France, Spain, and Portugal 2017

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Friday November 3rd.
This is the day we headed to Mont Saint-Michel. Barry and I walked the few blocks down Emile Zola, to the Hertz rental location and picked up our rental. We headed west to Caen, and the Juno beach historical site. It was an impressive memorial to the sacrifice made by so many Canadians in WW2. Then we headed to the amazing Mont Saint-Michel. So glad we made the trip. Wikipedia has a good summary of its history https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mont_Saint-Michel. We found a nice restaurant for supper and, as we made our way out on the bridge they now have, we saw the tide, one of the largest in the world, coming in. Pontorson was the nearby town where we stayed in a great little B and B called Angel Chambres. Isabelle made fresh crepes, a Breton specialty.
Saturday November 4th.
The city of St. Malo was the home of Jacques Cartier, the first French explorer to Canada. I had contacted the museum ahead of time and was fortunate enough to arrange a tour in English for 11:30. Melanie took us on a very informative tour. Dawn and Lynda learned more Canadian history than they ever did in school ?.
Then we drove into St. Malo, a town rebuilt after the war. It was a beautiful spot, also on the Breton coast, stopping at the cathedral where Cartier's remains are interred. A pub was found and then a climb up the steps to the ramparts which surrounds the town. We snapped some pictures and made our way to Dinan. Rick Steeves called Dinan THE place to visit in Brittany. Dawn had researched a great little place to eat called Les Nez Rouge... a quirky little place and we enjoyed it thoroughly. So many places we would like to spend more time in... that's what Europe is like.
Sunday November 5th
This day we drove to Nantes. We fly to Madrid from here on Monday. Nantes is France's 6th largest city, with a population of about 285,000, not much bigger than Saskatoon. It was about a two hour drive, and the trick was to get to Hertz by 12:30, as it closed for the afternoon. We also had to find a gas station to return it with a full tank. Traffic was slow in the city but our Garmin GPS got us to Hertz with five minutes to spare.
Nantes is another beautiful city in southern Brittany. It is on the Loire River and filled with cathedrals, streets for pedestrians to meander through and restaurants and pubs to partake of. We also came across a park named Le Jardin de Plantes which was filled with greenery, water and birds. We enjoyed beers, pub food, live Irish music, a tennis final on tv and shelter from the brief rain....all at Gigg's.

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