We’ve just dropped our rental car at Gatwick airport and need to make our way via Paris to the Brittany coast. It’s an interesting route.
A train at Gatwick (for which we’d bought tickets at about half off online before we left the U.S. at about half off) goes directly to St. Pancras station, the London terminus of the Eurostar, a TGV (very fast train) to Paris via the Chunnel. For the Eurostar, you have to go through security that’s similar to airport security, and for whatever reason I get thoroughly patted down…twice. Without even a kiss.
Another bargain we got before leaving the U.S. was first class on the Eurostar for the price of second class, and as we enter France we’re served a complimentary snack of croissants, cheese and wine. The French countryside whizzes by – top speed on this thing is about 185 miles an hour – and the 300-mile trip takes only about two hours.
We’re staying in Paris for two nights before heading to a tiny village on the Atlantic coast, but I’m going to save all stories of Paris for the next and final installment of this series. Except for one note: We quickly learn that everyday Paris, and most of everyday France, closes for August.
That doesn’t affect us, though, as we catch a not-quite-as-fast train to Quimper, from which we’ll catch a cab to the quaint little chateau where we’ll stay for the weekend wedding festivities.
We share the cab with two other wedding guests, and while three of our four happily chatter away in the back seat, I test out my French on the driver. Because I speak French, at least nominally, I’d wondered why everyone kept calling Quimper kem-PAIR instead of kem-PAY. And as we drive to its outskirts and into the countryside, I see bilingual signs that provide the answer.
I’ve never seen the second language before, so I ask the driver about the signs. “It’s Breton,” he tells me, and it turns out to be Celtic, related to Cornish and Welsh. And Quimper comes from the Breton word Kemper.
The driver pays me the best compliment I receive in France: “Are you not also American like your friends?” Well, sure I am, I tell him. “But you speak French so well!” (I will be put back in my place the moment I open my mouth in Paris, but for now, I’ll bask – Basque? – in the temporary glory. )
About 25 minutes later we turn off the main road and end up on a gravel path lined with spectacular hydrangeas in various blues and pinks. We pass a charming three-story yellow chalet and keep going a few hundred yards until the panorama of the 18th century Château de Guilguifin comes into view.
Neither “quaint” nor “little” turn out to apply here. The grounds (which are actually called a "park" in the promo materials) sprawl off in every direction. Everywhere there are hidden gardens with brilliant, ethereal flowers. Hell, the place even has Wifi, although the thick stone walls of the chateau limit its range to a single parlor. Many of my iPhotos end up looking like French impressionism because, hey, there's an app for that.
About two dozen of the bride’s family (she’s my niece) and friends are scattered among the chateau itself, stables that have been converted into luxury lodging, and that yellow chalet we passed on the way in, which turns out to be our home for the duration. A family dinner is served in the chateau’s cavernous eat-in kitchen – carryout Chinese, as it turns out. No one knows the Breton word for that.
Late the next afternoon we all board a bus headed for the coastal village of Loctudy (Loktudi), the groom’s ancestral home. While we’re waiting for the bride to arrive and the wedding to begin, I spot an unusual sculpture – made for tires – of a horse, which I dub “Le Cheval de Bibendum.” I immediately give myself three stars for that one.
The wedding is, of course, magical, taking place in the generations-long family church. The ceremony is equally divided between Catholicism and Christian Science – I credit the possibility of this to the Jesuit pope – and my niece, Sally, radiates happiness with her new husband, Timothée.
Afterwards, I double back into the church to snap a photo of one of the most unusual Madonna-and-child paintings I’ve ever seen, which I dub Notre Dame du Carré de Choux before I’m de facto excommunicated.
At the reception we’re seated with the groom’s parents and other members of his family, and once again, my noble attempts at French are applauded. Even more so by about the third or fourth bottle of wine. To paraphrase the great philosopher Fred Teutenberg, “The more I drink, the better it sounds.”
The party goes on well into the wee hours, but we older folk make our way back to the chalet by about 1 a.m. The groom’s family hosts everyone at a sumptuous breakfast of crepes the next morning, and soon we’re in a cab again and on our way back to the train station. I haven’t been in Paris for almost 30 years, and the brief stopover there had only whetted my appetite. Allons, enfants…
Next up: Paris in all of its glory
