PPS Destinations Report

France (Paris, Brittany and Mont St. Michel)

Date:         August 2003

Reported by Ernst 'Ernie' Schmidt; PPS Director, Vancouver, BC, Canada

    Within a week of returning from the PPS Labrador trip to the Flowers River, I hopped on a plane and flew all the way back across the country and the Atlantic Ocean, in order to spend two weeks 'chilling out' in France.  This is a brief report our experiences (I was joined by Deb and our two kids).   If you, the reader, have any questions about this region, please do not hesitate to call me at pps@shaw.ca.

    First, I have to freely admit that I had a certain reluctance to travel to Paris.  Why?  I have heard from so many people that Paris is fantastic but the major problem with it are the Parisians and their attitude towards tourists.  I think we have all heard stories about this.  Second, we had to visit Deb's relatives.  Notwithstanding these two imagined 'impediments', I would like to report that I had a wonderful time.  Paris was a delight, if not a touch expensive (no make that very expensive) and the best part of it were the Parisians!!.  No, I wouldn't go as far as to say they were friendlier than the New Zealanders or the Irish, but they were certainly as friendly as any citizens I have encountered in any other big city.  A typical scenario would be to approach any Parisian and ask them, Parlez vous Anglais?  Non!  Un Petit Peut.  (This was always accompanied by the speaker holding up two fingers horizontally with very little space between them; the idea being to indicate their English language skills were comparable to the minimal space between their fingers).  After this initial formality, I would phrase my questions in English and then wait for each Parisian (any Frenchman for that matter) to speak decent English and help us in any way they could.  Obviously, their idea of very little (the two fingers come into mind again) was to me, very reasonable and very helpful indeed.  From there on , not only did they help us with our immediate needs, they began to draw maps, ask others, take us by the hand and to look out for us at the various stations.  My word, they were downright friendly. Oh well, another myth de-bunked!!!!  By the way, the relatives were just as good a surprise too.

    We spent 4 days in Paris and saw many of the major sights.  One hasn't lived until you have seen the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe, Notre Dame Cathedral, the Louvre, The Palace at Versaille and all the other sights that go with Paris.  The city has beautiful architecture with little or no high rise buildings.  It has an excellent metro and subway system as well.  The only stain on the city are the dogs!!!  We have all heard about them.  Let me point out that I am a dog owner/lover and have nothing against the dogs but the visitor to Paris will not be able to avoid the ubiquitous droppings.  One has to keep one eye on the sights and one eye on the ground.  In fact, it is so bad, that the city is concerned about the 300 serious pedestrian accidents per year caused by simply stepping on doggie do-do.  I should mention at this stage that France had been going through their worst heat-wave in history!!!  Heck, I thought Perth, Australia was hot but travelling in 40C (108F) Paris was a chore at the very least.

    From Paris, we embarked on the TGV (high speed train) and departed for a 4 1/2 hour journey to Brittany where we would spend the next week in a house in Le Guilvinec.  This is a quaint fishing town south of Brest and Quimper.  The weather was still very hot, but it was a lot more comfortable along the coast.  The bucolic life style was wonderful and we all had a great time bumming around the area and its beaches.  I rented a car for the week, at a very reasonable rate, and spent every other day driving around to some of the small towns which make Brittany so charming.  Without a doubt, the prettiest had to be Pont Aven.  This was simply a post card come to life.  This town was famous for its 'school' of art influenced mainly by Paul Gaugin.  In addtion to Pont Aven, there were many other pretty small towns which were off the beaten track, each prettier than the next.  When one thinks of Brittany, one thinks of the coast and the sea-side villages.  What one forgets is that the majority is inland agricultural area.  This area also had many pretty areas and historical sites which shouldn't be missed.  The people of Brittany, (Bretons) are very proud of their culture and like to make sure that you do not automatically consider them as French.  They are but they aren't.

Before we were to head back, I needed to check off a few sites from my 'to-do/to-see' list.  You know, the Great Wall, Eiffel Tower, Sydney Harbour, the Pyramids at Gizeh (still on the list) and all that.  Of those items still on my list, I did not get to see the famous beaches at Normandy (Gold, Juno, Omaha, etc.) with its museums, however, I did manage to drag the kids across Brittany as far as Mont St. Michel.  One out of two isn't too bad!  Its more impressive than the pictures and I am sure that all the other visitors thought so to.  Be prepared for massive numbers of tourists in venues like this!!!

    Once we left Brittany, we went back to Paris St. Germaine for 2 days and visited the Palace at Versailles before heading home.  Versailles (Louis XIV, the Sun King) was the model for that other great European castle, Schonbrunn (Hapsburgs) in Vienna and was worth a day-trip.  Just to add a little spice to the end of our trip, we managed to make our connection in Toronto and were just boarding our flight back to Vancouver when the power went out.  The rest is history.  We know where we were when the power went out and finally made it home two days later.

    If you have any questions about these areas, please fee free to contact me at pps@shaw.ca

Ernie Schmidt

To view the following thumbnails, please click on them and, after viewing, hit the back button (depending on your browser) to return to this page.  I did not intend show all the familiar sites but to show the sites not normally shown in the publications.  The exception is the first picture, the Louvre, which is a marvel of architecture in itself.  This is followed by three shots of the Brittany Coast as well as three of Pont Aven.  I could have easily added twenty more as well.  I if you have any comments, I would love to hear them.

PS.  For those who have never been to the Louvre, this is a huge historical building of impressive architecture.  It is accessed underground via an ulta-modern glass pyramid  entrance in the middle of the concourse.  Please understand that it is impossible to totally visualize unless you have been there.  The photo included, shows the entrance way with the historical building in the background.  The gallery itself completely surrounds the  entrance.  Needless to say, I was most impressed by the architecture alone.  The gallery contents were a whole other matter and would have taken an intensive week to cover.  Keep this in mind when visiting.