Nantes and the disputed region of Brittany and the Loire Valley

Having stated before that France is a very unique country, I was recently even more surprised to learn some of its history and its remnants in the neighboring administrative regions of Brittany (Bretagne) and the Loire Valley (Pays de la Loire). The family with whom I am staying is both Korean and Bretonne. Last week during breakfast, I asked her about her family and about the region from where her family came. It turned into a lengthy conversation about the history of the region and the hundreds of years-old dispute over cultural and administrative borders in the western part of France. I will give you a quick overview since that is what I got and since that is all I have room for. I live in the Loire Valley, and just 40 minutes away by train is the city of Nantes where I went this weekend and where many of my French friends study and live. That city is one of the focal points in the dispute. Hundreds of years ago, around the 15th century, the Duke of Bretagne (I think the French name for the area is much prettier…don’t you?) built a castle in Nantes. It is very lovely and now holds a small, free museum which anyone can access. Obviously, at that point, Nantes was considered Briton. It wasn’t until the end of the 15th century when a marriage between Anne de Bretagne and the French king Charles was consecrated that Nantes and Bretagne became a part of France. Slowly by slowly the area around Nantes, including the access to the Atlantic Ocean was removed from the jurisdiction of Bretagne and placed in the administrative region of the Loire Valley. However, leaving Nantes, you would have no idea you were still in the Loire Valley. In my opinion, post cards are the best way to remind yourself where you are, and all I saw were post cards heralding the beauty of Bretagne and the sites of Bretagne like a shameless cock. It was rather quite comic, but very true. I will revisit Loire Valley/Bretagne a little later.

Nantes is about double the size of Angers and is a center for students of all different types of majors and fields of study. The people I know attend a school that is a part of the Grandes Ecoles, which means that the majority of them spent two years after high school, working like mad, to prepare for the entrance into this school. It is a very elite system in France, and you must pay your dues in order to be a part of the rigor. There are two rivers that pass through Nantes, the larger and navigable Loire and the smaller Erdre. It was voted the most livable city in Europe in 2004, 2005 and 2007 and it was not difficult to see why. You could either walk or take the tram or bus quite easily; the city center is practically completely pedestrian friendly; and there are crêperies, a restaurant where they only serve crêpes – who wouldn’t be happy to live in a town like that! Delightfully prancing around town, one of my good friends from Washington and I saw the majority of what Nantes had to offer.
Although I saw and did a range of things – ate crêpes on a boat, visited the LU tower (Lefèure-Utile, a famous cookie maker that originated in Nantes) with a 360 degree panorama of the city, saw the Chateau of the Duke of Bretagne and went out to a private night club until 5 am (never done that before!) - my favorite and most memorable part of the trip was the trip out to the ocean. When my friend asked me if I would like to go see the ocean, I realized that I have never really seen the real Atlantic Ocean. I have seen the Hudson Bay and the Potomac River and the Gulf of Mexico, but never the Atlantic Ocean. What an experience and how lovely! Honestly, all large bodies of water look the same from the shore line. I mean, it is not as if you can see how far it stretches, but after having said that, it was magnificent. I have not been to any grand body of water in quite some time and frankly, I forgot the smell, forgot the flavor of the air and the way the mist lightly coats the skin, forgot the feel of the sandy and salty water on my legs as I get enough courage to dip them in the water, forgot the sound of the water crashing on the banks of dry land, compacting the once supple and soft sand. I knew that we were still in the administrative region of the Loire Valley, but if I had not been familiar with the official regional designations, I do not think that I would have been able to tell. There were no indicators of being in a region called the Pays de la Loire. Everything said Bretagne! I ate a Breton cake, tasted Breton caramels, savored Breton cookies, saw the Breton flag, browsed through Breton souvenirs such as hand painted bowls and pottery for which they are known, and tasted the salt of the salt flats considered to be Breton! Those were quite interesting. It is a region and in fact a town, Guérande, very close to the ocean, and there is a small tributary that feeds into the flats, providing them with constant moisture, which the salt workers manage. It is one of the only areas in France where artisans of sort work the salt flats. It is all manual labor, from start to finish. They are organized into small squares which allow the water to flow in a pattern. The squares are adorned with a series of mounds where the salt is actually put during the harvest. The salt workers comb the salt from the earth and put it on these mounds until the mound is full. Harvesting in July or August, I only saw the remainders of the fields, which were already soaked with water once again.

Moving on from the salt flats, where I saw people selling bags of salt and other products related to salt on the side of the road, we went to a small town called Le Croisic, where the buildings face the water in a lovely and quaint manner, and the hundred crêperies stand as a testament to the apparent fame that crêpes have received in this region. Strolling through the town, I think I passed one creperie for every person I saw. However, there were a few sandwich stands, where we stopped to grab a little something to eat by the port, gazing at impressive boats and the waves that rose up and fell with the movement of the wind and the currents. Besides the seagull that refused to leave us alone and who sang its annoying and shrill song, the moment was incredible. After a drive through La Baule where one can see modernization and tourism at its worst with all the new and ugly hotels that crowd the shoreline, we were off to go back home. There is something about the immensness of the ocean that always makes me feel at peace. I think knowing that I cannot see its entirety but the fact that the entirety does exist is something I can compare to the life Christ has given me. I know that he has a plan for my life, but I cannot see that plan. I can only see what is right in front of me; I just need to keep swimming.