Lepod's Blog

For William

Especially for Willy who doesn’t do Facebook. 

Last few days here in Josselin. This weekend we rode our bikes 66 km along the canal to Redon which is a very pleasant village a little bit larger than Josselin. The riding was great although we were both fairly stiff and sore by the time we got there! Had a slap up meal to celebrate Paulines birthday a little late at La Bogue, our first ever Michelin starred restaurant. It was extraordinarily good. Rode back today, had a great ride and it was a fitting way to end our time in France. Heres some photos 🙂

Lunch at Malestroit

Medievel building, Redon

Ditto

Revolving bridge, Redon

On the canal near the Isle de Pies

Drinks break

Malestroit

Lock

Icecream break

Josselin church in the distance woohoo!

Josselin

We really enjoyed the train trip to Munich, its such a relaxed way to travel. Once we found our hotel, we checked in and found the largest hotel room we’ve ever seen in Europe with an enormous and wonderful shower.  Next day we met some friends for lunch and took a sightseeing bus around town, then crammed onto the subway with thousands of other Bruce Springsteen fans to the Olympic Stadium. The concert really was very good, he played for well over three hours without a break and with plenty of enthusiasm despite the extroadinarily bad weather. Lucky we were under cover! Then back on the U bahn and back to the hotel. Next day we walked through the old parts of Munich and Pauline did some shopping, at night we went out with our friend Alex and had a very traditional dinner at a below ground restaurant. The following day was a 12 hour day back on the train to Josselin. A flying visit but lots of fun.

Trying to find my way in Munich

Glockenspiel

Bruce Springsteen at the Munich Olympic stadium

Munich

Pauline’s desert

We’re off to see Bruce Springsteen in Munich and spent a couple of pleasant days in Paris on the way staying quite near to the Bastille in the Marais district. We did a walking tour of the Marais which was very interesting.  Lots of jewish restaurants so we had an excellent fallaffel lunch at L’As du Fallafel in the Rue de Rosiers.

Nice looking bagels here!

Rue de Rosiers in the Marais

Lunch

In the Place des Vosges in the Marais

Here it is – and it was very tasty too by golly.

Due to an administrative error we are out of oil for our boiler, which means no heating and no hot water until Monday morning when the fuel man can come. I can’t help feeling it’s partly my fault! Anyway we decided to head somewhere for the weekend and Quiberon sounded nice. It’s a seaside resort on a narrow peninsula sticking out into the Atlantic. We found a very nice little hotel, the Neptune, which is a family run small hotel on the seafront with very nice views and very friendly people. The coast on the west side of the peninsula is known as the côte sauvage, it’s quite wild and a bit like the pancake rocks on the West coast of NZ South island. We walked along there for a bit and then headed off for dinner after apéritifs at our hotel. The food was excellent. Next day we drove back along the côte sauvage, and stopped at a little village for lunch. Expecting a sandwich or something, we found ourselves in a really top class restaurant. We started off with an amuse-bouche consisting of a tiny creme broulee containing seafood, a small dish of raw marinated turbot and a hot shotglass of liquid with fish and crab (I think.) I’ve never had anything like it before. The mains then came out and again were stunning in presentation and taste. Pauline had Turbot on white asparagus with a very nice sauce, and I had tiny shellfish on a bed of seaweed tagliatelli and a fish which I’m not sure what it was, but it was very tasty! It was a great weekend and we managed to get in some hot showers so that was good!

It was great to get to Paris Charles de Gaulle airport after 12 hours on Air France from Tokyo. I did manage to watch the latest James Bond, Arnie and Bruce Willis movies and the food and drinks were very good but it’s a long time. We stayed at the Ibis hotel at the airport and had a good sleep. Next day we caught the bus into Montparnasse station in Paris, had lunch with one of Pauline’s workmates and her husband, then caught the train to Rennes where we picked up a rental car and drove to our house in Josselin. The house is looking good although a bit dusty as we had an electrician in and also a builder. But they’ve both done an excellent job. Here’s  a few photos from our first few days. The mopeds were at an excellent Brocante or second hand shop not far from here which has an amazing array of stuff like grandfather clocks, old radios, old racing bicycles, crockery, books, everything really. We bought another duck, and a coathook for our hall that matches the age of the house rather well.

We had a really interesting couple of days firstly on a guided tour of the historic Kagurazaka district in Tokyo where some geishas live and train and the next day a bus trip to Mount Fuji and back on the bullet train. Off to France tomorrow but we really have had an interesting and enjoyable stay in Japan.