Weekend in the West of France

Mathilde headed off to the west of France last weekend, and after a week of debauchery at home, alone (that's obviously a joke), it was time for me to join Mathilde at La Rochelle. Unfortunately, it's not that easy to get to La Rochelle from Nice, this time around I ended up flying to Bordeaux, from where I went to La Rochelle by Bla Bla car (a car pooling service that works pretty well, at least here in France). Well, usually works well, this time around, my young driver, busy chatting to her girlfriend, missed the La Rochelle motorway exit. To cut a long story short, I arrived about 1 hour late, sadly missing the big family dinner (but a tete to tete dinner with Mathilde is, of course, even better!).

The next day, we started off with a run in the neighbourhood of Puilbureau (where Mathilde's dad's house is located). Need to prepare for that upcoming semi-marathon! And then, of course, there was the mandatory Scrabble session with Mathilde and Joel (needless to say, I lost miserably to these two pros). And then, a great French traditional beef stew for the family lunch, cooked by Etienette. And for desert, a real treat and surprise - flowers fried in batter! A real delight!

That actually put an end to my brief visit at La Rochelle, as the plan was for us to spend Saturday night and Sunday with our good friends Aude and Magaye (not to forget about young Olympe!) over in Nantes. So, bla bla car it was again, this time we arrived in Nantes in a timely manner, without any hassle or nasty surprises.

Great to meet up with Aude and Magaye again, and seeing how little Olympe is growing up to be a really cute little girl. Aude and Magaye had gotten a baby sitter for the night, so we could go and paint the town red. Well, actually, these days, a night out is more a relaxed dinner, rather than painting the town or anything else red! We did make it out to L.U. for a couple of drinks afterwards. L.U, or Lieu Unique, is a cultural centre, based in the old factory building where the famous LU biscuits used to be made. A pretty cool place.

We started off the next day with a visit to a nearby farmer's market, which is apparently famous for having one of the last proper "buvettes" in France. What's a buvette ? Well, basically it's a ramshackle bar, serving cheap wine and other beverage to the punters visiting the market. I liked the concept very much - it all had a down-to-earth feel to it (much helped by the rather reasonable 1 Euro price tag for a glass of white wine).

After hanging out a bit at Aude's and Magaye's house (it's a very cool place to hang out indeed - Magaye is an architect and they've really created a cool place to live), we headed out into town a bit for a walk. We checked out the Château des ducs de Bretagne - the medieval castle that dominates Nantes town centre. It's my kind of castle - a proper medieval castle, one for fighting wars (the castle was built while Brittany was still trying to resist integration into France - all in vain of course as history would show).

After checking out the impressive cathedral, it was time to say bye bye to Nantes and head off to the airport. It was short, but so sweet!