France + Italia // TOP TEN

Hello Ecuador, I'm back! I've always found it a relief to finally be home after a long vacation, but I've gotta admit, I already miss France! And Italy…well, I missed Italy before I even left Italy. It's just that kind of place.

One of my favorite aspects about our trip was that we were there for two months. We lived in France, which meant we weren't just rushing from one tourist spot to the next. We wandered. We got sidetracked––sometimes lost. We savored it all.

Yes, I stood (wide-mouthed) in the Sistine Chapel and rode to the top of the Eiffel Tower, but I think my very favorite moments, places, memories were the quieter spots, the sun-or-rain-drenched afternoons of unplanned exploration, the echoing of hushed voices in a centuries-old cathedral.

I compiled a list of my five seven ten favorite places (in no particular order). It was crazy-hard, but still wonderful to go over every moment, every location, and reexamine everything I love (needless to say, European toilets did not make the list). Here are the first five:

#1 - Santa Maria del Fiore

I've already talked a lot about this cathedral, home to Brunelleschi's incredible duomo, which you can read in my blog post about Italia. Seeing the duomo come into view for the first time is one of the most wonderful moments of my life.

#2 - Loches 

Loches [LUSH] was the first town in France I explored. It's a charming place, with cobblestone streets, antique bookshops, patisseries––all beneath the beautifully-preserved contours of the château. Walking the streets of Loches made me feel like I was at a resort or theme park. Everything is just so picturesque, it's hard to belief it's real––people live here––and not manufactured, that you're not going to step around the corner and find yourself back in the modern world.

#3 - Pointe St-Mathieu et Le Conquet (everything Bretagne)

Let's start with Bretagne (Brittany), a region in north-western France. After living in the Loire Valley for a month, we moved up to Bretagne and I was shocked at the difference in culture. Bretagne is the Texas of France, a rugged, beautiful land rich with its own culture. They have their own flag, cuisine, even their own celtic language, Breton, which uses lots of K's and Z's and I have no idea how to pronounce any of it.

"Beg Lok-a-mah-zuh?!" Yup. That's Breton!

One crystalline afternoon, we took a drive out to a seaside town called Le Conquet to see the lighthouse there, Pointe St-Mathieu. The sea and sky were saturated with color and the waves crashed against the rocky cliffs, sending up an milky spray. The entire scene looked like something out of a Thomas Kinkade painting (yes, maybe a little kitschy, but still gorgeous). I was ready to buy a house and never leave!

#4 - Huelgoat

The Chaos

Huelgoat [OO-el-gwuaht …yeah, have fun with that] is definitely off the beaten path, but one of my favorite stops. The town is brimming with folklore about druids, Merlin, fairies and a mischievous little sprite called a "korrigan" found in Breton stories. 

Running directly through the center of Huelgoat is a river of massive, moss-covered boulders. Locals call it "The Chaos" and one can hike in, over, under and through these rocks. When we arrived, a light rain fell from a sky heavy with clouds. I usually don't enjoy getting rained on––actually, I hate it––but something about the rain seemed to swathe the extraordinary scenery with an extra sense of enchantment. I honestly felt like a character on a quest.

Within The Chaos, we stopped to picnic in La Grotte d'Artus (where King Arthur apparently did something noteworthy) and caused the 137-ton Roche Tremblante ("Trembling Rock") to wobble––quite a feat, I must say!

It took some teamwork, but we really did get this boulder to budge.

#5 - Mont Saint Michel

If you want to see a magical place, go to Mont Saint Michel, a stunning abbey-fortress built on a tiny island, originally accessible only at low tide. It was several hours away from our "base" in Brest, but we decided to make the trip anyway, arriving as the sun began its descent and the sky turned a soft shade of lavender.

Doesn't that look incredible? Even though all the shops were closed (in France, everything shuts down at precisely 7:30pm despite the fact that the summer sun doesn't set until after 10:00pm), our timing felt perfect. The heat of the day had faded and the crowds were gone. We took a leisurely walk across the bay and reached the old stone walls of Mont Saint Michel just as the sun slipped beneath the horizon.

Inside, we wound our way up the narrow, cobblestone streets, lit by golden lantern-light, eventually reaching the abbey at the very top of the island. From there, I could see distant lights twinkling from the French coast. The sea breeze whipped at my hair and I could hear the waves, far below, in their soothing roll. I watched the sky become dark, then turned and made my way back through the quiet streets.

Tori's Travels: Cro-Magnon's Castle

I was sifting through pamphlets about different châteaux in France, looking for something unique, but noticed all the descriptions were beginning to sound repetitive:

Oh, it's from the eleventh century? So is everything else around here.

Original, centuries-old furniture? Seen it.

Kings and Queens lived here? Old news.

I'm mostly kidding––I really love the chaâteax--but I wanted to see what else France had to offer. That's when Emme heard about a town in Southern France called Les Eyzies, which is known for its array of prehistoric artifacts. She only had to say the words "cave paintings" and I was on board ("EVERYBODY PUT ON YOUR SHOES AND GET YOUR BUTTS IN THE CAR NOW"). We tossed together some snacks, loaded into the mini-mini-van (cars in Europe are rather small) and started driving south.

It ended up taking several hours to reach Les Eyzies. We stopped at several fortresses and churches, had a picnic dinner, and toured the historical cities of Périgord and Bourdeilles. By the time we reached our "destination" it was two in the morning. No hotels were open, so we determined to be adventurous and camp out in the car. We drove down a quiet-looking road, parked and settled down for the night.

Did I say "for the night?" I meant for, like, forty minutes.

I woke up to car headlights beaming in my face and a man tapping on our window. He said something in French and motioned for us to leave. I had been sleeping in my contacts so my vision was awful and I was pretty disoriented. I don't know if Emme was much better, because in our attempt to get back to the main road we somehow took a wrong turn and got completely lost. The road we found ourselves on was narrow and unpaved, the trees sagged threateningly above us and there was no light beyond our mini-mini-van's headlights. It was a jungle out there.

(At this point, I decided to tell Emme scary stories about the Jersey Devil, my native folklore, which was fun until the moon rose––BLOOD RED--over the shadowy landscape. Creepy? Yes. After that I tried envisioning prehistoric animals scampering across the road or flitting through the murky shadows. Definitely got my unique experience.)

We eventually parked beneath massive cliffs once inhabited by cavemen. I didn't get much sleep, but those cliffs were the first thing I saw in the morning. Wow! It was such an amazing sight, I didn't even mind that I had spent the night crammed in a very little car. Well, I mostly didn't mind.

Les Eyzies is one of the most bizarre, remarkable towns I've ever seen. It has prehistoric roots, and many of the houses are from medieval times. They are built directly into the cliffside, adorned with brightly-painted shutters and window boxes.

I grabbed some pamphlets of local sights at the tourist office only to discover…more châteaux, of course! One caught my eye, however, a castle called Commarque, built atop caves containing artwork from our dear old friend, Cro Magnon, the earliest known form of modern human in Europe. Or something like that.

At Commarque, we picnicked (just a hint, I love picnicking) between a cool stream and stone that had been hollowed out for houses (the ground had shifted over the centuries so that we were now sitting beside where the roofs had been), while the castle ruins rose above us toward the bright sky. We took a hike in the woods along the ancient, man-made caves and ran around pretending to be Neanderthals.

Because we're American tourists and we do what we want.