The Baguette
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The La Hague site is a nuclear fuel reprocessing plant of AREVA on the French Cotentin Peninsula that currently has nearly half of the world's light water reactor spent nuclear fuel reprocessing capacity. It has a capacity of about 1700 tons per year....
Jacques Prévert was a French poet and screenwriter. His poems are often about life in Paris and life after the Second World War. They are widely taught in schools in France and frequently appear in French language textbooks throughout the world. One of...
Who is now reading this? Maybe one is now reading this who knows some wrong-doing of my past life, Or maybe a stranger is reading this who has secretly loved me, Or maybe one who meets all my grand assumptions and egotisms with derision, Or maybe one...
The surrounding district of Saint-Jean in Caen was badly bombed during World War II. Most of l'église Saint-Jean had to be rebuilt but, fortunately, it was possible to restore it. The fine Flamboyant Gothic building was begun in the 14th century, and...
LIGHT. We can't have enough of it. When I look at this building, I am not concerned with the children who attend school here. Instead, I imagine the possibilities of turning this place into a wonderful home--one that has huge windows that allow the natural...
In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that the whole world should be enrolled. This was the first enrolment, when Quirinius was governor of Syria. So all went to be enrolled, each to his own town. And Joseph too went up from Galilee from...
There is so much information about this town online that it is overwhelming. I’ll try to be concise and too the point but if you are interested in all the facts just check out their link online. After a long day of hiking and visiting old churches, I...
Had some more beautiful weather last week so I drove out to Courseulles-sur-Mer to visit the museum at Juno Beach. If you don't know what that is, it's the beach where the Canadians landed during D-Day. It's hard to believe that 70 years ago over 14,000...
The annual kermesse was held on Sunday at the Manoir de la Coquerie in Querqueville by the Parish of Saint-Clair. The manoir is owned by the city and dates from the 16th century. It is listed as a Historical Monument and is used as an exhibition hall...
During the Allied invasion of Normandy, the United States Army Graves Registration Service established two large cemeteries with fallen American and German soldiers near the village La Cambe, about eight kilometers east of Isigny-sur-Mer. After 1945,...
It hardly seems possible that another summer has come and gone. Yet, the warm weather, uncharacteristic of the region has managed to linger on into this first week of September. Before I return to my French class on the 13th, I wanted to take advantage...
It's been a long time since my last post. The weather here hasn't been very nice with all the wind and rain, it is difficult to get out and do anything let alone take any photos. Things are going well for me and I am still very happy in France. Despite...
J'ai un cœur d'artichaut. Une feuille pour tout le monde ! Did you know that just one artichoke has 60 calories, 0 grams of fat, 13 grams of carbohydrates (including 7 grams of fiber) and 4 grams of protein. It’s a great source of vitamin C, potassium,...
Near the town of Brix, at 100, route du Mont Epinguet is the unique Jardin de Clairbois. Its name derives from the small river La Claire which winds along the foot of the wooded hills of Mont Epinguet, part of the ancient forest of Brix. In 1964, M. and...
Église Saint-Benoît has an ancient foundation built in the 12th century. The original church was damaged by fire in 1367. It was extended in 1473 by Charles d’Anjou, count of Maine and renovated in the 16th century—a new nave was constructed, the south...
Le Musée de Tessé is the Museum of Fine Arts in Le Mans. It offers numerous guided tours on various themes and is located just inside Tessé Park. The building is a former bishop’s palace, itself built on the site of the former mansion of Maréchal de Tessé....
Villandry was one of the last great Renaissance châteaux to be built on the Loire; it has unusual features for Touraine, like rectangular pavilions (instead of round towers) as well as the layout of the esplanade and its moat. Villandry’s international...
The City of Chinon is situated in the southwest of the Touraine region, on the borders of the Anjou and Poitou. The site is remarkable being built on several levels between the Vienne River and the chalk cliff where the fortress was built. The site was...
Near the valley of the Dordogne as it makes a deep cut through the Gramat Causse, a series of caves was discovered in 1902 by Armand Viré, a student of the geographer and speleologist Édouard-Alfred Martel, at the foot of the cliffs beside the river....
The village of La Roque-Gageac, huddled against a cliff which drops vertically to the River Dordogne, occupies a wonderful site—one of the finest in this part of the valley, in which Domme, Castelnaud and Beynac-et-Cazenac are all within a few kilometres...
On my way south to the Comminges region, I spent some time with good friends who live in a beautiful town just outside of Toulouse called Avignonet-Lauragais. The town is visible from the highway due to the large windmills that generate electricity by...
Bagnères-de-Luchon is a lively spa town lying in a beautiful setting amidst the Pyrénées. It is the busiest and most fashionable cure resort in the region, and also a tourist and winter sports center with a wide choice of ski runs, climbs and excursions....
After visiting the windmills at Besneville, our AVF group headed to the small town of Saint-Lô-d'Ourville where we were to have lunch at the restaurant "Au p'tit creux". Before that, we had quite a surprise when we were given a guided tour of the parish...
There are so many wonderful places to visit in our region that do not appear in most guidebooks. However, with a little bit of research, one can find the most extraordinary of buildings in some of the smallest of towns. Such is the case with Montfarville....
I went to the town of Pontivy over the weekend with some friends of mine. We had such a wonderful time visiting the town as well as the Breton countryside. Pontivy is the old capital of the Rohan family and gets its name from a 7th century monk named...
