We took a walk on a beautiful fall day recently and stumbled across, as apparently one does when living in a French neighborhood, this lovely chateau, less than three miles from our house. Château de la Perrière was completed in 1699 and now serves as a golf clubhouse to the attached 18-hole golf course and
We’ve made it back to Angers from our trip to the SF Bay Area and are looking ahead with excitement to what comes next for us this fall as the seasons change and we seek new opportunities to further integrate with the community and culture of Angers, France. Here’s what we’ve got planned for the
Every once in a while, we like to go out for a good breakfast. There’s a place called Omelette Express in Santa Rosa (California) that is a community staple for a good breakfast, brunch, and lunch and we’ve been eating there for years. Santa Rosa is where the Peanuts cartoonist, Charles Schulz, is from and
We’re back in the U.S. for a couple of weeks to see family, eat some spicy food and the best deep dish pizza this side of Chicago, and grab a few things from our storage place to bring back to France to make our place feel more like home. We brought two large, empty suitcases
For Greg, each summer is an opportunity to maximize his cycling adventures and see more of the world than can be viewed from the window of a moving vehicle. This cycling summer culminated with a new adventure: a tandem bike ride! Not only that, but a 100km (62 miles) tandem bike ride, plus the to/from
This foot bridge, located a few miles south of Angers over the Maine River in Bouchemaine (translates to “mouth of Maine”), was a key access point for the United States Army’s 5th Infantry Division to help liberate the city of Angers from German control on August 11, 1944 during WWII. Greg found this while on
The French have elevated COMPLAINING to an art form, a competitive sport even; at a minimum, it’s a favorite pastime. Don’t get me wrong, we love France, but there are definitely things here that have tested our patience and made us grumbly at times. We’ve reached the phase in our time in France that is
We’ve spent a lot of time in the last couple of weeks prepping our new rental house before we move in. A friend of ours says “if a place looks clean, it may be clean, but if it looks dirty, it’s filthy!” That adage certainly applies to rental houses. This one looked pretty clean, but
I set out for a walk yesterday morning while Greg was out biking. I captured this photo from a bridge over the Maine River that runs through the middle of Angers before connecting with the Loire River farther south. You can see the Angers castle in the distance and that gorgeous church tower in the
A few weeks ago, we wrote about having secured an apartment for the next few months on a month-to-month lease while we searched for longer-term housing. This was great news after so much Airbnb and hotel hopping for the past few months! And the 1-bedroom, 1-bath furnished apartment is certainly better than where we’ve been,