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Wouldn't you like to be beside the seaside?
Antoine, his sister Lucie, and I went on a day-trip today to Les Sables d'Olonne, a seaside town two hours from Le May. It was especially nice because it was a nice day in the off-season. We had lovely weather, but we didn't have the masses of tourists and sunbathers that Les Sables gets in the summer.
We saw Le Puits de l'Enfer first, or Hell's Well. I'm going to start exclaiming that, because it sounds just as ridiculous as "hell's bells". It's an area with steep rocks and crevasses where the waves crash violently and fall with big splashes of foam. This is the way I like the ocean! Passion and excitement and danger, not the in-and-out of your average sandy beach.
Les Sables reminded me of Penzance, although I've never seen Penzance. It reminded me of my mental image of Penzance, anyway. But then I'm always thinking about Penzance, aren't I? It also made me think of La Serena in Chile, which I have seen.
We had a drink in a café where Antoine got pooped on by a seagull, then a delicious lunch in a seafood restaurant by the port. Then we went to another beach. You have to go through the forest to get to this one, so there weren't many people there either. During WWII, the Germans thought the Allies were going to debark there so they set up camp and waited for them. Their bunkers are still there and because they did a lot of shooting practice, every time there's a storm (as there was last Wednesday, apparently) it stirs up the sand and people look around for old bullets. Lucie found two, including one right next to my foot that I hadn't seen. My excuse was that I didn't know what I was looking for.
On the way home we drove past the restaurant where Antoine and Fanny announced their engagement to his family (the wedding is December 14th) and the castle of Gilles de Rais, also known as Bluebeard.
srah - Saturday, 16 November 2002 - 12:00 PM
Tags: antoine, assistantship, sables d'olonne, travel
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