Picking Blackberries

Not, no another blog about food, this time about our road trip around northern Brittany and Normandy.  We headed off from our base on the south coast of Brittany on the Monday after the wedding.  Maurice, as we have named our six seater Chevrolet, set off us early (only two hours behind schedule setting out on day one) for our ambitious driving tour taking in Mont St Michel, Dinan, Bayeuax, the Normandy landing beaches and St Malo, returning via the rose hued granite north coast.  Impossible in three days I hear you say - well, not if you only stop 15 minutes at each place.  When I ran through our plan with my work colleague Michael he warned me that such a punishing schedule was near impossible.  He was pretty right. 1500 kilometres in three days -what a massive trip.

The highlight of a road trip is the scenery, and France does scenery in spades.  Stone villages, winding roads and gorgeous narrow lanes - all superb.  That is until a tractor comes bearing down at you from the other side of the road and Maurice has to be veered into the verge, or worse, up against the stone village house walls. 

Downtown Dinan

What we notice is the lack of fences: farms and paddocks are defined by hedgerows, if at all.  Fences only exist to contain the animals.  This means that we have a great view of the crops that grow right up to the road side.  Jeff is obsessed by the acres of corn that we have seen growing everywhere.  We attempt to identify the green crops, and anything that is unfamiliar I decree to be salsify.  Not because it looks like salsify, just that that is the most pretentious vegetable I can think of.  Apple trees are everywhere, all gardens seems to have multiple apple trees.  Cider is the big industry up this way and we tried out the local brew.  Not sure I will be doing that again.  It may be better than the cider at home but as far as I am concerned it is still undrinkable.  

But my absolute fave are the blackberries.  They grow wild here and are common, meaning that I can regularly drive in and grab a handful to munch on.  They do not spray them here so they are edible, well, at least that is what I am telling my travelling companions, and as no one has been sick as yet I must be right.  Having tried the roadside blackberries I have been venturing a bit farther afield and tryong other roadside berries, but only when Lesley is not looking cause she get's cross with my wanton risk taking.  I have found that the wild rose hips taste quite nice.

Picking Blackberries

Moules Frites

I love mussells, and I have been hanging out for this quintessential French snack since our arrival, but the timing has just not been right and I have not het found the right opportunity to indulge.  Moule Frites is mussells and chips - fantastic. We have arrived at the mouth of the Caen canal, where it meets the beach and found a hut on the foreshore. Beautiful day, beautiful setting and we are looking for lunch.  All the stars were aligned and I I enjoyed a magnificent plate of moule frites, sur la plague.

Notre Dames

Jeff is very taken by the old churches, especially the Gothic ones, which he labels Notre Dames.  As we enter every village he eagerly looks out for the church and if he denotes it a Notre Dame he is happy, if not he is dejected and hoping to be fulfilled at the next village.  One of the more impressive Notre Dames we have seen was a splendid Gothic Knights of Malta cathedral in Villedieu Poeles.  We were heading home from Normandy after another big day and looking for a village for dinner.  Tom chose Villedieu Poeles from the map, thinking that the 'village of the poets' sounded rather quaint.  I was a bit tired from a long day, but even to me village of the poets did not sound quite right, but I was not up to arguing.  So we headed off, all chatting about how lovely this place must be to called the village of the poets.  After a bit I decided to check it - having twigged that the French for poet, is, poet. True enough, Poeles did not mean poet, but frying pan.  Yes we were heading into the village of the frying pans !  Unfortunately, Maurice (the car) had a mishap in the frying pan village, Tom took on a fast Renault and his rather ambitious gear change caused Maurice to go into a meltdown.  Not to, worry.  We pushed it off the road, and in true Gallic style, left it and went off to find something to eat.

Not much was open but we found a creperie: we have been enjoying this Breton staple.  The savoury version is made from buckwheat flour and can be filled with an endless variety of ham, cheese, mushrooms, sausages etc....  Still incredulous about the village name I asked Madame, que's que c'est Poeles.  Madame did not have the Enlish word, but her mime of cooking in a pan was unmistakable.  She showed us a brochure about the town, although there is no local copper source the place has become a centre for that lovely copper cookware that is synomous with France - hence the name.  Even better, the brochure forewarned us of the big copper ware festival to be held there in 2016, we are the next trip already !  And Maurice, by the time be got back our faithful six seater had recovered and got us home (must make sure Hertz are not reading the blog).

Eating Crepes