We rented a car Monday and headed south from Angers about a hour to the French countryside. Along the way, we stopped at this incredible site, Château de Brissac. This fabulous chateau has been owned by the Cossé-Brissac family since 1502. The title of “Duke of Brissac” has been handed down for over 500 years,
We thoroughly enjoyed the Saturday market in Rennes earlier this week called the “Marché des Lices” which has been a staple of life in old town Rennes every Saturday morning for the past 400+ years (read about the anniversary celebration here). The market takes place on the streets and goes on for several blocks, and
After a week here in Angers, we can easily say that we really like it. Angers is a medium-sized city, with an incredible castle that would have been a formidable fortress to discourage potential invaders when it was built in the 9th century and expanded to its current size in the 13th century. The city
We arrived in Angers, France on Saturday evening after some minor train delays and schlepping of the bike and bags from Orléans. We’re staying in a small apartment built recently in the rear of the courtyard of an house built in the 1800s along a quiet street in the city center. Angers has been voted
One down, eleven months to go on our one-year visa! We’ve learned so much in this first month, and yet we feel that we have so much more to learn to determine where we might want to stay a while. We had a strategy when we got here and it’s still the strategy, but being
Today we took a roadtrip to visit the spectacular city of Chartres, which is north of where we’ve been in Orléans and SW of Paris. This beautiful, walkable city blew us away! They have a light show there that plays every evening with the old buildings as the backdrop to display artistic images. We had
We’re now three weeks into our year in France and our stay in Orléans. Adventures always bring unexpected learning experiences and gratitude to our lives. Here are some things that we’ve learned about during our stay in France that have been less than ideal: These are really small things though, things to experience and navigate
We spent a couple of days and a night in Paris this week. It was one of the first European cities we visited on our first magical trip in 2015 (London, Paris, and Rome) and it’s still beautiful. It’s such a huge city as you can see from this vantage point in the artsy Montmartre
One of the most frequent questions we get about this adventure is “But Why France?” As a life-long US resident, I understand why France not everyone’s first thought when the conversation turns to where one might go if not the US. Here are some great reasons why we are choosing France for our big adventure: