Advertisement
Published: April 30th 2023
Some Random Musings
Sunday morning, well rested and just about at the halfway mark. I have a few moments to do a bit of blogging before we head down to breakfast then pack up the car and head towards Brive. We have never been to this region of France, so completely new experience. What we do know about Brive, is that during WWII it was the regional headquarters of the resistance and the first city in France to liberate itself from the Nazi’s without outside help. The population is around 56,000 and it has a train station (with TGV service.) The rest we will just discover when we get there.
It is Sunday, so finding a place for dinner may prove to be a challenge, but I am sure we will find something, hopefully the hotel has some recommendations. Even the restaurant in the hotel is closed on Sundays.
On our journey there, we will be going through another potential retirement home, Rodez. It also had a train station with TGV service to Paris. We plan on getting off the highway to do a bit of exploring via the car.
On this trip, as with
all of our trips, we learn something new about the places we are visiting, but also about ourselves. When we were in Ireland/Scotland last year, we learned that I should not drive on the other side of the road, and that we need to really watch what we eat to avoid stomach issues down the road. On that trip we also began to realize that we are not in our 40’s and cannot keep the pace of when we were. This trip we now firmly understand our limits. No longer are we built for a series of one-night stays, no matter how we get there. We also cannot continue to jam pack our days full of exciting things to do. Most importantly we need to build into our itinerary more rest. Traveling at 60 something is very different than traveling when 40 something. We don’t like to admit, Jerry, much more than me, but we have to recognize and face our limitations, so that we can continue to travel and enjoy it. We have some very big trips in the next four years planned, so we really have to take the lessons of this trip and put them in action
and the planning stages. We have already discussed how to modify our Spain trip later this year, to better fit our travel style and requirement for more rest. My biggest hurdle is dealing with my weight, and constant back pain. That is my goal for Spain, to be down several pounds and to have dealt with at least the back issues if not both the back and ankle issues. Getting old sucks in many ways, but we are so looking forward to retirement and hopefully our life in Europe.
Enough with the muses, onward with our search for a retirement home, which is in full swing for the remainder of the trip.
The Road to Brive
Sunday in France is a pretty slow day, so we slept until 7 and went down to breakfast around 9:00. This is one of the best breakfasts of the trip so far, no the croissants and coffee will never match those at Hotel Champ du Mars. Paris just has the best croissants period. But the offerings are very nice, bacon, not Susan Easily Bacon, not even close to crispy enough, but flavorful. Scrambled eggs, various meats and cheeses and
several different breads. A pan de mie, that was light and just a hint of sweetness. But my favorite it the egg machine, giving you the opportunity to make the perfect soft-boiled egg, three-minute egg or hard boiled. I did manage this morning to make the perfect 3-minute eggs, but it took five minutes.
After breakfast we finished packing, loaded the car and were off. The first part of the trip was again the slow roads, to Rodez. We thought Rodez might be a retirement potential since it had a train station with a TGV to Paris. Unfortunately, is lacked much French curbside appeal and was very hilly. It was big enough to have a KMPG office, so it was not for us, I need to be as far away from a major accounting firm as possible.
After that it was just a nice slow drive to Brive with a slight detour at Figeac, a small town with a larger aerospace presence. Definitely a potential if it has a train station, which we did not see on our way through.
We then just continued our journey to Brive. Brive is a good-sized city, but we drove directly
to our hotel and found Doris Day parking directly in front of the hotel, free on Sundays and tomorrow because it is May 1, which is Europe’s Labor Day, everything will be closed tomorrow. The downside of the city on a Sunday is there are no restaurants to be found that are open, at least ones you want to eat at.
The room is insanely huge. A wall full of floor to ceiling windows, that open allowing an wonderful breeze, the bathroom has a great tub and huge shower. There is a shared terrace off the front door of the room. The owner is very sweet and was very helpful with helping us locate a grocery store that was open and with some restaurant suggestions, none of which really worked for us.
After we checked in we did a little restaurant search of our own, basically walked around the center of the city. The city has everything you want, butcher, cheese shop, fish monger, bakery, etc., and a central market, just none of it is open on Sunday. We did find the grocery store and so decided to buy provisions for a picnic on the terrace for dinner.
Brive is certainly on the list of possibilities, there is a train station and a TGV direct to Paris.
At the moment, Jerry did a quick unpack, only one night so just brought out the essentials, and since we are staying in for dinner, no need to do a dinner change. Weather wise, it is a bequtiful partly cloudy day, nice breeze next to no humidity and very quiet. As I type I am looking across at what I would like to be our retirement home, complete with pool.
*****
Since there was really nothing open, we opted to have a picnic on the terrace outside our room. It was a lovely cool evening and a perfect setting for a light French meal. On our walk about around the city we stopped at Carrefour City and bought all the makings for a great supper, cheese, bread, meat, Dijon mustard, olives, confit onions, on yes wine. Jerry borrowed some plates from the breakfast area and we had everything we needed, Dish of the day, our Picnic.
That is pretty much the day, a lovely sunset, lovely picnic and relaxing, we often forget we are on vacation, and
the point of vacation is to relax.
Tomorrow we are off to a night in Saint Emilion.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.491s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 14; qc: 63; dbt: 0.0942s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Connie Craddock
non-member comment
Relaxing
Looks and sounds like the perfect relaxing day. Loved your picnic supper idea, a favorite of mine! Definitely you need to plan for those days to completely relax while traveling for an extended time.