From Solmaz, A Little Iranian Humor

It's great to be back to my beloved cafe and to GoNOMAD. I got a message on Facebook from another Iranian friend named Solmaz who I met while I was there. She has no qualms about posting controversial pro-revolution materials, as indicated by this cartoon she posted.

Funny, when I was there her and many others told me they never pay attention to politics and don't vote. I think things might have changed.

Shower Scene on Normandy Beach

Busted!

Cafe Life, Granville, La Manches

I wish customers could bring their little dogs into our cafe like they can do in France. Once again, it just seems more civilized here.

We are set to travel today--perhaps the busiest travel day in France, the start of the vacation season. We'll get an extra jump because my traveling mate gets nervous if we're late...Paris here we come!

Walking the Quays in Granville, Boats with No Water

We walked out onto the giant concrete barriers that provide a cushion against Atlantic Ocean storms and protect the pleasure boat harbor here in Granville. Even though it was 9:45 pm, it looked like it was about 6:30 pm, the barriers provided a long, long promenade from which to view the fishing boats, all stranded with no water at all on one side, and in the distance on a beach, people yelling and playing soccer.

We met a British couple who had come over on their BMW motorcycle on the ferry from Poole. It was their first time to Granville, and they said they agreed with us, 'it's lovely here.' We all liked our cheap ocean front hotel and liked walking on these big quays and seeing the strangeness of a harbor full of boats with no water.

Sometimes when you travel you go back to days of youth, places evoke nostalgia and warm memories of being here once before. Granville had that for me. That's why some people travel, to try and get back to that. But at age 50, traveling here to my beloved France, I have no yearning for youth, just more appreciation for being in the right place at the right time.

Driving Down the Normandy Coast, With Time to Stop

Today was the kind of day you hope to get at least once or twice during a working press trip. A day where we got up late, had a leisurely breakfast, and got on the road in this beautiful part of France with time to mosey into small villages, stop to take photos, and pop into a beachside cafe to slurp up fresh oysters washed down with beer. The pace was relaxing and we hung beside the steep cement dock at Carteret until a group of fishing boats came to disgourge their fishy contents and refuel.

The men on the boats swung a hand cranked crane with plastic crates full of sole, crabs and smaller fish. They loaded their fresh catch into waiting vans, and then another smaller boat pulled up alongside the quay. The men began loading fish into the boat, and we looked at eachother...isn't the fish supposed to go in the trucks, not back on a boat? Later an African crewman explained that these were junk fish that they'd use for bait...and that his real catch was sole and the other flatfish, plus the spindly red crabs with barnicles on their backs.

We followed D902 as it wound down the coast toward Granville, our destination for the night. We stopped to shoot some photos in a field, catching just the right angle of a tractor that was pushing hay into a row. We spent some time in a busy little village and watched traffic pass as we sipped coffee and men bet on trotters in the dark bar. In Granville, we got a chance to taste bulot, one of the specialities of the La Manche region. In our country we'd call them welks, but they looked just like giant snails and had a briny, tough seafoody kind of taste.

France and Normandy once again has left me feeling like it's the exact place I want to be in this exact moment. As we watch another evening that will lag on and not get dark until about 10:30 pm, the glow of the wine and the feeling that we've captured many fine moments gives me great satisfaction.

A Gentleman Farmer Pours Us His 44

We met Alain Travert in front of his oven. Tucked away into a non-descript shed, the oven where he bakes natural bread doesn't look like much from the street. Inside, this retired bachelor farmer baker creates baguettes and country breads every day, and refuses to sell them to anyone. He'd rather give them away to friends.

He showed us his perfectly manicured gardens, a long tidy collection of every vegetable imaginable beside a well-trimmed hedge. He grows the hedges himself in little pots. We saw a few stumps of apple trees upon which he had grafted new shoots, it turned out he decided to improve a poor growing variety with a better one, attatching the new shoots to the stumps.

He grows all of this food for just himself, having retired a few years ago after a heart operation. Just about all he needs comes from this little patch and his baking shed. He asked us if we'd heard of 44, and explained that it's a drink that's made here in La Manches. You take a liter of Calvados and poke 44 holes in an orange, filling them with sugar cubes and 44 coffee beans. Three months later you have this sweet strong elixir known as 44.

Of course, primed by our lunch of sausages, salad bread and wine, we had to sample the stuff. I prepared myself for a gasoline sort of taste, asking for just half a dram. But damned if it wasn't as sweet and easy to drink as a fine liqueur. So I refilled my glass, much to Alain's delight.

Now That's a Cheese: The Market at Bricquebec

At the market in the medieval town of Bricquebec, all of the vendors ended our transactions with 'have a good holiday!' That's because the country is practically all on vacation...people's luxurious six weeks off begin about now. How civilized!

At the market we saw crates of small chickens being loaded into cardboard boxes, I hoped they were for backyard farmers but a Parisien told me that they're for dinner. Another vendor sold blue lobsters and giant crabs, driven up from Granville. The market stretched on and on, first the usual cheesy clothing dealers and then wound down into a side street with a glorious array of goat cheese, cider makers, bountiful produce, and men who made pizzas with ovens in the backs of trucks. I watched a young pizzamaker slowly cut sausage and gently put veggies on top, only to have the proprietor shoo him away, showing him to quickly dump the veggies on and wisk it into the oven. Then he opened the oven to find a burned pie, and dumped it with scowl.

Life here is simply more delicious...tasting the saucisse handed out with a smile from a stall, stopping in for a coffee next to a couple cuddling their tiny miniature doberman, the sunny skies pouring forth sun and the bountiful produce. I think heaven looks a lot like Normandy France.