Road Tripping Through Normandy and Brittany.

After our tour of the D-Day landing sites, we took a road trip through Normandy and Brittany, stopping in Livarot, Dinan, St. Malo, and, of course Mont Saint Michel, before returning to Bayeux. We rented a Nissan Qashqai, a crossover SUV that I'd never heard of, but was a delight to drive.

Livarot is one of our favorite strong cheeses. The town it is named after is only about a 45-minute drive from Bayeux. The family-owned fromagerie where it is made, E. Graindorge has been producing cheese since 1910. They know what they're doing. In addition to Livarot, they also make two of our other favorite cheeses: Pont l'Eveque and Camembert de Normandy. 

Before this trip we were never big fans of Camembert. We liked it, but weren't wild about it. The Camembert we had in Normandy was a revelation, rich and complex in a way that the export version can't match.

The difference is that the cheese in France is unpasteurized, allowing a more diverse set of bacteria to colonize and flavor the cheese. The French are willing to follow the stringent sanitary procedures necessary to produce unpasteurized cheeses safely. And the results are magnificent.

The tour of the fromagerie is self-guided and free. We were hoping for a more intensive tour and tasting, but all we got is a couple samples at the crowded cheese shop at the end of the tour. Tasty, but not what we'd hoped for.

Next was the charming little town of Dinan in Brittany.

It's incredibly picturesque: narrow, cobbled streets filled with patisseries, charcuteries, and fromageries. We ate well.

The river Rance runs through Dinan and offers lovely walking trails.

We walked from our hotel in town down to the river and followed it downstream to the old port.

It was even more charming than Dinan itself.

After a relaxing couple days in Dinan, we drove about 30 minutes to the coastal town of St. Malo. The old town here is completely surrounded by a wall that doubles as a promenade.

We sampled some of the famous local products, including their delicious cider.

At low tide, you can walk from the town to some of the old fortresses built on prominences flanking the town walls.

When the tide comes in, the forts become tiny islands.

Before.

And after.

The sunset that evening was especially intense.

On our way from St. Malo to Mont Saint Michel, we paid a visit to one of my favorite producers of scotch whisky--the Glann ar Mor Distillery in North Brittany. It's about as close to an Islay distillery as you can get outside of Scotland, situated on a little finger of land hooking into the English Channel.

A lovely, windswept setting for a delicious dram.

Kornog, west in Gaelic, is their flagship product: complex, full of iodine and peaty goodness.

Mont Saint Michel was everything you might expect: surreal, magical, and crowded with tourists.

We walked across the causeway and about halfway up to the top, but I was dehydrated. I got light-headed and couldn't go any further. After drinking a lot of water, I recovered, but decided I'd had enough.

There was much to see on the lower levels. Seagulls have built nests right next to the walkways and seem completely unfazed by the hundreds of tourists clomping by inches from their precious eggs.

Speaking of precious eggs, La Mere Poulard has been serving some of the world's best omelets since 1888 when Anna Poulard perfected a method of cooking omelets over an open fire. 

It's impressive to watch the cooking process, which requires impeccable timing to produce the perfectly cooked result.

And oh how delicious that result is. Crisp on the outside, moist and fluffy on the inside.

If you've ever watched the anime "Castle in the Sky," you can see immediately where Miyazaki got the idea for the design of Laputa.

After our road trip through Normandy and Brittany, we took the train back to Paris to meet our granddaughter, Luciya. She told us last year that she would really like to go on a trip with us, and her first choice was Europe, especially Greece and Italy. We were happy to accompany her.

We had only one night in Paris before our flight to Athens, and Luciya wanted to try snails. Of course Paris has an entire restaurant dedicated to escargot: L'escargot de Montorgueil. They've been serving snails at the same location since 1835, so they know their gastropod gastronomy.

How it started.

How it ended.

Okay, so snails aren't Luciya's jam. But she loved the few hours we spent in the City of Light.

And she's excited for our time in Greece.

P.