Remembrance of Things Past: Retracing My Life and My Steps in Brittany
With so many places to visit and so little time in a life, it's often difficult to justify return visits. And there is always the worry buried beneath your desire not to repeat: can a place ever live up to the memories you have of it? We so often find a way to make the so-so times during a trip fade, remembering only the exhilarating highs and the crashing lows. Then we cement those in our memories by repeating them over and over (and over) again in the travel stories we share with our sometimes reluctant listeners. This summer, I decided to brave a return to Brittany, a place I spent six weeks in when I was 16. I wrote, in an earlier blog post, about that summer and the wonderful memories I have of the place, the people, and the tastes. Here's what I wrote: "If I go back to Brittany (and that's on the to-do list while we are in Amsterdam) I plan on finding those Breton butter cookies and having the taste instantly transport me back to my 16 year-old-self. I'll keep you posted." Now is the time for that post.
Through the wonders of the internet, I was able to find the ad my father saw in the back of the Princeton Alumni magazine that resulted in my happy summer.
When Rachel visited in July, and we were in search of a destination for a last-minute get away, I jumped when Peter suggested Brittany. And gulped. Could it possibly fulfill my expectations? And would it make me more than a little sad to be in a place I knew as a teenager, now that I'm 40+ years past those glory days? Thankfully, Brittany didn't disappoint. And graciously welcomed me back. "Come down and see me again," she said. The guitar in this song: gorgeous.
Living without a car in Amsterdam has made me realize I can get by just fine without one. Now when we travel, we look for ways to avoid driving. Turns out you can get to Brittany by train, which is my favorite way to travel. The first leg was the just-over three hour ride to Paris. We went armed with croissants and fancy yogurts in glass jars to get us ready for what would be just be one sliver of our breakfast in Brittany. Once in Paris, you just need to get to a different train station (Gare Montparnasse) to hop on your three-hour train to Saint-Malo, Brittany. High speed. On-time departure. Assigned seats. These are not qualities a gal from New Jersey recognizes in train travel. So civilized.
This wide beach, Plage de Rochebonne, in our home base of Saint-Malo was a place for families to play soccer, and at sunset, for everyone to gather. At low tide, the beach was wide enough for everyone to have their own little slice of heaven. At high tide, the beach disappeared and the waves reached all the way up to the wall where Rachel was sitting and reading.
High tide. And the steps you had to climb down to reach the beach.
Saint-Malo looks like the other medieval cities you see on the coast, except it isn't. The old city, crouched inside the fortress walls surrounding it, was almost completely destroyed by Allied bombing during WW II. The quote by journalist Philip Beck at the start of the novel All the Light We Cannot See, set in Saint-Malo, explains the history: "In August 1944 the historic walled city of Saint Malo, the brightest jewel of the Emerald Coast of Brittany, France, was almost totally destroyed by fire....Of the 865 buildings within the walls only 182 remained standing and all were damaged to some degree.”
After the war, it was carefully reconstructed to look like it used to. As this article explains, this restoration is very different from those in cities like Dresden and Warsaw, who chose to modernize when they rebuilt instead of trying to reconstruct their past. Somehow, it all works in Saint-Malo, and makes you wonder which buildings are originals, and which are reproductions. It's like really good plastic surgery, since you can't always tell which ones are truly old and which are not.
Thanks to its Pulitzer Prize and subsequent climb on all the best-seller lists, All the Light We Cannot See has led a lot of literature tourists to Saint-Malo. Back in the day, my friend Sarah's grandmother was a member of something called the Jane Austen Society. At the time, I couldn't believe there was enough Jane Austenese-talk to warrant a whole society, yet I was secretly intrigued. And now I've hit the stage of life in which I love visiting a place connected to a book I have read. Truth be told, I think Saint-Malo is the most richly-drawn character in the novel. And no, I didn't do the All the Light tour. I didn't love the book enough. I did love knowing the author Anthony Doerr visited Saint-Malo during a book tour for a previous book, and decided immediately it would be the setting for his next book. It's just that dramatic looking and feeling. When you climb up to the walls surrounding the old city, you step into the shoes of the characters who return to the city after the war: "From the top, they watch the small figures of tourists stroll past shopwindows. She has read about the siege; she has studied photos of the old town before the war. But now, looking across at the huge dignified houses, the hundreds of rooftops, she can see no traces of bombings or craters or crushed buildings. The town appears to have been entirely replaced."
Armed with a photograph I had taken of Perros-Guirec, the village where I lived, I looked forward to my trip down memory lane. With a wonderful guide named Samuel, we set off from Saint-Malo. Samuel looked to be about 30 years old or so, so when I told him I was there in 1976, he looked incredulous. It was as if I had announced I was alive during the Stone Age. He patiently walked along the beach with me, trying to help me match my photo up with what we saw. It all looked so familiar to me, and yet at the same time so foreign. Why couldn't I remember the address, or at least the name of the street? Yet I could tell you what we ate for lunch and I will: I can still taste those pâtés, rillettes, baguettes (we used the stale ones in sword fights) and, of course, Breton butter cookies. He smiled politely when I told him I remembered the night we were allowed to drink a healthy amount of Calvados, an apple brandy found throughout Brittany and Normandy. It was just the kind of smile you might force onto your face when your elderly aunt went on and on about "the olden days". Yes, I have turned into that kind of old lady.
As we walked along the beach, and looked up at the lovely stone mansions perched above, I wondered if I knew at age 16 how lucky I was to be in this place. Probably not. Show me the 16 year old who has that kind of perspective. I feel my old-lady-self emerging. And now she's making one of her pronouncements: "Youth is wasted on the young." Sorry, but it's true.
It was somewhat unsettling to have so little access in my mind to my experiences back then. How does your mind decide which memories to store and which to trash? A friend recently told me about his 86-year-old father's descent into dementia. His dad can't remember what he did the day before, but could talk at length about the people pictured next to him in his high school year book. We also talked about how people with dementia often switch back to a language learned earlier in life. While reading up on that, I also came across some articles suggesting that learning a second language can help you ward off the symptoms of Alzheimer's disease. Now there's yet another reason to plod along with my Dutch. I found my French coming back with much more ease than it had on previous trips to France. Did that have something to do with being in the same place I had been when my command of French was much better? Was my brain tricked into thinking it was 16 again?
And here is that 16-year-old. We took a ferry from somewhere to somewhere else in Brittany. I lopped off my long curly hair for the summer, opting for what I thought of at the time as a sophisticated bob. Mon dieu!
With all of this weighing on my mind, it was time to leave the little village I knew and loved, and march on. We hiked on a trail from Perros-Guirec to an even smaller village called Ploumanac'h along the Pink Granite Coast, named for the pinkish-hued rock formations along the way. These rocks have been there since....Can't remember what Samuel said about that. You see how my mind works? Let's just say those rocks have been there for a long, long time and leave it at that.
I know she still has a long ways to go, but seeing this gal walk along the trail - when only a year ago she was in a wheelchair - made me so grateful. Hoping for many hikes with you and without any knee pain in the future, Rae.
Hiking amongst these rocks gives you the chance to use your imagination to see objects and people in the formations. Who knew this process has a name: pareidolia? I sure didn't. But thanks to my ex-Principal Mr. Q. - who wrote on FB of practicing his powers of pareidolia on orchids in Ecuador - I know your mind wants to see the man in the moon, or faces in clouds or orchids. It's all part of our brain's desire to be see patterns and stay organized.
I found it only fitting that in the motherland of good wine, one rock formation shows a perfect bottle of wine, tipped and ready for drinking.
Photo credit to Peter. Is it a turtle's face? What say you?
Clouds in my coffee.
When you are done staring at the rocks, you can just take in the colors of the water. Photo credit to Peter. Beautiful.
With all of that walking, one needs sustenance. The Breton buckwheat crêpes - called galettes - were called into service for many of our lunches, and they more than fulfilled the memories I had of them. Funny that I can remember those perfectly, and not where we lived. Not surprising at all to those of you who know me best. I learned how to make them in our cooking class during my long-ago summer there. I even bought a heavy cast-iron crêpe pan which I lugged back to the U.S. That crêpe pan, my mom likes to remind me, saw the light of day exactly once when I made them for the whole family. She claims the pan then beat a hasty retreat into the basement, where it eventually developed a melancholy rust and had to be tossed out. I think it was homesick for Brittany.
I somehow didn't capture any of the galettes in photos, probably because they disappeared too quickly. But here are a few desserts to keep you happy.
The most iconic Breton pastry is called a Kouign Amann. It's a buttery, flaky specialty found everywhere. You just have to follow the heavenly smell. I couldn't figure out how to pronounce them, so I just called them Kofi Annans, after the former Secretary-General to the UN, much to the dismay of Rachel and Peter. But I learned while doing some research for this post that it's pronounced kween ah-mann, so it will be easier for me to ask for them in the future.
"I'll be good. I wish I could get this message over to you now."
It wasn't all dessert, all the time in Brittany. We had some terrific dinners at small bistros with friendly and mostly-French speaking staff, although they tried their best to sprinkle in some English. Despite our licked-clean plates every night, the wait staff routinely asked if we had enjoyed everything. You'd think the clean plates would have served as a clue, but we always smiled pleasantly and enthusiastically. A little smiling goes a long way in a foreign country. So does eating everything and not being a picky eater. Restaurants really like that in a visitor.
We continued to explore Brittany, including a few spots I didn't see on my original visit. Or at least I don't think so. Dol de Bretagne is a charming village with many original stone and timber buildings from medieval days. Some were untouched, and others had been painted in fancy un-medieval colors.
In Brittany, as in many parts of Europe, cathedrals were heavily damaged during WW II. In the cathedral in Dol de Bretagne, there was a moving sculpture dedicated to the heroic efforts to save the church and some of the treasures inside from destruction. Although centuries-old stained glass is forever gone, I also love the more modern stained glass windows replacing the originals. The reflections were beautiful, too.
After we bid adieu to Dol de Bretagne, the Tour de Bretagne continued. Who says you can't teach an old dog new tricks? I've always said I'm not an oyster person, but this summer, I finally decided to give them a try. At the urging of my friend Vera, I had my first taste at Zandvoort beach in the Netherlands earlier this summer. That got me ready to visit Cancale, a Breton village where oyster lovers from near and far make their pilgrimages. Even if you don't fancy oysters, you will still enjoy the stunning views, and the chance to shop for striped clothing and really go into full-on tourist mode.
As luck would have it, our trip to France was perfectly timed. First off, we were there before schools in England and France had closed, so it wasn't crowded. Also, the early summer weather in Brittany - usually just as unpredictable as Amsterdam's - was as uncharacteristically warm and glorious as the weather we left behind. And most importantly, we were there in time to celebrate both Bastille Day, or La Fête Nationale (National Celebration) on July 14th, and France's glorious victory in the World Cup (more on that later) the very next day. Despite the fact I majored in college in the History and Literature of Great Britain and France, I couldn't recall - as I watched the old and young of Saint-Malo and everyone in between gather to watch the feux d'artifice (fireworks) - if Bastille Day commemorates the start or the end of the French Revolution. Zut alors!
Turns out, it was neither, and instead marked a turning point in the Revolution. The people of Paris stormed the Bastille, a symbol of the monarchy, and released all the political prisoners. All seven of them. Still, it was and continues to be cause for celebration throughout France. I thought back to Bastille Day two years ago, when Rachel and I had just left Nice and there was a terrorist attack during the celebration there. A Bastille Day without violence was certainly something to celebrate this year.
This couple came out for a stroll before the Bastille Day fireworks. I hope this will be Peter and me someday.
I seem to be lucky when it comes to France and football (soccer, to my U.S. readers). The same summer Rachel and I were in Nice, France was in the finals of the European Championship. That hot summer afternoon before the game, cars drove up and down the boulevard along the beach, honking and waving flags. It was the same boulevard the truck would use to terrorize and kill so many people just a few nights later. The night of the championship, I ended up back at the hotel, where I watched the game safely indoors. I thought it might be too crazy and chaotic out on the streets, especially at the end of the match. France lost to Portugal 1-0. There was silence afterwards.
Now fast forward to the finals of the World Cup. We left Saint-Malo and arrived in Paris just in time to watch the game. The streets were eerily car-less. In fact, we had to wait for over an hour to get a cab from the train station to the hotel. Everyone, it seemed, was gathering to watch "Les Bleus". But eventually we got a cab, and we made our way to a local café, where folks crowded around the large screen T.V. and celebrated. Afterwards came the cheering and honking and dancing. After all of the terrifying chaos in France over the last few years, they deserved this win and the chance to celebrate together.
Look who I ran into in the Luxembourg Gardens the morning after the big win. And then while working on this post, the poem about her by Emma Lazarus showed up in my Poem of the Day email. Here's a line I like, although it's less famous than the "Give me your tired, your poor.." one. "From her beacon-hand. Glows world-wide welcome." We're not exactly living up to that promise in the U.S. these days.
I also ran into a very moving exhibit at the Pantheon about the late Simone Veil. The first woman president of the European Parliament and the French Health Minister responsible for the right to choose an abortion in France, she and her husband were recently buried at the Pantheon. She is also a Holocaust survivor and the exhibit told about her efforts to keep her story and the story of her family alive by telling and retelling it. After the recent waves of anti-semitic attacks in France, it was particularly significant to see Simone Veil recognized for her accomplishments, with the ultimate honor of being interred at the Pantheon.
In the end, what did I learn during my return to Brittany? For one, your memories of a place might not exactly match up to what you actually saw long ago. Instead, your memories are a combination of what you wish the place was, and what it is. While I was writing this post, I thought back to a film I saw recently called A Foreign Field. It's about a small group of British and American WW II veterans who return to the beaches of Normandy as old men. It's about aging and memories and regrets and reconnecting to a place. Were it not for the cast, which includes Alec Guinness, Lauren Bacall, and Jeanne Moreau, it would at times have been just a sentimental trifle. But it made me think about what it must be like for soldiers to return to a place they haven't seen in so many years. And, of course, it made me think about my return, too. "Je ne regrette rien," ("I have no regrets.") Enjoy this gem sung by the eternal Edith Piaf.
Thinking back on my twin visits to Brittany separated by forty years, I realize I'm not the same person I was in 1976. Or am I? I thought about a short story I used to read to my students called Eleven, by Sandra Cisneros. The little girl in the story is turning eleven, but the story is about time and getting older, and realizing life is sometimes heartbreaking. At the start of the story, Cisneros writes, "What they don't understand about birthdays and what they never tell you is that when you're eleven, you're also ten, and nine, and eight, and seven, and six, and five, and four, and three, and two, and one." So even when you grow old, you might sometimes feel like the younger person inside of you. And later in the story Cisneros, or the little-girl-growing-up narrator explains, "Because the way you grow old is kind of like an onion or like the rings inside a tree trunk or like my little wooden dolls that fit one inside the other, each year inside the next one. That’s how being eleven years old is." So I went to Brittany and rediscovered the little wooden 16-year-old doll inside of me. That's a really good reason for revisiting some of the places you knew when you were young.
And with Rachel by my side, I became my 16-year-old self back in Amsterdam, too, at an outdoor Kool & the Gang concert. A celebration, indeed. I'm pleased to report they are still doing that happy dance with their feet.
Spotted on my regular dog-walking route. Couldn't have said it better myself.
A rare father-daughter shot at the beach in Saint-Malo. Au revoir, Bretagne. A bientôt. Farewell, Brittany. See you soon.