Road trip to Normandy, Brittany, and the Loire Valley: Part One

A dog runs free today where American soldiers fought and died on D-Day, June 6, 1944

Hello Friends. I know, I know. It’s been two whole weeks since I posted anything. Apologies. Heading back out on the road fills the hours and leaves little energy for describing events. I made the mistake of leaving my laptop at home in Nice and now must hack out this post with my thumbs. Knowing I had to do that has given me severe procrastination and it finally became too much for me thinking of how much I needed to recount, so here I sit outside in the hotel garden in Saumur on a blissful day. It will have to come in three parts.

I feel a bit like Johnny Cash singing “I’ve Been Everywhere,” and I suppose I could just list all the cities and towns but what fun is that?  France has got its fleur-de-lis deep into me now and I am constantly in awe of this great country and its people. Seeing entirely new areas of France has been satisfying, especially the areas that have deep American connections like those in Normandy.  And doing it all with friends by car has the feeling of a good old fashioned road trip. It’s been wonderful.

Fortunately for me, I have only had to co-pilot on the drives and that has given me a lot of time to stare across the rolling green farms, punctuated by the intense chartreuse fields of rapeseed and the military straight grid formations of young plane trees. There are no vineyards in Normandy or Brittany, those bucolic scenes that I have become used to in the south of France are now instead stands of apple orchards readying for their big day as cider or better yet, Calvados. This time of year they are in blossom and it is like snow on the branches. All these scenes roll past my window as we leave the joyous chaos of Paris and head west towards the sea. And in those moments of silence, I ponder.

Our guide, Thierry, on the Band of Brothers Tour in Normandy

The American cemetery near Colleville-sur-Mer

Tourists can look out from the German gun placements at Pointe du Hoc

The Church of Sainte-Mère-Église where a makeshift clinic was set up by two young American medics during D-Day

On our second day in Normandy we were able to go on a truly wonderful full-day “Band of Brothers” tour with a passionate French guide who spoke perfect English. We were taken around to the key sites in the footsteps of Easy Company, and in some cases shown the exact spots where they stood for the camera 80 years earlier. We stood in the fields, squares, or streets that they jumped into, inland from the beaches and overran with thousands of fierce German soldiers, and could easily imagine the courage and the terror these young men must have experienced. We were allowed onto a farm where they reassembled after being scattered in the night, or into a church converted into a makeshift field hospital that American medics created that took in the wounded from both sides. I stared at a pew still covered with dried blood stains, one in an obvious shape of a young man’s hand, and, as I said, I pondered.

I pondered what it must have been like waiting for that boat gate to drop open as the men approached the beaches at Utah knowing that the full might of the German army was trained on them. I think of what it must have been like to have your beautiful village or town occupied for years and what it must be like in Ukraine today. Or worse, to have your home bombed into rubble as it was in St-Malo or Gaza.

I was able put my feet in the sand at Utah Beach where those that made it out of the boats alive put theirs. I looked at the endless rows of white crosses and stars of David at the American Cemetery, where those that didn’t get to go home are today. I saw the bunkers and gun batteries. I saw the hedgerows and machine gun nests. I stood at the exact spot where Major Winters and his men took out the four large 88s that rained down a terror of hot shrapnel upon our men. In doing so, they freed the beach, and most importantly, the exit road from that beach, so that the supply train the army needed to eat and fight could begin to move toward eventual victory in Germany. I could see where the machine guns aimed at them were just over there in the bushes and I looked into the trench that they had to traverse as they eliminated the soldiers and spiked the guns one by one until they finally fell silent.

I pondered it deeply and by the end of the day I was drained and grateful. And you know who else was grateful and they still are? The people of France. They show it with the meticulous care they take of the cemeteries. They take great pride in flying the flags of the USA, the UK, and Canada in Bayeux, Caen, St-Malo, Cherbourg, and St-Lo. They have not forgotten their history. We would do well to remember how they helped us in 1789 to declare our own victory and to become a fledgling nation. It’s a special bond we have with the French. I really don’t appreciate the talk of French weaknesses in the face of war, or that they are always rude to Americans. It’s all lies. They have been only wonderful to us and our friends. They have allowed us and a lot of other Americans to recently move to this beautiful country and for this I am grateful.

I am also particularly thankful to them for their delicious wines, of which I needed copious amounts after that day in Normandy. This you can understand, I’m quite sure. But it was an experience none of us are going to forget.

The Cathedral of Notre Dame in Bayeux, Normandy, France

A nun quietly cleans inside the cathedral

Walking in Bayeux at night

While in Normandy, we stayed in Bayeux, an absolutely charming city, with a massive cathedral that we toured the exterior of one evening, and then the soaring interior a couple of mornings later. As we walked past the rows of rustic bench pews in silence gazing skyward at the stained glass and granite columns and arches, the enormous pipe organ sprang to life freezing everyone where they stood. Those famous first few notes to Toccata and Fugue in D Minor emanated from those silver pipes as the powerful compressed air echoed throughout the cathedral. I could see the organist thirty feet above me through a tiny window to the left of the pipes, he was swaying back and forth, and as he climbed the scales on the keyboard until he reached the full crescendo of the first movement, he rattled our chests with the full force of the bass pipes. The hair on my arms stood at attention and my eyes widened as I looked over at my friend and we shared that NO WAY! look. If I had hair, it would have been blowing backwards. And then the organ fell silent again, the sanctity reclaimed the space, and we knew we had just experienced another unforgettable French moment.

Le Quarante Neuf restaurant outside of Bayeux

The courtyard and entrance to the restaurant

Built in the 1700s

That evening we drove a short stretch away from the center of the city to a farmhouse restaurant called “Le Quarante Neuf” (In English, The 49.) We thought there must be some connection to 1949, or the war, or something more meaningful than what turned out to be only their street address, 49 Route De Courseulles. This happens a lot, especially when you are surrounded by history as you are in Europe. You are certain everything has a larger historical meaning. Not everything does, however.

We drove under a small archway off the road, which was barely wide enough for our car, into a pea gravel courtyard surrounded on four sides by very old buildings. Clearly, this was a historic place, so forget what I just said. As if on cue, the four of us jumped out of the car and immediately scattered in different directions with cameras aimed like guns at the white limestone buildings, the wrought iron rings, the shutters and doors, and the slate tiled roofs. Click, click, clickety-click. Nobody noticed when the woman in a white chef’s coat emerged from one of the doors. As she was coming towards us we heard her say, “Where are you from?” in English, so we gathered around her like a team around a coach.

After some pleasantries, she said “Follow me,” and like good little ducklings we lined up and we followed her to one of what was a series of large planter boxes that framed the courtyard parking area. At this first planter box she plucked a leaf and told us to smell it. She said it would smell like Camembert cheese, which seemed ridiculous. We passed the leaf amongst ourselves each sniffing deeply, and damn if she wasn’t right. How was this possible? At the next planter it was a plant that, once rubbed with your hand, left the smell of Indian curry on your fingers. Still another smelled like the sweetest passion fruit. And finally another, which we got to eat, was the taste of fresh cucumbers. We were amazed by all of it and were by now very hungry, so she invited us into one of the buildings which turned out to be the restaurant. Her name was Celine Legrand, and by now we had figured out that she was clearly the chef. She told us that she and her husband were the owners.

Celine et moi après le dîner

The food was local country cuisine, but elevated to Michelin level cooking, and it was fantastic. I was feeling very adventurous after the leaf tastings, and after being encouraged by Celine’s husband, I abandoned any fears I might have had and I ordered foie gras for my appetizer, veal calf sweetbreads for my dinner, and a cheese plate for dessert. My foie gras was two tranches of creamy, unctuous, OMG-level goose liver that melted in the mouth and lifted me off my seat a couple of inches. The sweetbreads came next and they were prepared as you might a pan-seared chicken breast with a beautiful golden fried and crispy skin but it maintained a soft and delicious center. Everyone found the courage to try it and we all agreed it was surprisingly delicious. No regrets there. Chien-hui had the local fish, and the others ordered traditional dishes of steak and grouse. Each course came out beautifully plated and, as I said, just delicious. We drank a bottle of Santeney, a Burgundy from the southern end of the Côte de Beaune, which paired beautifully with the food.

We sat at a rustic wood farm table in a large spacious room with the other customers who filled every table, eating our meals under thick wood beams that were the size of large trees. The decor was quaint—bone china tea cups on these shelves, shadow boxes with small scenes of little mice over there, old cooking pots just there. Just next to us was a massive fireplace that for three hundred years had burned wood under black metal pots or perhaps shiny copper ones more recently. It felt as if we were eating in 1849, so it turned out to be an apt name after all.

We finished the meal with some old Calvados, which is 80 proof apple brandy which famously comes from Normandy. We compared the 2004 and a 2009 vintages, passing glasses all around. The former tasted of caramel and the latter of butterscotch and roasted pineapple. Heaven.

Calvados from Fermier de Fumichon

Celine came to our table for a final visit and we gushed over the food and our magical evening, which she clearly appreciated. We asked her about the origins of the Calvados and excitedly she ran and got some paper and then drew us a map so we could go to the farm for a visit and buy some.

And two days later, we did just that. It turned out to be another amazing farm at the end of a long tree lined road that has been a cidery since the 1700s. The older gentleman who greeted us and poured us 3-, 5-, 10-, and 20-year old tastes was no doubt the scion of a multi-generational family of Calvados makers. More history. I walked out with a 20-year which will go back to Nice with me in my luggage and my friends bought another to share with us over the next few days in the Loire Valley, and then take the rest to their next stop in France after we depart.

Our last meal in Bayeux was at La Patisserie de Guillaume, before heading to Brittany

It’s hard to believe that American soldiers once scaled these cliffs after landing on D-Day

May peace always reign

Normandy was beyond our expectations. The history, the food, the land, and the sea, but you will always hear me mentioning the people more than anything else. I love the French.

We headed out of Normandy on a sunny afternoon after our visit to the cidery, and aimed the car south towards Brittany. It was a three hour drive to Dinan, and as we drove through the lush green farmland, I pondered it all again and wondered what might be forthcoming.

But I’ll save that for the next post and Part 2.