France Family Trip
Please excuse the spelling mistakes… in both English and French!
Day 1: Assimilating
PSA: if you run into an acquaintance on an airplane and talk over the middle person for 2+ hours, maybe offer to switch seats! (At least it was a good crash course on French!)
The trip started with a brief, hectic layover alongside a beautiful sunrise in Iceland (<1 hour) to board the second flight to Paris! Lots of running and stressing!
Landed in Paris and ubered to make the train to Bordeaux by a singular minute, met up with the youngins and enjoyed the beautiful French scenery when not napping (really makes sense why all these French artists painted so many landscapes).
Reunited with the parents over a nice mom-prepared charcuterie board. Such good jamon iberico and homemade gluten free bread!
Then we set out for our first official meal in France which did not disappoint - and learned a lot about mom and dad’s college experiences [redacted].
Polished off the night with a beautiful walk around Bordeaux: taking in the water, the historic sights and some really good people watching. So cute how many friend groups just hang out in the jardin!
Wines tasted: 1
Day 2: Limestone day!
Met our tour guide and his partner after breakfast (a wonderfully intelligent, kind man who doubles as a walking no-smoking ad with his voice box) and drove to a beautiful limestone city in st emillion literally carved out of the rocks! Saw some catacombs and a special church (only 3 like it in the world!) with so much symbolism! And the entire town was overlooking the surrounding region
A cool vineyard that is one of the essentially founding vineyards of the region (we are talking medieval times!). Built on the original Roman road!! France is old!!! And did a whole tour under their catacomb / mining which was 5m beneath the vineyard itself! tried some of the wines but it was all Merlot (since their cab franc got mildew and it takes ~12 years to regrow (wild!!)) and found it quite dry myself.
Finished the day with a delicious, classic 3+ hour Ferrante family meal at the hotel
***Long church description incoming, feel free to skip!***
It’s hard to describe but it’s called an inspirational or creation church and the whole concept of the church was finding enlightenment — and not purely a Christian view of things but also incorporating some pagan and general mysticism. Also… it’s carved OUT OF THE STONE like it’s all one giant connected stone. And it’s in this city that’s on a steep incline / decline so all the sudden boom adorable garden or vineyard extending out and such pretty French architecture but the church itself was not huge by any means but the tour guide did an amazing job describing all the imagery and meaning behind the remnants of the carvings (no stained glass, just very much limestone carved stuff) and I had two favorite parts. (1) It had this mural sculpted which essentially symbolizes taming man’s wildness (man taming scary beast) and learning beauty and art (man playing instrument) w the holy grail in the middle and the ENTIRE CHURCH WAS CARVED OUT OF THE STONE SO THAT ON THE WINTER SOLSTICE it got direct light!!!!! (2) This shrine to st Nicholas (yes future Santa Claus) and it depicted the story of the kids in the salt that he saved them from and also had these Hindu representations of chakras and the like and it was made in like 1200!! Hindu stuff in the church alongside the pagan five petal rose and it was amazing to see intermingled and respect for religions all together like a millennia ago!!! Really awe inspiring, maybe even hopeful¿
***End of Church Description***
Wines Tasted: 5
Day 3: Mushruins
We started the day off visiting the region’s premiere truffle expert on his farm! He taught us the micro (three methods of truffle hunting: dogs, pigs or follow the fly!) and macro (they have figured out how to cultivate truffles, and most wine growing regions of the world are suitable!) of truffles with his hilarious frenglish and his two cute pups! One had severe dog OCD and took plenty of cajoling to be pulled away from her intent staring at the irrigation pipes - just waiting for the mice that wasn’t there to pop its head up! We got to dig a few up, and then had some scrumptious truffle butter (no nicki) and he even let us take a few back with us! (Oh, and breakfast wine… cuz that’s how they do it in France). And this region is so truffle saturated there was nary a meal that didn’t have some truffle component… mmmmmmmmmm.
Next up… archeology! This region of France has some of the most plentiful, well preserved early human artifacts in the entire world - and it was a joy to explore today (with our tour guide who spent his career researching Paleolithic art!)
We were incredibly fortunate to get to visit some of the most unique and accessible cave paintings in the world. After ducking around (except for Sarah! Perfectly sized!) a narrow quarter mile of caves, we came upon some absolutely breathtaking cave paintings from over 20 thousand years ago. They were polychromatic (primarily red, brown & black) as well as etched into the stone — and I can’t reiterate enough how impressive and skillful these were! Beautiful bison paintings w etching for eyes or horns or legs. Abstract characters incorporated as well, and perspective and staging was used, these weren’t just depictions of what they saw. The selection of animals drawn was not fully synchronous with the animals of the region, and very little to no true depiction of humans —both indicating a more sanctuary-esque reasoning. 350 individual animal depictions of which we only saw a handful, but we did see a perfectly preserved and wonderful handprint which was just an incredible human connection across tens of thousands of years.
Next! We saw some ancient sculptures carved into a stone cliff! There was clear intention and symmetry to these seven animals, and it was nicely incorporated into the natural stone curves already. These were tucked nicely into a little museum, as well as an ancient, ancient campsite! As a part of this, we learned a ton about the evolution of humans and how art / religion / science all came together — and how humans have had the same capacity to learn for the past ~50,000 years!
Barts hypothesis was that religion requires dissociation from the natural world (thinking about the past/future, seeing yourself as separated from the nature) to seek reconnection with it — and that these early art forms were representations of seeking to reconnect.
Dinner was at this extremely eclectic restaurant that is probably best described as Alice in wonderland but with more Disney characters and human body parts mixed in. And we played a silly card game for the last hour!
Wines Tasted: 10
Day 4: King of the Castle! King of the Castle!
France has lots of castles! And we saw lots of those castles! France has two types of castles (leisure and fortified). And we saw both types of castles! The leisure castle had cute peacocks and these really beautiful organic (instead of geometrical) hedges and a full allosaurus skeleton (just cuz!)! Along with some views. Ooo and we learned the Michelin family owns a ton of France! Including the leisure castle (boo)! The fortified castle was really cool, and had all these kiddos running around getting dressed in full plate and we got to see all the catapults/trebuchets and I went down an extensive deep dive on crossbow physics which was neat!
We got some time to decompress and I took a lovely little walk by the river, we had a little wine and cheese and then we went to Saldot (?), a smaller but packed with history town for dinner! Did a bit of touring - fast facts! (1) they burned so much documentation during the French Revolution they don’t even know which churches are which denomination (2) the south of France was mostly liberated during WWII (huh) (3) Bart called Italian renaissance inspired architecture “frivolous” and got quite the reaction from the family. Some people did some shopping and I refreshed in a quaint little tree-centric garden! Had a nice interesting conversation w Bart about the parallels of French and American politics (ex. two oldest democracies) and we had our final dinner in the south of France before heading up to Normandy!
Wines Tasted: 11
~Interlude~
Before we go any further, I’ve gotta say these French people manage to eat a tremendous amount of creamy, fatty foods… Egregious amounts of cheese and butter and bread and fatty animal bits (Fois gras, terrine, sweat breads, etc). Man o man do i need something spicy and green! Also apparently they don’t have gyms? Make it make sense.
~Interlude Over~
Day 5: South to North
Our journey to Normandy / Brittany was a bit rocky to say the least, but after a number of trains and buses we made it! I didn’t even get to thank Bart for his wonderful touring it was so hectic! Had some train station sushi that quite honestly impressed!
Our stay in what I liked to call English France (rainy, foggy, less quintessential French architecture and instead a blend of English {thatched roofs, etc}, and they don’t even grow wine!) was a very nice one! We stayed in the quaint fishing town of Honfleur (a town of 9k that sees about 2 million tourists when the cruises start in earnest (jeez!)) which was right on the shore of where the English Channel becomes the Sienne. We got a nice tour around town on day one, saw some nice churches and got a lot of leg stretching in! Lucas and I befriended Milton the slug(!) and got to introduce him to his much larger friend, Miltóne - and we spent about thirty minutes slipping things into Quin’s pockets.
I took our downtime prior to dinner taking an hour+ walk on the beach where the fog finally broke — dang do I really wish I had more beach in my life. Wrapped up the day with a big seafood dinner in town — ate a lot of cold sea snails and Lucas and I polished about 30 of these little shrimp guys that might have been more bug than seafood off in a good thirty second race.
Day 6: History Day!
First stop of today was all about the Norman conquests! We saw a truly impressive 250ft tapestry made in ~1100AD (soon after the real events) depicting William the bastard conquering England to become William the conqueror! Honestly beautifully done, so many details and nuance and just insane it’s almost a thousand years old! Learned a lot about the intertwinedness of Normandy and all of northern France with England!
Next, we visited the landing beaches from D Day and the surrounding villages / encampments, etc. We walked among a few of the German cannon turrets and bunkers, along Utah beach and visited the United States dedicated cemetery. Our guide was a bit overly jovial, but a very interesting albeit somber day. The villages all fly four flags (France, UK, America, Canada) till this day, and the sheer size of the operation was breathtaking. The number of casualties, the audacity of what these soldiers were made to do (as well as the motives - Germany was very much near defeat at that point) and the unfortunate parallels to today made for a day of reflection. The cemetery itself was beautiful - done so respectfully to American customs (ex. French cemeteries have six feet of stone in front of the tombstone, there were Jewish stars among the crosses, etc.) and just very touching.
Good food day too! Had a cassoulet that I can only describe as inspiring and my basil is going to be repurposed from its intended pesto fate. Had my favorite wine of the trip probably, and Lucas and Connor got an absolute platter of beef. And dinner was made even better when we heard some *exciting* news from our judicial system!
Wines Tasted: 5
Day 7: Countrysiding
Walked and toured around a very interesting coastal town that had such eclectic but beautiful architecture! Streets were full of homes where each one looked so different from the next whether it was due to size, coloring or architectural style. As for most of our stay up north coulda used a bit more sun but alas…
Visited a picturesque horse farm where they raise and train horses! All that rain makes for some of the best grass in the world, and where we visited had rolling hills with all the horses running about as well as the cutest French house (both inside and out). The trainer was born there and has been training horses for 40 years, and coolest thing we learned was probably how they went from taking 9 days to break a horse in to only 50 minutes once he read the horse whisperer! His wife made a delicious spread, and I can’t say it enough how perfectly French their house was!
Walked around a little town and found this beautiful church and wonderfully hectic but beautiful cemetery that stretched across centuries. And I’ve never been the only one inside a church before - perfectly serene.
The final two stops of the day were an Apple cidery/distillery place (had been going for five generations!) and they make everything sloping from apple juice to scotch (all liquor eventually becomes wood alcohol if it sits in the cask for long enough - in this case 50 years!). And finally we saw this little manor from the 17th century that is kinda falling into disrepair, but had a moat! Not even for defense, just cuz!
Day 8: Last Licks
I walked around residential Honfleur and absolutely loved it. Quaint shops, so much greenery built into the city, little gardens to stumble upon and just such an old city. Then we said our goodbyes and headed to Paris!
Paris! After lunch said goodbye to Quin and Sarah (as they had to leave a day early to start their move to Boston). Took a nice walk around our hotel seeing a bunch of skaters (really funny how differently they were dressed — equally grunge but classy grunge) and just soaking it in! The family and I took a long monument walk, ultimately ending up a the Eiffel Tower where we met cousin John and Fran for dinner since we happened to be in France at the same time!! After a lovely dinner, we took Connor and Lucas to see the Eiffel Tower and got about five pictures in before they turned the lights off!! Still such a beautiful sight that never fails to disappoint, and is always so much larger than I imagine it! Paris is such an interesting blend of old and new, and I absolutely love it.
Day 9: Closing Time
Had our final breakfast, walked around the exterior of the Louvre and surrounding gardens (really nice but a bit under construction as they prepare for the Olympics) and our final French excursion was Sacre Cru — a church on top of this giant hill that allows for a wonderful view of Paris surrounded by all of these art markets! Then it was time to say goodbye to the parentals, and after learning how bad drivers really transcend language barriers and goofing around in the airport, it is time to return to the real world!
