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Published: July 29th 2012
While waiting for a tram into Nantes central, we realised that we have left behind the delcious and expensive chocolate tiles we had bought near the Eifel tower in Paris! Enough to bring tears to your eyes (and it did - but that could have been the lack of sleep too).
Our next hosts lived right in the centre of Nantes. We met Pascal and Sirius (the cat) at their home, and went for a wander to grab some tourist info. We went over to the bike hire place and booked a couple of bikes for the next few days so we could ride to the coast and back. Pascal's partner Leyla came home and cooked up a couple of delicious pizzas for us all to share.
Sunday morning we packed up what we needed for our bike tour, grabbed the bikes, and begun to ride... straight into a headwind! Arrgh! For lunch we stopped at a market in Ibes(?) and sat by the river looking at the "art" on the other side which was a red pipe coming out of the water up onto a platform. It was called "The Red Worm". A bit further along the river
Art
Half a room suspended in the air. Yep... art... Reminds me of the floating party house in Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxywe came to the next piece of artwork which was a full size house on an angle partially submerged in the water. Further along we recharged on a chocolate crepe, and also had a look at another piece of art - a boat peering into the water from the side of a lock. It was very cute (and the crepe was good too). The headwind seemed to get worse and we found that open shops were hard to come by. We could feel a sugar crash coming on (not to mention running out of water). Thankfully we came across a friendly French lady in her front yard who refilled out water bottle for us. That was enough to get us through to our destination for the night - staying with Dom in St Brevin(?). Dom took us down to the beach to have a look at another piece of art which was a really impressive 100m long aluminium snake skeleton which coiled back into the ocean. He also drove us to St Brevin l'Ocean and around some of the local small towns. His grandson was visiting and came along too.
Monday brought some pretty average weather. ok, not average
Street Art
There was a lot of this - great stuff. - poor. We started the day with a standard French breakfast (baguette with spread dunked in a large bowl of black coffee), and then started a big sight seeing day with Dom and his grandson. We went north over a huge bridge crossing the Loire. When we were planning this trip, we had considered riding over the bridge, but upon seeing it, we were glad we had been advised against it. It was REALLY huge, very high (and windy) and had no spare room for anything other than cars. We visited a the huge ship construction site (builds the largest ships in Europe), a cluster of old towns, salt farms, and sea side cliffs (that must be beautiful in summer hahah). For lunch we had galettes and kir. After a bit more driving (and some chocolate tasting), we went home for a big dinner cooked on a hotplate on the table, and some more Ice Cream.
Tuesday morning and the weather was looking better. After another large French breakfast, we packed the bikes, said our goodbyes and started off. Oh what a difference a tailwind makes! We stopped at a supermarket to grab some supplies (figs, fruit juice, pain
au chocolat, pistachios) and cruised the rest of the way with a short stop to eat. After getting slightly geographically embarassed coming in to Nantes, we found our way to the bike shop which was closed (but meant to be open). So, we went and got some lunch, unpacked everything back at Leyla and Pascal's place, and then came back to the bike shop. Still closed. On the third attempt the shop was open and we were able to drop off the bikes. For dinner, Pascal made some delicious galettes (no, we aren't getting sick of them yet!) and we met up with Michel who was another couch surfer who wanted to meet us.
The next day we took it easy and wandered vaguely around Nantes, sticking our heads into a few shops before meeting up with Leyla after lunch and heading over to Iles de Machines which is a strange and amazing workshop given over to producing gigantic mechanical reproductions of living things. the main drawcard there is a huge elephant that you can go for a very slow ride on. They are in the process of making a giant metal tree that will be around 50m high
and contain plants, mechanical bugs, giant birds that you can fly on and all sorts of things. It will be pretty amazing when it's done! Last time Nena was in SW Rocks, she had promised her Nan that she was going have a special meal in France just for her. For this reason we went out to a nearby eatery called Cafe Cult' which had a lot of good reviews online. Some tasty food was eaten and then afterwards we met up with Pascal and Leyla and went to a local place that according to Pascal made THE best hot chocolate. Unfortunately by the time we got there they had stopped making hot drinks. Oh well - we'll have to try another time!
Thursday we were really tired after some poor sleeps and took a while to get going. Eventually we made our way to the airport to fly to Barcelona!
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