Touring the Nantes Art Museum (France) with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Touring the Nantes Art Museum (France) with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

The Nantes Art Museum was a much-anticipated destination for me to visit the next day.  The museum is a gem that has works by important artists of almost every period.  I would not say that all works are important, but they were all created by important artists.

Nantes’ history explains where the funds for the collection of items in the art museum came from.  The city’s wealth was built on the slave and sugar trade during the 16^th to the 18^th centuries.

The “armateurs” or traders called the slave trade “the ebony wood” commerce.  Nantes was an active participant in the Triangle Trade of slaves, rum, and cotton for the fashion industry.  Even Voltaire, the champion of liberty had shares in an ebony wood venture.

Nantes transformed itself in the 18^th century for three major reasons:

-the abolition of slavery during the French Revolution

-the French sugar beet replaced sugar cane from the Caribbean as the main source of sugar during the Napoleonic Empire

-boats able to hold larger cargoes had trouble docking at the quay in Nantes

Contemporary industry in Nantes is centered around steel, cookies, and the port business.  The Donges port houses important oil reserves.

The city’s history is a necessary digression to understand how the city of Nantes and its citizens have the money to endow and maintain their lovely museum.

When you enter the museum, you find yourself in a large hallway with Neo-Classical sculpture all around you.  As you walk straight ahead, you find yourself in front of a small landing.

This landing gives you two directional choices.  You can continue walking into the interior courtyard, which is painted white and has arcades opening up onto the second-floor gallery.

Or, you can climb one of the general staircases in white marble on either side of the landing.  Just one of these staircases would have been impressive.

There are two square galleries surrounding a central courtyard, which maximizes wall spaces.  “Old Masters” are located upstairs and “Modern Masters” are located downstairs.

Of the “Old Masters,” I like the portrait of Madame de Sennones by Jean-Dominique Ingres.  The subject, wearing a red velvet dress, has no less than 5 big, ruby rings on her fingers.

This surprised me, since the French bourgeoisie favors restraint in its accessories. 

I had to leave the Museum before I could visit the modern art downstairs.  The Nantes Art Museum has many paintings by Kandinsky, who is an important artist for the advertising industry.

Kandisnsky’s abstract art uses lines and various angles to draw a viewer’s eyes around a painting and to one or more vanishing points.  Advertisements subtly do this as well, which is why Kandinsky is still relevant today as an artist.

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

Click here for:  Ruth Paget's Amazon Books

Ruth Paget Selfie

Visiting Pouliguen (France): Sunbathing at Brittany's Family Beach with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Visiting Pouliguen (France):  Sunbathing on Brittany’s Family Beach with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Pouliguen is a family-oriented beach in Brittany, which means that there is no topless bathing like there is in the next town along the coast at La Baule.

We went to the crêperie called Au Jardin du Balata in Pouliguen.  Crêpes made with buckwheat flour and served with savory fillings are called galettes.

Laurent’s mother ate a traditional galette with ham and cheese.  I had a more modern take on the dish and ordered a galette with ratatouille and egg.

Ratatouille comes from the South of France, but the stewed eggplant, onions, zucchini, tomatoes, thyme, and bay leaf tasted delicious with the scrambled egg inside the Breton galette I ordered tasted great.

Typically, galettes contain savory items like eggs, ham, butter, mushrooms, onions, and so on.  A crêpe is made with white flour and sugar.  Crêpes are filled with sweet items like chocolate Nutella.

Cider is the preferred beverage that goes along with galettes and crêpes.  The sweet kind is called “doux” and the more astringent one is called “brut.”

I ate a dessert crêpe called a Negresco for dessert.  I daintily ate the Negresco filled with vanilla ice cream, chocolate sauce, and sliced almonds and was very happy with life.

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

Click here for:  Ruth Paget's Amazon Books

Ruth Paget Selfie

Touring Guerande: Walking around a Medieval Granite Town in Brittany, France with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Touring Guérande: Walking around a Medieval Granite Town in Brittany, France with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

The Collégiale is named after Guérande’s patron saint Saint Aubin (St. Albin in English).  He was the Bishop of Angers.  The town legend says that when Guèrande was under siege by the Normans in the 9^th century, he sent a knight in shining armor astride a winged, white horse to save the town from pillagers.

After visiting the Collégiale St. Aubin, I walked around the town.  There were many pottery, painting, and regional products shops with cute to expensive souvenirs.  I liked the cider, sea salt, and sturdy dish souvenirs the best.

Guérande is an adorable tourist trap with most tourists being French, German, or English.  I was tempted to buy some chouchen, a Breton honey liqueur for my small cocktail cabinet at home.

I spent the rest of my time trying to look over stonewalls or peek through gates to see flowers and gardens.  One house had little hedges arranged in a square around a tree with flowers around it.  That was cute.

I did not know the names of all the flowers except for pink and lavender hortensias that grow well in Brittany with its morning fogs.

Ivy covered many homes and walls.  In fact, the vegetation was very lush and green.  The winters in Brittany are rainy.  Most homes in Brittany must look desolate in winter from the outside due to the rain and cold weather.

The homes are usually made of granite and other more malleable stone.  Steep, blue-gray roofs let the abundant winter rains fall off away from the homes.

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

Click here for:  Ruth Paget's Amazon Books

Ruth Paget Selfie

Touring Guerande: Visiting Brittany, France's Sea Salt Town with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Touring Guerande: Visiting Brittany, France's Sea Salt Town with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Laurent and I set out for the July 14^th holiday (Bastille Day) weekend to spend time with his parents in Brittany in Western France.

I strapped Florence in her car seat, and we set out for Brittany.  I planned to spend my time writing and touring Brittany with my mother-in-law.

The first town we visited was the Breton town of Guérande.  This town has a wall around it and sits on top of a hill.  It is surrounded by salt drying beds.

Salt was and remains important to the area.  In the Middle Ages, Guérande had a monopoly on salt, which was traded for agricultural products from other regions.  Salt marshes in the South of France diminished Guérande’s control over salt prices.

Today canals bring salt water into a series of square reservoirs.  Each reservoir is shallower than the last one and allows workers to scrape off salt at the end.  Dry, hot weather creates the best production results.

I gleaned this wonderful information from my Michelin “green guide” for Brittany as I stood outside the church called the Collégiale St. Aubin (St. Albin’s in English).

St. Aubin was built in the 12^th and 13^th centuries.  The austere architecture is Romanesque and the more flamboyant decoration is Gothic.  I enjoyed visiting the church’s interior, because there was a rehearsal for an organ and trumpet concert going on.

My Michelin “green guide” said the Romanesque columns inside the church were decorated with scenes of torture, but they were so badly damaged that they failed to conjure any fright in me.

The columns are the only items that remained from the original church after it was destroyed by Louis d’Espagne in 1342.

The church decorations are definitely Gothic with three-petal flowers covering the interior and exterior alike.  The stained glass windows are recent.  Wars, ancient and modern, probably explain the absence of older glass windows.

The baptismal font seemed to be the oldest part of the church.  I guessed it must be the oldest part of any French church.

You have to keep the initiates coming in, if you are financing something over a century or two.

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

Click here for:  Ruth Paget's Amazon Books

Ruth Paget Selfie

Congratulations to Juilliard Graduate Florence Paget for starring in Hunted - 1st Feature Length Film by Lloyd Ferguson - Monterey County (California) Young Filmmakers

Congratulations to Juilliard Graduate Florence Paget of Monterey County for starring in her first feature-length film - The Hunted, a horror thriller from California - Directed by Lloyd Ferguson - Co-Star:  Anna Snare

Touring Barcelona (Spain) : Exploring Gaudi's Parc Guell with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Touring Barcelona (Spain):  Exploring Gaudi’s Parc Güell with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

From the Mirò Foundation, my husband Laurent and I walked to the Olympic Site on Montjuic that was being built for the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona (Spain).  The asymmetrical radio tower and the pool with wavy roof would look very good on television I thought.

We took the bus back to the Plaça Espanya and figured out our way to go to the Parc Güell.  We took Bus 24 through some of Barcelona’s nicest neighborhoods.  I was surprised to see Gaudi’s Casa Vincens from the window of the bus.

I love taking buses when I travel.  You get to see so much scenery this way.

We walked all around Parc Güell.  We could see bits and pieces of the curving, continuous park bench that was undergoing restoration for the Olympic Games.  I drank a soda while Laurent played with Florence.  Three Spanish families with their children were eating ice cream.  The children were all wearing costumes.  Maybe this was a birthday celebration.

I liked how people sang to their children in Barcelona and were not too concerned about fashion, preferring to be comfortable as parents out for a walk with children and grandparents.

Three Spanish families with their children were eating ice cream.  The children were all in costumes.  Maybe this was a birthday celebration.  I liked how people sang to their children in Barcelona and were not too concerned about fashion.

Florence certainly enjoyed herself in the Parc Güell.  The day turned out to be warm, so we could take Florence’s jacket off.  She was wearing her white outfit with red and blue polka dots and ruffled collar.

She played on the grass and squealed with delight and smiled at everyone, who walked by.  Families out for a walk came over and smiled at her and said “Qué Preciosa,” “Qué Bonita,” and “Qué Ojos Azulas.”

We returned to the hotel and went to Los Caracoles for dinner.  Lunch service is less stressful and less hurried than the dinner service.  Florence made friends with the people next to us by smiling away and not making any noise except for laughter and squeals.  An Italian man told Laurent “tutti mi complimenti” on pretty Florence, who was behaving.

Laurent ate snails with oil, garlic, and a little salt.  I ordered mussels.  Next Laurent had a grilled fish platter.  I ordered the grilled seafood platter. 

We visited the Poble d’Espanya on Montjuic before going home.  This mall sells luxury goods from all over Spain and has bars for dancing.

The hand glassblowing exhibit was the most interesting.  It was magic to watch the craftsman turn a blob of glass into a vase.

Cookbooks with great recipes for Catalan and Spanish food include:

-Catalan Cuisine by Colman Andrews

-The Foods and Wines of Spain by Penelope Casas

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

Click here for:  Ruth Paget's Amazon Books

Ruth Paget Selfie