Brest and Montoir de Bretagne

Thank you for waiting so long for the remaining posts for this trip! I got so distracted by things to do at home that I didn't make time to work on it. 

Our day in Brest was centered on the city's long maritime history, with a visit to the National Navy Museum. Brest is the second-largest military port after Toulon, and the Navy Museum is housed in the medieval Château de Brest.

All of Brest's medieval history is related to the castle, and it was made into a military harbour by the famous, or infamous, Cardinal Richelieu in 1631. The city was very heavily bombed during World War II; most of the city centre was rebuilt after the war. The navy is a central focus of the local economy, but as France de-industrialized after the war, it is now a big university town, including the French Naval Academy and a national university specializing in Information Technology and Telecommunications.

Our tour included a brief drive around downtown, but with narrow streets and a highway bus (kudos to the driver for navigating it all!) it is almost impossible to take a meaningful photo.

The River Penfeld runs through the city. On the right is
the Tour Tanguy, also part of the city's medieval heritage

The gardens in front of the Château and Museum

Adjacent to the museum is the Naval Academy. 

Some of the original buildings inside the chateau

A look over the river at the Pont de Recouvrance, a
vertical lift bridge operating since 1954.

Maritime artifacts include ships' bow and stern decorations as well
as other elaborate wooden carvings.

This would have adorned the stern of a ship in
the 1800s.

That was about it for our visit to Brest. It was a bit of a break after all the walking at Mont-Saint-Michel.

On the following day we were in St.-Nazaire, in Montoir-de-Bretagne, where we took a tour to another medieval city: Angers.

Our first stop, though, was a little outside of the city at the one-and-only distillery for Cointreau Liqueur. We had a tour of the distillery, where they make more than just Cointreau, learned about the company's long history, and even had a tasting of a couple of their new 'flavours'.

The distilling room for Cointreau. Considering
how popular it is worldwide, I was surprised
that the stills were so small.

Our tour guide explaining the
Cointreau distilling process

Another view from the mezzanine where we saw
a brief film on the history of Cointreau and the
cocktails that made it world famous

This is a sample of the dried orange peel that is
the base ingredient. The peels originate in orange
groves in Brazil, Tunisia, Morocco and Ghana.

Learning about Cointreau and how it is made was actually quite fascinating. The original Cointreau, Adolphe, was a confectioner who decided to expand into liqueurs as they were becoming very popular in the mid-1800s. This was quite successful, with a wide range of fruit liqueurs on offer. Adolphe's nephew, Edouard, finally succeeded in creating the clear, balanced and concentrated orange liqueur in 1885, and immediately registered the trademarks for the name, Cointreau, and the distinctive, for that time, square bottle. He had been searching for an alternative to the grainy, overly sweet orange liqueur from the Dutch island of Curaçao. Only four years later, in 1889, they installed a still at the World's Fair in Paris, which had 32 million visitors, and won a medal for the quality of the liqueur.

Adolphe and Edouard-Jean along with
bottles of some of their original liqueurs. The most
popular of these was Guignolet, a cherry liqueur

.

The advertising history of Cointreau is just as interesting as the liqueur itself. They created a 'Pierrot' Cointreau, the uniquely French sad-faced clown, as their brand mascot. The very first film commercial in history was made by the Lumière brothers featuring Pierrot Cointreau in 1898.

I like this one! It says it all- orange and
square bottle!

There's a huge gallery of advertising drawings

After Edouard's death in 1923, his sons and his wife, Louisa, took over the business. Louisa developed social policies for the company, and became a social force in her own right. She ultimately was an Officer of the Legion of Honor of France.

Cointreau became a household name in 1948 when the Margarita was developed in Acapulco by an American socialite who claimed, 'A Margarita without Cointreau isn't worth its salt'. The next big cocktail to use Cointreau, the Cosmopolitan, was created in 1988.

In order to maintain the consistent taste of Cointreau from crop to crop of orange peel, they have a Master Distiller, the 'Nose'. A woman, Carole Quinton, currently holds this position, and has a huge responsibility. We asked about a successor if she should retire, and our guide said that training someone for the position takes a number of years.

In 1989, Cointreau merged with Remy Martin to create the huge Remy-Cointreau conglomerate that produces many different spirits all over the world. Both were family owned concerns and now between them own over 50% of the publicly-traded company.

At the tasting, everyone had a glass of Cointreau Fizz, a very refreshing and simple cocktail made with only Cointreau, fresh lime juice, and sparkling water over ice. After that we could try Cointreau Noir, which includes some Remy Martin cognac, and Cointreau Spicy, which has chili pepper essence in it - and is VERY spicy! If you're interested in making cocktails with Cointreau, there is an extensive list of them on Cointreau's website.

A Cointreau Fizz made at home while
I write this post!

Rather than buying a bottle of Cointreau we purchased a small jar of caramel topping made with Cointreau and some Cointreau orange infused loose tea.

So after that 10:00 a.m. visit, and hoping we would all be awake for the rest of the tour, we boarded the bus for the drive into the old town of Angers.

Our bus dropped us off by the Château d'Angers and our local guide took us on a walk through the narrow medieval streets to the Cathedral Saint-Maurice. It is a very impressive structure outside, with a fairly new very modern portico protecting the original painted one.

The old being protected by the new.

The interior is known for its stained-glass windows, but the organ loft and altar are also well worth noting. In fact, the altar is a much smaller version of the one in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome.

After our visit to the Cathedral, we had free time to grab some lunch on our own. The small cafes across from the chateau seemed a little too elaborate, so we ended up at a bakery that some of our fellow cruisers recommended. We shared a ham and cheese baguette, just enough for each of us when cut in half, and I couldn't resist the huge Pain au Chocolat, so we split one of those for dessert. We were in a bit of a rush and the bakery was quite busy; otherwise I would have taken a few photos. Nonetheless, everything was nice and fresh and delicious.

We had enough time to wander through some of those narrow streets before we had to meet back up.

This lovely kitty was relaxing under the trees
near the chateau.

Our guide led us into the grounds of the Chateau after our lunch break and we checked out some of the more important buildings.

The walls of the Chateau. The old moat
is now a lovely garden.

The courtyard

the chapel

The Royal Residence

The view over the Maine River from the Chateau walls

 The biggest draw here at the Chateau, though, is the Apocalypse Tapestry. This tapestry, which was commissioned by Duke Louis I of Anjou in 1375, is a depiction of the Book of Revelation, with Saint John included in each panel. The paintings the tapestry is based on were made by Jean de Bruges and woven in Paris by Nicolas Bataille - and probably hundreds of weavers. It was completed in only 5 years during the Hundred Years War, between 1377 and 1382, with an original length of 460 feet (!!). Now only about 335 feet survive, with the rest torn up and used for everything from floor mats to tree protection during the French Revolution.

It is an immense tapestry, and quite unknown beside the likes of the Bayeux Tapestry. Like the Bayeux Tapestry, it is now in the UNESCO Memory of the World register since 2023. Here are some photos and a video of some of the panels:

Placing the pieces in order based on the Book of Revelation
left a number of empty spaces.

In order to really get a sense of the scale of this tapestry and how incredible it was to complete it in such a short time, you have to look at the video:

After viewing the tapestry, we headed back to the bus for the drive back to St. Nazaire and the ship.

It was an interesting sail-out that evening, as we passed the shipyard of Chantiers d'Atlantique on the way out to sea from the mouth of the Loire River. The most important fact for us though was that Crystal Serenity was built at that same shipyard from 2001 to 2003, so she was, in effect, visiting her birthplace for a day.

Sailing past the construction docks at Chantiers d'Atlantique. Currently they are building two MSC ships - the World Europa still waiting for more cabin sections to arrive, and the World Asia, almost ready to head out, as far as we could tell. Both are much, much larger than Crystal Serenity!

The town of St. Nazaire with lots of small sailboats at anchor.

And finally, the coastline becoming rocky as we reached the Atlantic Ocean.

We were invited to Captain's Quarters for cocktails, as we are on most cruises, once we were at sea. It wasn't just us; it is usually a larger group of people along with some of the ship's officers to meet and mingle for 45 minutes. Our captain, Vincent Taillard, was actually from Nantes, one of the larger cities in this area. I had noticed as we were sailing out on the river that there was a private speedboat racing along beside us for a while, so I asked Captain Vincent if that was someone he knew. And it was! His family members had come to see us off, and he had given the ship's horn a quick 'toot' to acknowledge them. Unfortunately the French coast guard had also noticed them, and their small boat was on its way to wave them off. I think Captain Vincent may have spoken to them and they let the boat go a little further. The captain was going on vacation at the end of our cruise and would be seeing them all again in about a week.

So that was our day in Montoir de Bretagne and our goodbye to France. Our next stops were in Spain, leading up to the Solar Eclipse.

Mont-Saint-Michel

 Finally I'm getting back to writing the blog for the last cruise, only 3 weeks after we got home. But as usual, real life took over and it is only now on a rainy day that I have the opportunity to focus on it.

Our first port stop of St. Malo was the closest point to the famous island abbey of Mont-Saint-Michel. St. Malo itself is a medieval walled city which looks like it would also be a great place to walk through.

Sailing in to our anchor position.

St. Malo from the ship

Since Mont-Saint-Michel is on the bucket list for many people, the tours booked out quickly. We managed to get one that provided a tour of the tiny medieval town surrounding the base of the abbey, but didn't include a tour of the interior of the cathedral. The drive from St. Malo to the parking area took about 45 minutes and ran through some beautiful Normandy/Brittany countryside.

Once we arrived at the small town of Pontorson and left the bus in the immense parking lot, our guide led us to the lineup for the free shuttle bus that takes people out to the bridge to the island. More on that a little later. This lineup seemed ridiculously long, but she explained that it really did move rather well. She was, however, quite surprised at the number of people, and warned us that the town would be rather crowded once we got there. Apparently almost everyone in France is on holiday from mid-July to mid-August and when the weather is sunny they go to the beach. Unfortunately it was a bit overcast, at least it had been all morning, so they all chose to come to Mont-Saint-Michel instead.

Our first view of the famous island abbey.

We could have walked to the island, a distance of about 1.5 kilometres, but we would never have found the guide again for the walking tour, so we stayed with her and took the shuttle bus. Mont-Saint-Michel is an island at high tide, but one can walk across the sand at low tide....as long as one can avoid stepping into the quicksand, which is a true hazard. We visited at low tide, so there were little groups of people out on the sand, using stones to create patterns that would last until the tide came rushing in.

The island was well protected with thick stone walls, dangerous mud and a rushing tide with a swing of up to 14 metres (46 feet) which was fine during medieval times but doesn't work so well in modern times for visitor access. A bridge was built in 1879 to replace the causeway that was flooded over during high tide, but the bridge prevented the silt around the island from being washed away when the tide came in. In 2006 a project was established to replace the old bridge and create a hydraulic dam to use the power of the Couesnon River and the tides to flush out the silt at every high tide. This bridge and dam were opened in 2014 and have been operating since then.

From the shuttle you can see the bridge

On the bridge walking toward the island

Once we left the bus and headed into the town, we realized just how crowded it would be. The 'town' is really no more than a small village. No cars are allowed inside the walls, not that one would fit anywhere anyways. It was so busy that we already knew we didn't have much chance of finding anything for our 'lunch on our own'. We would only have about an hour and a half after our tour and every restaurant looked full up.

As much as she could, our guide led us through the main 'street' of town and explained the history and significance of the abbey. It has a rather interesting 'raison d'etre': apparently in the early 8th Century the Archangel Michael appeared to the Bishop Aubert of Avranches and told him to build a church on the rocky island. This happened more than once with the bishop refusing on the first two occasions. On the third, in 708, the Archangel Michael was a little more insistent, tapping him on the temple when making his demand. This time Aubert gave in and built the church. Legend has it that when Aubert passed away, there was a hole in the side of his head, attributed to the touch of the Archangel.

Our first glimpse of the town...

This is as close as we got to the abbey. The
people on the stairs are all lined up to buy tickets!

The view from the ramparts over the bay, the bridge
and the marshy land around it. The river and the dam
are just to the right of the bridge.

We weren't the only ones on the ramparts!

Here are a few more photos of the town and the abbey. From what I've read and watched, the only way you can really see the town is by staying overnight in one of the hotels - outside of prime vacation season, of course. The entrance gates are closed to tourists at 7:00 p.m. and only the 20-odd people who live there permanently and hotel guests and employees remain to stroll around and enjoy the history and medieval ambience.

We ended up walking all the way back to the Visitors Centre rather than waiting for a shuttle bus. Once we got there, after having had only a gelato to tide us over since breakfast, we bought some locally made potato chips and a small bag of cookies. Half a bag of chips each ended up being our lunch, so we were extra hungry for dinner when we got back to the ship!

It would be interesting to see Mont-Saint-Michel again in less crowded circumstances, but at least now we've checked it off the bucket list.