Bretagne

This afternoon we flew to Nantes in northwestern France. Emilie's sister is getting married tomorrow in St. Nazaire (the groom's hometown) and we'll stay in the area through Wednesday in order to explore a bit of the Brittany region.

Emilie's mom and grandma picked us up at the airport. This was my first time meeting her grandma (affectionately known as "La Mamie") and, being a bit nervous, said the equivalent of "what's up Mamie?" in French when introduced. This wasn't my intent, but Emilie said the same thing and I simply followed her lead rather than using a more formal salutation. Fortunately, no offense was taken and a nice laugh was had at my expense.

We're staying the weekend in La Baule, which is a seaside resort town that boasts Europe's longest sandy beach (12km). In the summer the town is reportedly bustling with French tourists, but in the early fall it has a much more relaxed "off-season" feel.

The weather was gorgeous, so after arriving at the hotel we walked around a bit along the beachfront. There were a few people on the beach taking advantage of the summer-like weather, but for the most part it was pretty quiet.

While I really liked the sandy beach, which reminded me a lot of Southern California's coastline, the beachfront development was a bit much. Unfortunately, very few of the older beach cottages remain and instead have been replaced by hotel and condo developments that lack the charm of their predecessors.

We walked around the interior of the town as well. Here's a nice church (Chapelle Saint-Anne) that we passed along the way.

While walking back to the hotel we passed an advertisement that I felt accurately portrays Emilie's general demeanor while driving. Emilie indulged in my humor with a photo.

The rest of the night was fairly mellow as we had a relaxing dinner at the hotel. Here's the view that we had from our hotel balcony as the sunset approached.