Vacation Planning, delayed edition.

[rubato]

Ok, so last year we had started planning to go but a serious family emergency intervened and then things got a lot worse so, no go. So to speak.

The original plan was to go back to Paris for 5 days, then go to Bordeaux, Bairritz and environs for a while then back to Paris for a couple more days then home. 2 weeks in all and we would take the TGV to Bordeaux and rent a car while there.

But ...

Now, after the 5 days in Paris we're thinking of taking the TGV to Rennes and renting a car there and going to St Malo for 2-3 nights and then either on to Brest ( with a name like that it HAS to be pretty great, am I right? ) or the channel islands (Jersey and Guernsey) and than back to Paris &c.

So what do you know about the options? Bordeaux is a much bigger city and has a lot more Michelin-starred restaurants to choose from*. Bayonne, Bairritz and scooting over the border to San Sebastian looks interesting. Brest (I love that word, just to look at!) has a great Naval museum. And we love Ferry Boat rides, or any kind of boat rides, so going to Jersey and Guernsey has something to recommend just in getting there and a break from speaking French might be nice after a week+.


yrs,
rubato

Just sharing the joy, really.

*Are we bad luck? Two restaurants we ate in last time LOST their stars! Fogon and Le Duchesse Anne.

[MajGenl.Meade]

Perhaps the former changed its name to "Fogoff"?

Well either option sounds wonderful really. I would have thought you'd go for Bourdeaux despite the continuous French!

Our own planned France trip this year has been postponed (Paris; Burgundy; Normandy). I misread yours to say "St Lo" rather than St Malo and was going to ask for your impressions of Normandy when you get back - oh well.

I hope you enjoy your choice

[rubato]

Normandy last time. Stayed in Rouen, where Jeanne d'Arc was murdered by the Christians, our hotel was a few yards from her chapel, beautiful Cathedral and mideval city, and admired the big clock ('gros horlage' in Frenchy) Should have stayed 2 nights. Stayed just N. of Bayeaux but didn't see the tapestry. Visited Caen, the Normandy beaches and Colville Sur Mer (an obligation). Should has spent 2 days there as well. Mont St Michel, would never book a hotel there again. Those lying shiftless assholes bumped us from a room with a view of the Mont* for someone else and we wound up in a much worse hotel reeking of cigarette smoke, should have stayed in St Malo another night instead (which we will this time). Mont St Michel itself is nice but a bit like Disneyland.

Lovely people everywhere.

yrs,
rubato

*Which had been reserved months in advance. My carpool partner is a sometime travel agent and said that this is not uncommon.

[Daisy]

Brest is really nice, I really like the Finistere department of Brittany. The food is better than anywhere else in France. Paris leaves me utterly cold, it's a grubby, seedy, dog-muck encrusted, overpriced pickpockets paradise.

Most romantic city in the world... My arse it is!

[MajGenl.Meade]

My recollection of Paris (oh dear - 40 years ago) is that it was essential viewing to be completed as soon as possible. Hit the photo-ops, avoid the scammers with their cameras (who don't think the stupid Englishman knows the French for "pig" but sadly for one of 'em understood it only too well) and then get out of town to somewhere nice.

Thanks for the Normandy review, rube. A slight correction: everyone was nominally a "christian" in that time and place, including Joan, her persecutors, her defenders, her enemies and her friends. She was executed for political reasons (not religious) by the "christian" English using false church trial procedures, false witnesses, coercion and terror; she was later exonerated by "christians" in a properly constituted church enquiry which revealed the (to say the least) highly obvious English perfidy. A visit to Rouen does sound interesting.

[Lord Jim]

(who don't think the stupid Englishman knows the French for "pig" but sadly for one of 'em understood it only too well)

Well then perhaps they would have preferred the company of the earlier German "tourists"...

And for some reason, rube decides to shit in his own holiday thread, (well, better than shitting in somebody else's holiday thread, I suppose...) and gratuitously express both his bigotry and his ignorance:

where Jeanne d'Arc was murdered by the Christians

And what was St. Joan of Arc? A Buddhist?

[Gob]

And what was St. Joan of Arc? A Buddhist?

She was a Mithramist, wasn't she?

[rubato]

My recollection of Paris (oh dear - 40 years ago) is that it was essential viewing to be completed as soon as possible. Hit the photo-ops, avoid the scammers with their cameras (who don't think the stupid Englishman knows the French for "pig" but sadly for one of 'em understood it only too well) and then get out of town to somewhere nice.

Thanks for the Normandy review, rube. A slight correction: everyone was nominally a "christian" in that time and place, including Joan, her persecutors, her defenders, her enemies and her friends. She was executed for political reasons (not religious) by the "christian" English using false church trial procedures, false witnesses, coercion and terror; she was later exonerated by "christians" in a properly constituted church enquiry which revealed the (to say the least) highly obvious English perfidy. A visit to Rouen does sound interesting.

Joan of Arc was murdered by a church 'judicial' proceeding. And I find it no less shocking for Christians to murder Christians under color of religion. But perhaps to you it is ok if Catholic priests only bugger Catholic boys?

In any case, it illustrates why the world needed to strip the church of temporal power to advance the cause of justice.

yrs,
rubato

[Joe Guy]

But perhaps to you it is ok if Catholic priests only bugger Catholic boys?

[MajGenl.Meade]

Joan of Arc was murdered by a church 'judicial' proceeding. And I find it no less shocking for Christians to murder Christians under color of religion. But perhaps to you it is ok if Catholic priests only bugger Catholic boys?

In any case, it illustrates why the world needed to strip the church of temporal power to advance the cause of justice.

yrs,
rubato

An illegally constituted judicial proceeding that ignored the Roman church rules and abused the lawful processes, under the direct control of the English political masters who overrode the objections of illegality in order to rid themselves of a potent French nationalist leader/symbol. Do you get the point that they were ALL "christians" at the time and had a happy time murdering each other with and without benefit of clergy. Your distasteful crudeness is as usual utter bilge.

[Lord Jim]

And of course Meade is absolutely right; it was about political intrigue and a power struggle to which religion was only incidental (which is of course true of most of what those ignorant of the actual history of the Middle Ages frequently attempt to blame on "religion"...)

And of course the Church as an institution later admitted it's error (hence the whole "Saint" thing...)

Which makes the Catholic Church better than our rube, who has never once admitted to any of the innumerable mistakes he has made here...(including of course, this one...)

The Catholic Church may not be the greatest at admitting mistakes, (it took them a long time to get around to Galileo...) but even their record for acknowledging when they've been wrong is vastly superior to that of rube's...

[Jarlaxle]

And what was St. Joan of Arc? A Buddhist?

She was a Mithramist, wasn't she?

I thought the consensus was "nuts"?

[MajGenl.Meade]

Roast chestnuts

[rubato]

Joan of Arc was murdered by a church 'judicial' proceeding. And I find it no less shocking for Christians to murder Christians under color of religion. But perhaps to you it is ok if Catholic priests only bugger Catholic boys?

In any case, it illustrates why the world needed to strip the church of temporal power to advance the cause of justice.

yrs,
rubato

An illegally constituted judicial proceeding that ignored the Roman church rules and abused the lawful processes, under the direct control of the English political masters who overrode the objections of illegality in order to rid themselves of a potent French nationalist leader/symbol. Do you get the point that they were ALL "christians" at the time and had a happy time murdering each other with and without benefit of clergy. Your distasteful crudeness is as usual utter bilge.

Your crude excuse for Christians murdering other (putative) Christians is complete sewerage slop.

The world has only become a better place because the power of the church to murder when it suited their venial purpose has been reduced and the replacement, while imperfect, is light-years better. No women have been burned to death for wearing men's clothes (when no other clothes were given them) in more than two centuries. Progress.

yrs,
rubato

[Joe Guy]

I'm sorry that you are such an unhappy person.

Please go to France and stay there.

[rubato]

I'm sorry that you are such an unhappy person.

Please go to France and stay there.

I am a very happy and successful person. The French love us. We love them. We spend a lot of money. They like that. We like that! C'est Bon!


I am sorry that you are so stupid but we need a certain number of low-functioning people like you to make things work here. But if you would prefer to go to Texas, where your relative standing would increase a little, you would not be much of a loss. There are so many at your level that we would not suffer. Or you could go to Mississippi !? Raising the average IQ of both states!


yrs,
rubato

[Joe Guy]

I am sorry that you are so stupid but we need a certain number of low-functioning people like you to make things work here....

Oops! I hit a nerve.

If you take a breath it might help you calm down...

Especially if it's a staccato breath...

[rubato]

Maybe a dictionary cannot help you. You need someone to explain what the words mean.

yrs,
rubato

[Joe Guy]

Maybe you need this....

[Gob]

What do you call a pointless race that covers 2,200 miles throughout France?

















The French.