A few days in Angers

After driving through some miserable weather, we finally arrived in Angers, just in time for dinner ;) Great to see Joel and Francoise, and Mephisto the cat, again! As an added bonus, Mathilde's niece, Alix, was also visiting. We spent a very relaxing weekend in Angers – a bit of rest was needed after all that driving around. Not doing much really – eating Francoise's delicious food, doing a couple of runs around the Lac de Maine, shopping in Angers, playing scrabble, going to the cinema. That sort of thing.

On Monday, we had agreed to head off to see with Aude and Magaye at Nantes, bringing Alix with us (the plan was to take her to her grandmum). After a nice tea at their super cool house (which they've spent a lot of time redoing) with Aude, we headed out to Nantes for a bit of shopping. It was pretty nice to walk around Nantes – it really is one of my favourite cities in France. Shopping is not perhaps what I would characterise as my favourite activity, but I had good fun with the ladies, and really appreciated the historic Passage Polleraye shopping arcade.

After dropping off Alix at her grandmum's, it was time to pick up Magaye (who was back from work) and head off for dinner. Nathalie, Patrick, Timotei and my godson Florian also joined us. Nathalie had booked a nice seafood restaurant for the occasion. We spent a very nice time at the restaurant indeed – the food was great, and so was the company, so pretty much perfect then, Great to catch up with Nathalie and Patrick (and my godson as well, naturally!) as well.

We finished off our lovely day in Nantes by having a drink at the top of the Tour Bretagne, which is the highest building in Nantes (and the 3^rd highest in France outside Paris). It's an impressive 144 meters high, and I think putting a bar on top of the tower is an excellent idea! The bar is appropriately called Le Nid - Nid means bird's nest (the interior decoration is very much bird-inspired). The nightly views from the tower over Nantes were naturally pretty amazing...

After a digestif at Aude and Magaye's place, it was time to hit the sack. After a somewhat slow morning, and a quick visit to Magaye's office (which must be the coolest office I've ever been to – it's like a little artists' den located in a former squat), we headed over to Alix's grandmum's place, to pick up Mathilde's nephews, Paul and Lucas. We also took the opportunity to play a bit with the youngest member of the family – Siem (who was rather scared of me for some odd reason). The reunion with Paul and Lucas was very nice – I actually get the impression they have calmed down a bit! (mind you, just a bit, they still have plenty of energy!)

Back in Angers, we continued with the same “family activities” as before (with the added activity, for me, of spending half of my time wrestling with the spirited twins – what was that about them having calmed down again ? ;) ). In the evening, we escaped to Delphine and Christophe's place for dinner. Great to catch up with them again, it's been over a year since the last time, I believe...

I started Wednesday morning with another run, this time to Angers town center. Didn't realise it was actually only 4 kilometers there, and a very pleasant 4 kilometers at that, with a footpath crossing Park Balzac, and following the Maine river into the town center, with a stunning view of the medieval castle. For the evening, we were invited for dinner at Marc and Magaly's. We had an excellent time, as we always do with them (and very much enjoyed the fondue they had prepared for us). Now that I have my CMAS level 2 diving level, I could talk shop with Marc (although he's just gotten his level 3, so I've got some catching up to do...)

That brought an end to our short visit at Angers, as it was time to carry on towards Paris. As always, we'd had a very nice stay in Angers, looking forward to going again for Christmas!