On track in France

Lannion city center

on a quiet Monday afternoon.

It's hard to believe that six months have flown by since my decision to participate in la vendange, (the grape harvest) in the vineyards of Southern France. My training wasn't always as consistant as I would have liked, but it was enough so that I soon learned to walk a fine line between doing too much, with the resulting muscle strains and joint stresses, or doing too little, then feeling stiff and weak.

Packing for the trip was an additional challenge. Mark and I would be spending a week on the western coast of France, in Bretagne, after which we would take different paths, with me heading for Provence and Mark making his way to England and Germany. Normally, I only needed to plan for one general range of climate, but this time I would be packing for cool wind and rain on the western coast and sunshine with heat down south. Translate this to sweatshirts, long pants and jackets on the coast, and shorts, T-shirts and swim suits in the sun drenched South.

With bulging baggage, Mark and I successfully negotiated our two flights across America, as well as the flight within France, suffering no more than a loss of patience while we stood at the ticketing counter in Paris for an hour and a half, waiting as the agent made numerous attempts to issue our tickets from Paris to Brest, while at the same time warning us about the many pick-pockets roaming the airport halles.

A quick train ride between Terminals 1 and 2 at Paris' Charles de Gaulle airport, was followed by a 25 minute shuttle bus ride to our departure area, then an hour's flight to Brest, ending with another hour's drive to Lannion in our rental car.

Since we hadn't slept in 24 hours, we were shattered when we arrived chez les Stervinous. Our friends, with whom we were staying, greeted us warmly and plied us with enough food and drink to put us into a sound sleep by 10 PM.

A reflection of the changing seasons

along the city's riverbank.

We'd made it to Lannion just in time for the nice weather to break and the clouds and rain to settle in. The morning after our arrival, I took advantage of the overcast, autumn day by taking a long walk into the city center to discuss my future travel plans with the agent at the local railroad station.


I don't know whether my French is getting better or the agent was especially tolerant, but I was able to complete the entire conversation without shifting back to English at the first sign of trouble. Feeling more confident, I retraced my steps back to our chambre d'hôtes, just as the skies opened and the thunder rolled through the city.


My reservation was set for the TGV, which would soon carry me and my overstuffed bag to a Saturday rendez-vous with the grape.