I took my bike shoes and lycra outfit with hopes of finding a bike rental place in the land of the Tour de France so I could ride like a racer (only a lot slower) though the French country side. I didn't find a place to rent in the the small village (population 1200). Instead, France tested all my weaknesses (well maybe not ALL of them): pastries and coffee, wine, crepes, and other food in sauces. Now I urgently need to do some exercise...
J and I took a short vacation to France this past week. We stayed in Paris for two gray days and then took a train to Orleans where a friend of a friend picked us up by car. J has an old friend, actaully a priest that used to be the campus priest at her college, who has a house in the small town of Saint Benoit in the south Loire valley. St. Benoit's population is 1200 and it's the home of the Benedictine monks. WE were able to take day trips to nearby cities like Sully Chateaunef, Bourges, and Gien. This part of France is agricultural but it is very quaint and rustic. It is not the spectacular French alps or the Pyrennes.
This trip only made me want to visit France again...perhaps Provence.
It is noteworthy that we not even once experienced any rudeness from any of the French. Based on stories I've heard, I expected complet rudeness. Instead we experienced very friendly and polite people.
There are plenty of pictures on Flickr - enough to bore anybody - but check out some of them.....
We did have a few days of nice blue skies but mostly we saw gray. The trees were bare and pruned down to stubs. The vines and flowers were dormant. We can only imagine the spring and summer must be beautiful (except for all those pesky tourists). I have a suspicion that France would collapse without the tourists, though.
Gävle is about 100 miles north of Stockholm. I went there to visit a factory. However, I did have about a hour to walk around and take some photos (go to my Flickr page or click on the title under the photo above). Gävl is famous for two reasons (that I knnow of). First, it is the home of Gevalia coffee which is a global brand. The coffee itself is imported, of course, but the processing is done here, or used to be. I think the main Gevalia headquarters is still here.
The second reason for fame, at least within Sweden, is a tradition of building a large "Christmas goat" in town which every year gets burned down. The story says the police can't find the vandals even with video cameras except for one year an American thought he'd uphold the tradition of burning the goat. But being a "dumb American" stood around to watch it burn. He was caught and served some jail time. So goes the story.
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