Visiting Ile-aux-Moines
(Brittany, France) with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget
One
of our friends in Paris had a family home on the Ile-aux-Moines (Monks’ Island)
off the coast of Vannes in Brittany, France.
On
a crisp, fall day, my husband Laurent, toddler Florence, and I set out for
Vannes to pretend to be banished fishermen on the Ile-aux-Moines.
No
cars are allowed on the island, so we trudged all of Florence’s toddler
equipment (tricycle, helmet, multiple changes of clothing, sippy cups and so
on) onto the island by making several ferryboat trips back and forth in the
rain. (It rains all the time in Brittany
in the winter.)
Our
friend’s family had a medieval era stone house on the island that was very
chilly in the rain. (Homes in Brittany
all have very pointy roofs to let rain fly off roofs quickly and far away from
homes.)
I
told our friend that she needed tapestries from Aubusson to hold in heat.
“It’s
never warm in here. Tapestries would hold in the cold,” she said.
Florence
wore layers of little T-shirts and American sweatsuits that my University of
Chicago roommate wisely bought for her when I came to show off “bébé Florence”
to the good-looking Greeks in Chicago.
We
forgot our chills when our friend came back with spiny lobsters for each of us.
She
made a bowl of homemade mayonnaise to spread on baguette toast to go with the
lobster meat. We drank a Bourgogne
Aligoté white wine with this ruddy meal.
We
ignored the sheets of rain thudding on the roof and listened to rock
music. I taught Florence how to dance to
the rhythm of the Rolling Stones, U2 and BB King, and Rai music from France.
We
visited Ile-aux-Moines several times and even went to a wedding there. Laurent filmed the wedding that had lots of
strolling musicians playing bagpipes and harps and little girls twirling pixie
baskets full of flowers.
By
Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France
Click here for: Ruth Paget's Amazon Books
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