 Madrid and NantesBack to main pageWe left home at a little after 7 on September 29 since were on a flight scheduled to leave Chicago at 4:45 p.m. After droping the dogs off at doggie daycare we made great time to Chicago and got to the airport before 2. Our flight to Madrid went smoothly. We had ordered special meals and enjoyed a nice meal of halibut, roasted potatoes, salad and fresh strawberries.
Our plane for Nantes came from a connecting airline associated with Air Iberia. It was one of the smallest jets we've been on, but the flight was very comfortable and we got to see some of the places we visited in France in 2003. We spotted the Bassin d'Arcachon, the mouth of the Gironde and La Rochelle. In addition we noticed there were many rows of windmill generators. We saw lots more of these generators in Brittany. We had slept pretty well on the flight, so when we got to Nantes we got lunch at the airport and got on a bus to go into town. It was very warm and we were way overdressed. We were surprised that the busfare was one Euro each. We had expected more, but it turns out we could take the bus to the end of the tram line and transfer as often as we wanted to for one hour. On the tram, Jan overheard a little boy bragging about his English; she told him his English was very good. She then started to talk to him in French and he said his English wasn't as good as her French! This is the second little boy who she picked up in France by speaking French and English. Wonder if there is a trend? We got into town but left ourselves a little walk. It turns out we were close to our hotel, but we did a lot of wandering around on dead-end streets. One thing we knew from our map was that the very ornate tower we spotted was near the hotel. We found out that the tower was part of Le Lieu Unique (the unique place). It has a restaurant, library, art gallery and theater that was created in what had been part of a famous butter cookie factory that is now located on the outskirts of Nantes. Our hotel, the Brit, was a brand new hotel in Nantes that just opened in July 2009. The staff was very helpful and friendly.
After showering we went out to explore the town. First we walked along the river and then along a small canal where boats were moored. We walked over a bridge to get across railroad tracks and into the city. There was a very large carnival at the top of the hill behind the cathedral. It had been there all summer and wound up that weekend. The last of the carnival was being removed when we were leaving the next week. It was quite a colorful site from the bottom of the hill. As we walked around the pedestrian area we found lots of small stores and some restaurants, but their weren't many restaurants. We spotted the bell tower of Eglise Ste. Croix and the statues of trumpet players at the top. The church itself was not that spectacular, but after we walked around the corner we found a whole street of restaurants. That was just the tip of the iceberg. Most of the streets in that area had restaurants of every type imaginable. We were looking for a crêperie, and we had five or six to choose from within a block. Between the first day and last two in Nantes we had crêpes at three different restaurants. Jan had a spinach and mushroom crêpe and I had one stuffed with ham and cheese. We also had a pitcher of hard cider Brittany is famous for. That amounts to one glass per person, and at this point that was all we could consume. We slept from 6 p.m. until 7 the following morning.
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The airport in Madrid is a little difficult to negotiate the first time you get there. We landed in terminal 4S and had to go to terminal 4 which is about a half-mile away. We knew we had to find the train but it took us a little longer than we thought. We got to the gate where our plane was going to be in plenty of time and I had time to study the ceiling of the airport. Both terminals have the same ceilings (photo at right).
