result of those 19th century aristocrats, but it didn’t seem like such a great seaside resort. First, well, we’ve been to Sardinia’s Emerald Coast and it was way more beautiful and beachy. Second, because the tides in this part of the world are just enormous, for large stretches of the day the tide is too low for swimming. And finally, it’s just too darned cold! Here we are in mid-July and the temperature never goes above maybe the mid-60s. I looked it up and that’s somewhat unusual; the average daily high in July is 72 degrees. That would have been pleasant, but that’s hardly “Oh god, I need to go to the beach!” kind of weather.

So we didn’t go to the beach in Dinard. There was, however, plenty to do. First off, on arrival we caught a boat across the bay to Saint-Malo, Brittany’s most touristed locale. It is a beautiful old walled city on the English Channel that got wealthy off of pirating. Apparently that was a good business back in the day. (And amusingly, the boat that takes you across from Dinar to Saint-Malo is called the Corsair, an archaic word for pirate. They’re not ashamed of their past!) At any rate, the old city was almost totally destroyed by Allied bombing in 1944, something a tourist like me would be totally unaware of, insofar as it was rebuilt during the 1950s. Honestly, to me it looked like it was all old and historic, when in fact lots of it is no older than I am! At any rate it’s a great place to walk around for a couple of hours and then to sit down to a beautiful lunch. There were lots and lots of probably not-so-good touristy places, but we managed to discover L’Entracte, a lovely and creative place on a bit of a side street. Very pleasant!

The next day was a little laid back, getting some laundry and gym time in, but then our last full day in Dinard we took a local bus an hour south to Dinan. We have a rental car and certainly could have driven but we don’t like driving and hate having to figure out parking in a new town. The bus, on the other hand was simple, cheap, and comfy. Dinan it turns out is an absolutely stunning old walled town above the Rance River. We didn’t do a lot there besides walking around, gawping at the really old buildings and streets and all that. We walked down – and down and down and down – to the river front, where we had a relaxing cup of coffee, before heading back up – and up and up and up – to the main town for lunch. Then back on the bus to Dinard.

So much for three nights in Dinard. Next up, a couple hours west to Roskoff.