If I had a Boat

Saturday, October 9, 2010

With decent weather forecast for today and half of Sunday, I determined Betsy and I would make a trip.  Pulled out of the garage about 9:30am heading south, to either Portiers, Bordeaux, or Rochefort.  Didn't know at the time but I programed the GPS to avoid toll roads and take me to Aizenay.  This route puts me out in the countryside and away from major roads.  After reaching Aizenay I programed in Luçon and kept on keeping on.  It was a great little ride.  I not only avoided super-slabs, I found myself on some quaint little lanes.  One could barely call them roads, though hard paved and with sufficient room for two way traffic.  Some, surrounded on both sides by tall trees with overhanging limbs were just pleasant lanes to calmly ride down with no "troubles in mind," as the old Merle Haggard song goes.

Some of the countryside heading south from Nantes.
 

In need of a cup of coffee I pulled into a McDonald's in La-Roche-Sur-Yon.  Why McDonald's?  Because there I knew I wouldn't have to make two stops, one for a croissant and the other for coffee.  There are some PMUs/restaurants, etc. which will sell both, but you just can't be sure.  I don't know if it's the law, or what it is, but I have often stopped for coffee and had to walk a block or so to buy a pain-au-raisin (raisin bread), then haul it back to where the coffee was.  Crazy.  I need to get on line and figure this thing out.  But, boy, if not illegal, is there a money-maker here.  Open a shop that sells, what?  Both?  Wow!  Who'd a thunk?
It was not your normal McDonalds.  Pretty neat place.



 As you enter there's an old Wurlitzer jukebox.

And great jazz figures throughout.  The gentleman on the right is the great Satchmo!



After a nice little ride past La Rochelle, I pulled into Rochefort about 1:30pm.  I'd decided on Rochelle because it was the closest and I wanted to see the Marine Museum my friend Didier has told me so much about.  This plus the fact that my throat kept getting scratchier and scratchier and I felt something coming on, as they say.  I was right.  By mid-afternoon I was sneezing and blowing all over the place.  Don't know what it was but it felt like allergy.  This getting old crap is a pain in various places, most of the south.  Before I was forty-five or so, I was never allergic to anything.  Now I get blasts of this hay-fever-like stuff four or five time a year.  Feels like crap and I usually have to go through a couple of packages of tissues or rolls of toilet tissue before it ends.

But, once again making lemonade out of lemons, a nice sneeze or two will certainly clear the tourist lanes in front of you in a museum.  So...

After finding and checking into a local Ibis hotel, I went a few blocks west to the Muséé National De La Marine, the Museum of the Sea.  According to Wikipedia, Rochefort was built as a shipbuilding stronghold a few miles upriver from the Atlantic in 1665.  The approaches were extremely protected with redoubts and forts along the winding way to the shipbuilding yards.  What do ships of the line require a lot of other than wood?  Rope.  Between 1665-69 Louis XIVth built the "Corderie Royale" to build cordage.  At the time the longest building in the world it stands today as a library and unique shopping area near the shipyard.

The museum itself has a ton of old models used for design and training for the actual builders of the ships, supplemented by some modernly constructed as well.





 Finished goods (for the manufacturing folks out there)

Above is a working model of a capstan, the mechanism used to raise and lower the anchor.  This was not a job for the faint of heart or weaklings.  The wheel at the top rose above the deck and the sailor pushing on a giant log constantly turned it raising or lowering the anchor.  Of course, a couple of slips and the anchor would lower itself while taking off a head or two.  The operation at which I am now working pioneered steam-driven capstans in the mid-1800s here in Nantes.  They still make winches, electric today, to perform this onerous task.

Each ship had its own unique bow figures.  I noted nudes seemed to prevail.

Tools to hold a wooden ship together

Another bow figure.  I don't know if I'd want to sail on the ship with this one on the bow.  She seems to be saying, "Oh, I don't know...how about that way?"

Outside one of the dry docks used to build the ships of the fleet.  It's amazing to think of hundreds of workers scrambling all over this place at various levels doing the thousands of tasks required to build a ship.





And, of course, off in a nice office somewhere there would be some project management types with their little schedule sheets reflecting schedules dates they'd conjured up in their little "Pretend" room, saying,  "You're behind schedule...here...here...and here."   Some things never change.

 Behind the tower begins the "Cordage" Building

As you can see, it goes a long way down there.

Out back a couple of boats standing by.  The little sailing sloop was out of England.

I'm not sure what this was.  It looks like a replica of a ships rigging setup.  While I'm pretty sure this is a modern construction, perhaps it's a replica of a place where they had to measure off various lengths of cabling.

The "Cordage" Building from the other side.

Some school girls resting on the lawn.
(Hmmm...Do I want to remember the old joke about what is the difference between a Junior Varsity Girls Track Team and a tribe of sly pygmy warriors?)


Behind the dry dock shown earlier, was the real treat of the trip.  In 1780 Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de La Fayette sailed to America on a 26-gun Frigate named Hermione.  And in this dry dock they are building an exact, working replica.

It's a giant 400,000 piece jig-saw puzzle, but you have to saw the parts before you fit them.  The original Hermione, built in these docks took 300 men working 6 years.  Using modern electronic saws and drills, the schedule for this replica, true in every form, is scheduled to take 6 men 10 years, augmented to  8 or 10 for various periods, depending on the requirements of the time.  Assuming an average of 8 this would indicate a savings in time of 70 man-years, or about 46% that could be attributed to the use of modern tools.  But, as you'll see in the pictures, the parts being manufactured, including metal pins, fasteners, etc. are true to those produced in the mid-1700s.

Midships

The capstan.  Imagine catchin' one of those up side your head?

The Poop Deck.
There's always time to learn something.  The name does not have anything to do with having toilets in the aft portion of the ship.  It stems from the French word "la Poupe," or stern.

The Aft Section













The Front, awaiting a Figurehead.  Wonder if it'll be one of the ones shown above?

The metal shop.  Most parts are hand-forged, much as they were "back then."











In a supply room nearby, important items wait their turn.  A lifeboat, gun mounts, and the Wheel.

Sometime in late 2011, or early 2012, this dry dock area will be cleaned out and a floating dam will be built in the section shown above.  It will be flooded and the Hermione will fittingly sail for America again.

I think this is neat as hell.



At the Battle of Yorktown there were 7,800 French troops (out of 18,000) and 29 French warships.  Some Americans who believe France ungrateful today would do well to understand that we would not exist without them.  But, just as we didn't storm the beaches of Normandy for the French, they didn't come to Yorktown for us.  All countries have their own agendas.  Then, and today.

But my experiences here in France convince me that most French like America and Americans.  There is a kinship of birth and renewal between us that is, I think, quite strong even into the modern time.  Seeing the Hermione sail into American harbors again will be a great thing.  I think I'll have to take a motorcycle trip to that first landfall.  That, too, would be neat.

Hail Bretagne

 Stubborn - 1. Fixed or set in purpose or opinion
                  2. Difficult to manage or suppress
Recommended addition: 3.  The people of Bretagne (Western France)

People have lived in the region known as Bretagne for over 8,000 years.  The first known inhabitants were Druids, of Stonehenge fame. But the primary "genetic" driver of the tightly knit folks of the northeastern four "departments" of France are Celtic in origin.  The same Celtics who defeated Rome in 397 B.C., and ranged far and wide across Europe as they made their way west.  Defeated by Caesar in 56 B.C., they became, according to one source, the "least Romanized of all Gaul, especially when it came to the use of the Roman language."  Five centuries later, Rome withdrew from the region, leaving it to more Celts migrating from England in the face of Anglo-Saxon invaders.  Later, through marriage and other high strategies of nation building, it was absorbed into the growing nation of France.  But not without the obstinate resistance of the inhabitants.  Oh, they are French today, all right.  But fully a quarter of them still speak Breton, and all are first and foremost, Bretons.

And the most Breton of them all is mon ami, Yves B.  He works with us in Nantes, even has a home and has raised his children here for thirty years.  But, almost every weekend, or at least, every opportunity, he goes home to Bretagne, to his home in Concarneau.  It is from Yves that I have heard so much about the area, all of its virtues, and none of its faults (it, evidently, has none).  Given such a build up, I had to go see for myself.  Yves is right.  It's pretty special.

I had planned this trip for last weekend, looking forward to meeting Yves on his "home ground," and getting a first-hand tour...not to mention some 16-year-old Single Malt.  But, it wasn't to be.  When I went down to get Betsy out of her lonely garage I encountered the entire town of Saint Luce sur/Loire buttoned up tight, streets blocked everywhere and a town "market" day or some such crap going on.  I couldn't even get parking near Betsy.  I had to park over a kilometer away, and, upon going to her garage I found no way to get her out.  An attempt to find a policeman and ask how I was to get my property out of their barricaded city was fruitless; proving, as in America, a cop is never around when you need one.  So, thoroughly pissed, I changed my plans and put my trip off until this week.  The downside of that is Ives in in San Antonio, of all places this weekend, so I'm on my own.  Well...Betsy's with me, of course.  And when Betsy's with me I have everyone around as companions on my journeys.

I pulled out of Saint Luce about 9:00 A.M., heading northwest out of Nantes on N165.  South of Vannes there is the Golfe Du Morbihan.  Imagine my surprise when I found one gigantic water hazard and no golf course.  The Gulf of Morbihan is natural harbor area with something like forty (40) islands depending upon the tides.  The area is widely known for its megalithic monuments, some of the ruins dating to two hundred (200) years before Stonehenge.  But, more about that on the return trip.  On the way out I stopped by Sarzeau to become familiar with the area, then turned toward Concarneau, Yves' little piece of heaven.

From a rest area on N165.

The picture doesn't show what I went through to get it.  There were narrow trails in the rest area leading to a thicket of woods.  The only way I could get this picture was to stand on the exposed roots of a large, downed tree.  Balance was tenuous at best, and proved doubly so when I tried to turn around to get off.  Didn't work, so I have to jump down.  It wasn't all that far, but, at my age, one wonders when the ol' bones are gonna snap like twigs.  Didn't happen so I rode on.

I pulled into Concarneau about two-thirty.  A good cup of café gave me the opportunity to locate a hotel room and relax.  There wasn't a lot of choice within Concarneau, most being 10-14 miles away in Quimper, and I became very interested in a hotel across the Baie de Forêt (Forest Bay).  Firing up Betsy and the GPS I made my way to the Mona Lisa Hotel on a point in the Bay near Fouesnant.  A little negotiation and I was in, unpacked, and on the beach snapping pictures.

 The hotel site around the bay from Concarneau

The beach at Cap Coz.

Careful!  Old man, with camera, ogling.














After a little while it was time to head over to Concarneau.

The harbor at Concarneau.

The walled fortress of Concarneau.








Adjacent to the fort...lots of boats.
Concarneau is known as a working fishing town.  But it doesn't lack for pleasure craft either.  And, respecting the price of gas as it compares to wind, lots of sailboats over here.  (I know this because old guys know a lot about wind.)

Across from the fortress, on dry land, a very nice square.

On the bridge into the fortress.

Adorning the walls some of the ubiquitous, and beautiful flowers of France.

Once inside though...the usual commercial suspects, though I found many of the stores to be less "usual" than I have found in other places.  There were some specialty Bretagne stores offering some neat local product.

Stepped outside at the "Wine Gate."  It was built  in the 15th century to receive wine from Bordeaux, there being few easily accessed harbors on this coast.

Of course, at any commercial establishment, spelling is less important than real estate.

It is a fishing village.  This was taken from the bridge to the walled fortress.





I had eaten very little during the day and was looking forward to a good meal.  I found a restaurant offering swordfish steak, one of my favorites, so I determined to grit it out.  Why?  Well, I'm in France.  They wouldn't open until 7:00 P.M.  I waited around, stretching a beer at another establishment, and, as was to be expected, was the first customer at the restaurant.  But, not the last...it filled up pretty quickly.  A nice, relaxing meal later I'm doing something I don't normally do: riding late.  But, thanks to a well-lighted GPS and bright moonlight night I made it to the hotel just fine.

The view past the fortress on my exit from the restaurant.

View from the beach behind the hotel.

While I was riding in the night in Carcarneau, my friend Yves was taking the Alamo for Bretagne.

Morning from my hotel window.
(Taken by holding the camera outside my woefully small, narrow window which costs me 19€ more...but it was worth it to hear the waves all night.)

The next morning leaving the hotel I pass by this little harbor that was full of water when I saw it last.  It reminds me that if you sail out of here it's very important to know when high tide occurs...but more important to know about the low tide.

On the way back to Nantes I stop at Carnac (is that the source of Johnny Carson's Carnac-the-Great character name?)

As mentioned earlier, this is in the Golfe Du Morbihan region near Vannes, and is the home to many megalithic Druid monuments.  According to Wikipedia, they range from Dolmen (single rooms formed by three or four vertical rocks with a flat rock cap), to Pyramids with underground chambers, and Circles (ala Stonehenge), to Menhir, single large, upright stones.  At Carnac, they took menhir to the extreme, laying rows of them for up to ten (10) kilometers.

One assumes the archeologists have checked around them for skeletons.  They certainly look like headstones to me.

For some reason this place evoked memories of Brewer & Shipley...and some rather delicious brownies I once had.  Finding myself mellowed out and thirsty, I decided to head home for a beer.

Sweet Saturday

Woke up thinking how good last Saturday's ride was and determined on another.  This time I picked a trip from the book given me by Marie-Line that was also recommended by Olivier C., purchasing team member from Clisson, one of my favorite places.  I've ridden some of these roads before on various outings, but not the entire river loop proposed.  So, as with last week, I started off crossing the rickety bridge to the Il d'Or golf course to make another tee time for tomorrow.

From La Varenne I cross the river at Oudon riding up the north bank to Ancinis, Varades, and on to Ingrandes.  Crossing back to the southern bank, I turn west immediately after crossing the bridge and find a very nice little restaurant with the ubiquitous outdoor seating.   Thank God for ubiquitous outdoor seating.

Had an appetizing lunch of moules (mussels) marinated in white wine, shalot, and spices, a nice Aile de Raie filet, followed by a very tasty salad with Brie.  Preceding the mussels they served some toasted bread with a paté that was really special.

Many in America relate paté to what we call "potted meat."  Now, to be honest, there are a few of those that are tasty to me...but nothing like I've found here.  First, in the U.S., "potted meats" are almost always canned to increase shelf-life.  I've never eaten anything out of a can that didn't have some "tinny' or canned taste to it.  Here, it's usually fresh and absolutely delicious.  Something that full of cholesterol can't taste bad.  I think that's a law of nature.  Of course, the ingredients are often the same as those we see in the potted meat, but, believe me, the taste is heavenly.  And this little appetizer was exceptional.  I could have made a meal of it.  But, fortunately for my arteries, didn't.

I don't know exactly what the Aile de Raie is species-wise.  It strikes me as a semi-soft-fleshed, bottom feeder, sort of like whitefish.  In fact, it's certainly bony enough to be a whitefish.  I like my fish firm-fleshed, but this was actually quite good, though texturally a little challenging.  But, you put enough butter on it, I'll eat a rock, and this had lots of good butter.  A couple of beers (25ml each...but, as is usual over here, priced as if a pint [568 ml]), to go with it, and it worked great.  I'm also growing rather fond of the salad at the end of the meal.  It has the effect of lightening up things, and puts a nice end to it.

 ADDED Sunday, Sept. 5th. - I'm now thinking the Aile de Raie is a stingray of some kind.
EDITED August 29, 2016 - It's a skate.

 The bridge across the Loire at Ingrandes

The restaurant with Betsy waiting patiently.
I've got to start writing the names of these places down.  If it's good people should know about it. 
This was good, and the people were very kind and the service very good (how's that for a surprise?).

Down the river toward Nantes.
Lots and lots of sand.  River is way down, one expects, to be filled next spring.

A little further west and there's more water.  I didn't notice another source emptying in, but I suspect there was.

Coming into Saint-Florent-le-Vieil









I moved on down the southern bank through Bouzillé and crossed back to the northern bank at Ancinis.

The bridge at Ancinis, from the northern bank.

A little further down the river I check out another vineyard.  I'm no farmer, but I believe there may be a pretty significant lack of water this year.  I would have thought by now one would be seeing grapes beginning to come onto the vines.  I'm seeing none.  I'll have to check with the folks around here to determine if I'm right about this.



ADDED Sunday, Sept. 5th - Checked closer today and there are grapes on these vines.  In their clusters, heavier than the leaves they, naturally, hang down below them shielding them from both sun and birds.  They aren't huge, but they are there and growing.

Betsy, as always, performed flawlessly.