On board the Thalys train to Brussels
On my first full day in Noirmoutier Friday morning, I ate mussels and found them surprisingly tasty. They are not anything special-tasting, but they were cooked in a garlic, onion and butter sauce, which was good. I was really afraid they were going to be slimy and yucky like oysters (another Noirmoutier specialty), and was a bit worried when our hosts ordered them for us without telling us what was up. We were shown how to use a set of shells as a sort of pair of tongs for plucking the meat from the shell. The mussels were served with pommes frits, which is apparently the usual way of eating them here. So that answers a question that’s always been on my mind: Yes, the French eat French fries.
The people in Noirmoutier are absolutely wonderful. They are treating us like royalty. The only drawback is we have no time to ourselves to explore on our own. They have quite a busy schedule for us. After picking us up at the Nantes train station following our very speedy TGV train ride from Paris (we hit 300 km/h for some of the ride), Gérard Moreau, his wife Marie-Thérèse, and Dr. Marie-Thérèse Reed took us to lunch at a restaurant “on the continent,” as the signs say, overlooking the Passage du Gois, the road that at, low tide, connects to the island of Noirmoutier. It was high tide, though it was slowly going out, so we could walk along a bit of the road afterwards. I had grilled dorade, a local fish, served with Noirmoutier potatoes, which I thought would be salty, but are actually a little sweet. They are quite small.
The island is tremendously diverse and exerts a very unusual allure over you when you arrive, which I feel grows stronger the more you see and experience. They people seem very content; none of the surliness you see in the cities, particularly Paris. Dr. Reed, who lived and taught college in Minnesota for 20-something years, had us to dinner tonight at her home, and has the Order of Merit hanging on the wall for her work toward the maintenance of French and American friendship. To avoid confusion, we were told to call Mme. Moreau “Marie-T” and Dr. Reed just Marie.
Marie, who is very active on the local historic preservation society, reminds me a lot of our News Bulletin photographer Ann Spann. She showed us the society’s office and library in the château, which she then toured us through. It only recently reopened after a two-year renovation. Our hosts raved about the sunny, warm weather we “brought from Florida” with us.
On our first night in Noirmoutier we had a delightful dinner party at the Moreau’s house, joined by Marie, and René and Madeleine Relandeau, who are other members of the sister city organization in Noirmoutier. René is the president. French meals are wonderful parts of the peoples’ culture. In a home, or when out with friends at a restaurant, there are multiple courses and folks linger and socialize, so the meal can last two hours or more.
Dinner began with an aperitif, called Kire, which is cassis (a berry liqueur) and wine mixed together, and little salted thingies, in this case Pringles. Knowing I don’t drink alcohol, they had a litre of orange juice for me. Then came a square squid loaf thingie with homemade mayonnaise topped with chives from the Moreaus’ garden. It was absolutely delicious. The main meal consisted of regional specialties, a bean and bacon dish in a casserole, and smoked ham. Then came the cheese platter, followed by a delicious gateaux Marie-T had made. It was a custard pie. Conversation sparkled the entire time, and continued around the table a good half-hour after everything was consumed. Gérard and Marie translated for us, and we were always included, never feeling left out.
We were up and ready by 8.30 Friday morning (OK, I was ten minutes late as I didn’t hear David wake up), but Marie-T was still putting the breakfast things out, so I didn’t feel too badly about my tardiness. After we ate, we had enough time to drive out to see the Passage du Gois at low tide before our first appointment. There were about six other vehicles parked by the ramp leading down to the road, observing as it came close to the time for the tide to come in. We drove halfway to the continent and then turned around at a turn-around spot. As traffic was light, we parked in the right lane (there is no shoulder) to take photos of one of the four towers build along the way, one every kilometer, that stranded motorists can climb as a last resort.
Fishermen keep an eye on the Gois as the tide comes in and sometimes must go out to rescue people who didn’t pay attention to the electronic tide schedules posted at each end of the passage. We found little escargot snails clinging to the concrete base of the tower we examined. Marie-T was filling a plastic bag with them.
We soon noticed the water was lapping at the edge of the roadway, so we hopped back into Gérard’s Mercedes and headed back toward the island. With about 100 metres to go, he said we could hop out and walk to the car that he drove ahead, so that we could observe the tide coming in. He said it is a slow tide today, but we could visually see it moving more and more into the road, soon reducing the passage to one lane from two. Then with a gurgle it went completely across the road in one spot. You could hear it gurgling as it flowed. We snapped a last couple of photos and headed for the car. By then the passenger-side wheels were in water, so Gérard moved the car into the dry lane. We actually had to jump over a 3-foot-wide flow of water at one point before we got to the car. What a cool experience, and one of the things that makes Noirmoutier so special! (There is only one other place in the world, in Australia, where access to a residential island is by a road only available at low tide.)
We were then expected at the Collége du Sorbet, a local middle school, where we met the headmaster, whom I was expected to interview, though I didn’t know it until we sat down with him. Marie translated as we discussed the students’ expectations for their upcoming visit to Crestview. Then he took us upstairs to meet an English class, some of the students from which will be coming to Crestview next year. They are sharp, well-informed kids, and asked me questions about topics such as the presidential elections, what people in Crestview think of the French, the financial situation, if kids like video games in the U.S., and does Crestview have a football team. David helped me out with some of the answers, such as the financial situation one. They seemed a great bunch of kids.
A headline in the latest “Challenges,” a business magazine, reads “Palin devient un risque pour les Republicains.” Sen. Obama is hugely popular over here. Dr. Reed, who holds dual French and American citizenship, is eagerly following the campaign and has placed a lot of hope in Obama.
Lunch was the mussels I described above, served in a nice sidewalk place near the harbor, which is more of a wide canal. It was starting to fill up as the tide we had watched cover the Gois reached inland. The boats were beginning to rise from the bed of mud they were resting in. After lunch we met another Marie, who is a representative of the local tourist authority, and who joined us on a tour of the north end of the island. We saw several pretty beaches, quaint little towns, a major harbor with a ship-building and fishing industry, and, most interesting, the salt marshes. The premium salt is called Fleur des Sel (flower of salt), which forms naturally on the surface of the square pools in the salt harvesting areas. It requires a good easterly wind and dry weather to form, but as this season was quite rainy, production was not good.
Back in town we visited a boat maker who continues the craft of wooden boat manufacture. Many of his commissions are restorations of existing vessels, including several traditional local oystering boats. He has a worker who speaks English, to whom we were introduced. His name is Evan and his English was flawless—because he is a Franco-American, born and raised in Paris, but moved to Maine as a child with his French father.
Evan was a real nice guy, and explained a lot about boat-making, which he studied at an academy in Maine after he graduated college and did a stint in contracting. The boats they were working on were traditional fishing and pleasure boats, though they also had a sleek sailing yacht they had just refurbished in their dry dock barn. Evan expressed interest in the sister city program and said he’d be glad to receive and answer questions from Crestview residents considering a visit to our sister city.
We had time for a little stroll around town and a poke in a shop, where I got a couple souvenirs. We walked back to the Moreaus’ and departed for René and Madeleine’s where we met with three students who won’t be able to join us for a reception tomorrow for the other students and parents who will come to Crestview next November. The two boys and girl were shy and only one exercised any English, reading questions he had previously prepared very carefully to me. Gérard helped translate my answers.
Then it was off to Marie’s beautiful hold home, stuffed to the rafters with all sorts of very cool bric-a-brac. It was like being in a museum. She had the pre-meal aperitif, which was champagne this time (and OJ again for me), and the little salties were French potato sticks and a cheese filled little round snackie. Dinner in her compact dining room was served on her mother’s service, which was octagonal and rather rare, we were told. It began with a fish soup, followed by roasted little birds of some sort, which were cooked with carrots, peas and Noirmoutier potatoes. Next came the cheeses, served with a green salad with a mustard vinegrette. Dessert was a fabulous apple torte.
Saturday we had a 10.30 reception with the mayor and fire chief, but first visited the Atlantic beach to see some historic windmills. In the afternoon we met with the students and parents who will visit Crestview. More on that in my next post.
I can confidently assure readers that you would really like this place. It is so varied and diverse, and the people are tremendously kind and hospitable. They all eagerly await the visit from their Crestview “sisters.” I certainly want to come back and have more time to explore, spending at least a day at the wonderful little beach Marie showed us. She assured me we could have the use of beach hut number 3, which is hers.
Right now we’re aboard the speedy red Thalys express train hurtling toward Brussels, where we’ll switch to an overnighter to Münster, Germany. There we will change to a regional express bound for Leer, a maritime town on the North Sea.
