Last days in Nantes + Driving around Northern France

The first part of our journey was 5 days driving through France- what a fantastic way to start off. The freedom of a car was amazing! After being so tied to the infrequent bus and tram schedule this felt so freeing.
Below are some pictures of our last morning in Nantes as Josh said goodbye to his class friends.



Here is a google map of the route we drove: (click on it to see it in detail)
















From Nantes we first drove to Vannes (B on the google map above). We spent some time exploring the city (eating the best crepes in the world!) and then made our way to see the Morbihan region's neolithic blocks. They date back to 5000 BC! To be honest we thought these would be bigger... but hey how they even hauled all these rocks here is impressive enough!



We then made our way to the northern coast up to Saint Malo and Mont St-Michel. If you ever get the chance, these are must see's!

Here are some pics of the abbey of Mont St-Michel:


Here are some pics of the port of Saint Malo. Inside the walls it's quite touristy, but nonetheless still beautiful. The moules et frites (mussles and fries) run rampant here as well- I think josh and I ate this at least once everyday! (Roquefort was the best!)



Here when tide was low (apparently here they have a fluctuation of 15m between low and high tides) you can walk out on the causeway to the fortress- but if the tide starts to come in you have to stay there until it's out again!





We spent the next couple of days on the Normandy Coast (D and E on the google map above) exploring the D-day beaches. Josh and I felt very proud to be Canadian as we visited many of the sites where Canadians fought bravely and fell. There is a city called "Bernieres-sur-Mer" where the Canadians first landed and liberated the house shown below. Needless to say when the lady from the tourist office found out we were Canadian she was very excited.



We visited the Juno Beach Museum:



As well as the Canadian cemetery:



And American cemetery (the largest in Europe- 9387 soldiers. This is where they also filmed the opening scenes of Saving Private Ryan):




and just for contrast, the German cemetery:


Josh and I both got a little chocked up reading the epitaphs at the Canadian cemetery, some of these boys were just 17 years old..

Further west of Juno Beach sits Omaha beach (where some of the bloodiest battles took place). Here you have the opportunity to visit the war torn site "Pointe du Hoc Ranger Memorial" which has been mostly left untouched and shows the battle scars- bomb craters, and gun emplacements- and the 30m cliffs that the American soldiers had to scale.




At another site called Arromanches we sat on German tanks and explored bunkers. I was surprised at my stamina during these days as i'm not much of a war-buff and this was the most war I have ever seen (I feel like my dad would have been proud! lol). But it was really worth it- as I am much more knowledgable about WWII and seeing all of this first hand was really powerful. But after 2 full days of this I was war-ed out!




Our road trip was now nearing the end and we made our way along the coast and explored Etretat (F on the google map). We stayed here for 2 nights. Etretat is a small fishing village that is known for its twin cliffs. It's a very cute french village (again slightly touristy but less so than other places) and as well this area is known for it's seafood- here we continued our mussel binge and in total over this week I ate more mussels than I have in my entire life! The neat thing too is that getting to this village takes you through all these other small French villages. That in itself is a real treat to just drive through all these towns. Much different from Canada where you have large sprawling cities and then nothing, but in France there are tons of small villages separated by just a few miles. There were moments when we would get so lost (our map was not as detailed as it needed to be for driving!) and just keep stumbling upon these small villages.
Here are some photos from Etretat:





Our last day we spent the day in Rouen, where Joan of Arc was tried for heresy and burned at the stake in 1431 (thank you lonely planet for that date). This city is also a must see- It's architecture is very unique, and the food.. very yummy. It was here that we had something called "oeufs cocottes" (eggs with grated cheese baked in cream in a small dish) which was absolutely amazing!





That night we drove to Beauvais (just north of Paris) for our early flight the next day to Prague.
Traveling around France was amazing. It is a country so rich in history, food and wine- definitely top on my list (and I haven't even explained to you my love affair with Paris!) So saying goodbye to all of that was extremely bittersweet. But, Josh and I were very excited to see what Prague would bring.




Here is the route through central Europe that we took for the next 25 days:

France and Central Europe Trip: July-August 2010

Dear friends and family!
I hope this email finds you well! This update is loooong overdue- I have been meaning to write this for some time now, was even planning on blogging throughout our travels in central Europe, but time just seemed to slip away! So here now I sit, one week into this next leg of our journey, in our studio apartment in a very happening area of Stockholm, waiting for Josh to arrive in a taxi with all our luggage that has finally arrived- But i'm getting ahead of myself.


It seems like so long ago now but we left Nantes on the 27th of July in a rental car (the photo above is us in the main square in nantes, to the left is our dorm), after 1 full day + half a night of cleaning our place. There was a moment was I was even on my knees washing the floor (mom, Becky, Sean and Ian, you would have been so proud!).
We sent 7 pieces of luggage to Sweden (how did we have that much??) in a truck that one of josh's classmates organized.

For me, leaving Nantes was met with utter joy and elation as I could not wait to be far far away from that isolated campus and to finally have some time with Josh to just "be" without the stress of school.
But I did become quite the chef! Here is my baked brie with homemade cranberry chutney and our favorite strawberry spinach salad- I think that entire brie cost 5 euro? I will miss the cheese...

And speaking of food, we also managed to make our own sushi and got pretty good at it!

For Josh though I think leaving was a little more bittersweet as this meant another chapter of his Masters was closing, and he would again be leaving a place and a language he had come to know, just to have to restart in another month. But, there was no doubt that we were both very excited about our upcoming month of traveling and for Josh this was a much deserved month off.

We had to be in Stockholm on August 25th, so this left a month of exploring. We chose to drive around Northern France for a couple of days and then fly to Prague on Aug. 1st- From there we would explore the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Austria and Poland.

A common question i'm getting asked is "what was your favorite city", or what did you like best about this trip, and to be honest, that is so difficult to answer as it was all so wonderful and unique. So over the next couple of days i'm hoping to recount our "top 10" of each of the countries and show you some of our favorite photos.