Attending the Marian Procession at Rochefort-en-Terre (Brittany, France) with Juilliard Graduate Florence Paget and Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Attending the Marian Procession at Rochefort-en-Terre (Brittany, France) with Juilliard Graduate Florence Paget and Savvy Mom Ruth Paget


The next town on our Deep Brittany itinerary was Rochefort-en-Terre.  This town had carefully preserved its sixteenth and seventeenth century buildings – no television antennas, dishes, or electrical wires mar the town.

The American painter Klots lived here and created the “Villes Fleuries” (Most Flower-filled Town) competition in 1911.  I wished a French painter would come to the United States and start a similar competition.  I was surprised that American master gardeners had not come up with a similar idea.

The Church Nôtre-Dame-de-la-Tonchaye in Rochefort had an interesting story that is similar to many others throughout Europe.  The story relates that a peasant girl found a statue of the Virgin in a tree.  The statue was hidden from the Normans during their invasions of Brittany during the ninth and tenth centuries.

The statue that is found in the church today is the same one that was found by the peasant girl so many centuries ago.  I did not see the statue of the Virgin and thought nothing of it as we went out to the main street for a rest.

We were ambling along the rue Principale when we heard singing.  Earlier we had heard singing from a park and had assumed that there was an open-air mass.  We did not realize that the singing was part of the procession for the famous Virgin from the church.

A crown surged down the street singing hymns in Latin led by the bishop, who was dressed in purple.  People planned vacations around processions like these, and we just happened to be in the right place at the right time.  I like good luck.

By Ruth Paget, Author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Visiting St. Gildas des Bois and Redon (Brittany) with Juilliard Graduate Florence Paget and Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Visiting St. Gildas des Bois and Redon (Brittany, France) with Juilliard Graduate Florence Paget and Savvy Mom Ruth Paget


My daughter Florence and I began our tour of deep Brittany, or le Bretagne Profond, in St. Gildas des Bois, France.

This town reminded me of Virginia with its beautiful gardens and pretty churches.  We arrived just in time for mass in the town’s gray, granite church that was cool inside despite the warm weather outside.  It is hard to carve a stone like granite, leaving church façades rather austere.

I thought this church would be desolate looking in winter, especially since it rains so much in Brittany.  Next to the church stands a convent that was built in the eleventh century.  We saw a couple of nuns leaving in their old and tiny, but immaculately clean cars.

This way-off-the-beaten-track church and convent made me think of how the church still organizes much of the life in this part of France.

After visiting St. Gildas des Bois, my daughter Florence and I visited Redon, which my Michelin Guide du Routard called a Breton Venice, because its many bridges span the Nantes-Brest Canal.  Several vacationers in canal boats floated by as we admired the scene.

The most striking feature about Redon when you arrive is its floral decoration.  Huge pots of flowers decorate every street, making Redon a contender for the coveted “Most Flower-filled Town of France” award.  The city hall had red geraniums cascading down its three stories.  Flowers framed the entrance to the building.  Even the suspended tracks for France’s high speed TGV trains were decorated with flowers.

Deep Brittany is a flower-filled path to follow!

P.S. I just learned from Michelet's History of France that Heloise and Abelard had a rendezvous in Saint Gildas according to the Bretons.

By Ruth Paget, Author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Visiting the Dobree Museum in Nantes (France) with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Visiting the Dobree Museum in Nantes (France) with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget


One of the most interesting museums in Nantes, France is the Dobrée Museum.  The Museum houses the collection of Thomas Dobrée, who earned his fortune in the slave and sugar trade in the nineteenth century.

There were many merchants in Nantes who had shares in “ebony wood” as the slaves were described.  The merchants, who earned their profits from the slave trade and New World products, were called “armateurs”.  The luxurious apartments and homes of the armateurs make Nantes look elegant to this day.

Dobrée was particularly rich and had his own house and not an apartment.  His family was very international.  On his maternal side, his ancestors came from Guernsey and Germany.

My favorite piece in his collection was a thirteenth century reliquary chest from the Limousin that almost looks cloisonné, but it was really wood, stamped leather, gold, and colored glass.

Most of the work in the collection was from the Middle Ages.  A Flemish holy family triptych from the sixteenth century also caught my eye.  Flemish figures have such gentle gestures in paintings.  I never realized that carved that carved ivories of religious scenes were painted until I saw a sixteenth century diptych at the Dobrée Museum, featuring the Madonna on one side and a crucified Christ on the other.

The Museum’s real treasure is Anne de Bretagne’s gold, heart-shaped reliquary from 1514, topped with a crown signifying that she was Queen of France.

I was happy to be fluent in French in this lovely Museum, because French was the only language on the exhibit labels.  This reminded me of American museums, which only give information in English.  Both countries assume that you will read their languages when seeking out their art treasures.

By Ruth Paget, Author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Visiting Basel (Switzerland) with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Visiting Basel (Switzerland) with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

My husband Laurent and I visited Basel, Switzerland, because it is part of the cultural region that encompasses Alsace, France and the Baden-Würtemberg region in Germany where we lived.

Switzerland is part of the Schengen Area, which allows for the free flow of travelers once you are inside Europe’s borders.  However, travelers and Swiss residents alike must post a Swiss vignette in their car windshield to prove that they have contributed to the upkeep of mountainous roads.  The vignette costs 40 Swiss Francs and is a pricey amount to put on top of your lunch outing, but the views are worth it.

Basel is Switzerland’s third largest city after Zurich and Geneva.  Bridges into the city center tower over the rolling Rhine River below that flows to Rotterdam in the Netherlands.  Basel’s port, chemical and pharmaceutical companies, and banks are its main industries.

Bank offices surround the Market Plaza downtown and showcase the Rathaus.  The Rathaus, city hall, is very German, being built in red stone with murals painted on it.  German is the language of Basel.  French, Italian, and Romansch (a Latin language) are the other three official languages of Switzerland.  However, if you do not speak German, English is the preferred lingua franca of Basel.

We ate in a restaurant directly opposite the Rathaus.  I dined like a local.  I ordered fried cervelat sausage, grated and fried rösti potatoes, salad, and hefeweizen, wheat beer.  Laurent ate freshly harvested Alpine mussels.

Cervelat is made of beef, bacon, and pork rind.  The Swiss consider it one of their national dishes.  The rösti poatatoes, fried in duck fat, are beloved by German Swiss, but not by French Swiss.  The French Swiss eat their sliced potatoes baked with milk, crème fraiche, butter, and gruyère cheese.  I think both taste good and make the French Swiss potatoes in winter.

Gruyère cheese, by the way, is French Swiss cheese.  It has no holes in it.  Emmenthal, the German Swiss cheese, has holes in it.  Emmenthal is what is known as Swiss cheese in the United States.

Basel’s most famous Swiss export, though, is Roger Federer, the seven-time Wimbledon champion and Rolex wearer.

The University of Basel, Switzerland’s oldest university founded in 1460, has produced some famous alumni as well.  Among the alumni are Carl Jung (1875 – 1961), the psychiatrist who founded analytical psychiatry, and Leonhard Euler (1707 – 1783), the mathematician and physicist, who created modern mathematical notation.

Basel invites multiple visits especially as the auto vignette is good for one year.  According to Switzerland – Culture Smart! The Essential Guide to Customs and Culture by Kendall Maycock, there are 27,000 restaurants in Switzerland, which makes this densely populated Alpine country worth the entry fee for lunch choices.

Note: For great sausage stateside, I like Aidells.)

By Ruth Paget, Author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Laurent Paget Photography

Laurent Paget Photography

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Visiting Heidelberg (Germany) with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Visiting Heidelberg (Germany) with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Heidelberg, located in southwestern Germany, is famous for its university, printing presses, and Gothic castle that is perched high above the Neckar River.

Heidelberg has an important history in Germany and Europe as home to the Palatinate electors, who voted for the Holy Roman Emperor.

Charlemagne (c. 742 – 814) was crowned first Holy Roman Emperor in 800, the first Roman Emperor since the Fall of the Roman Empire.  Charlemagne is considered to be French and German.  The Germans date the beginning of the Holy Roman Empire at 962 with ascension of Otto I (912 – 973) to the throne, a wholly Germanic figure.

According to a Deutsches Historiches Museum exhibit about the Holy Roman Empire, the Empire was decentralized, multilingual, and multidenominational.  It covered Germany, Austria, and Central Europe.  This diverse cultural base of the Holy Roman Empire required adroit diplomats and politicians to hold it together.  The Germans of the Palatinate, of which Heidelberg is a political center, distinguished themselves for meeting the needs of the Empire.

The Holy Roman Emperor was elected by an elite group of churchmen and princely electors.  The position of Emperor was not hereditary; each candidate had to be a skillful politician to get elected.

The last Holy Roman Emperor was Emperor Franz II (1768 – 1835).  He abdicated the throne in 1806 and assumed just the title of Emperor of Austria as Franz I.

Heidelberg’s importance somewhat diminished with the end of the Holy Roman Empire, but one look at the solid, stone houses leading up to the castle alerts visitors to the town’s self-assuredness of its historical role in creating modern Germany and Europe.

By Ruth Paget, Author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Laurent Paget Photography

Laurent Paget Photography

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