I have always thought of Brittany and Normandy as cold, windswept, slightly damp and very forbidding places. Picture centuries of shepherdesses in soggy woolen frocks dying of pneumonia at 25 while their craggy, fishermen husbands are smashed to bits against rocky cliffs leaving their 7 anemic children to wilt away into the same short lives their parents had. Cheerful, 'ey?
But, thank you Mum for taking me as a child and making sure I saw it for the beautiful place it is...a land with a delicious Pâtisserie around every other corner! Seriously brain, couldn't you recall other things like Mont Saint-Michel or the Bayeux tapestry. Okay, I do vaguely remember that stuff (sort of like the little and somewhat redundant chocolate glaze over the tops of the eclairs!)
Anyhow, catching up on Bourdain's show (thank you Netflix) and I realized that if you were super loaded (not just rich, but riiiiich) and went at the right time of year, it could be just about the best place in the world. Sort of the original of what coastal New England is always pretending at.
For us mere mortals though, it'd probably be a once in a lifetime deal with time and money wasted on ugly hotels, bad restaurants and chintzy tourist shops.
Even if we ever end up wealthier than sin, I probably still won't get there again. However, it is something to dream of and sometimes that may be better than the reality? After all, in my mind I eat those eclairs for breakfast every day and that has gotten me thru many bland bowls of cereal.
