Mainland Trip Memoirs

Part 3: Le Massif Central

  Les boulangeries.  Le pain.  Les fromages.  Le café.  Les patisseries.  Le chocolat.  La nourriture. 

Le paradis! 

  The bakeries.  The bread.  The cheeses.  The coffee.  The pastries and cakes.  The chocolate.  The food.  Heaven!

    After an exciting trip across the English Channel via a bus via a bus inside the train inside the channel tunnel or "chunnel," Ben and I eventually arrived in Le Massif Central, which is a large, mainly rural, forested, and high-elevation region in south-central France.  We stayed with Ben's aunt and uncle who spend their summers in a tiny village thirty minutes away from the nearest "big" town of Bourganeuf.  I had no idea what to expect in the countryside of France, but I was not disappointed.  The architecture of towns and homes alike is stunning.  Stones of warm colors are the typical wall building material, and red tiles are used for the roofs.  I must skip to my favorite architectural and aesthetic feature: the shutters.  Everywhere you look, you see brightly colored wooden shutters thrown open to let in the day.  Shutters in every shade of red, yellow, and blue are hooked back to the outside walls like eyelids for the windows, making the houses seem to have both character and life.  Lovely flowers spill out of window boxes, climb over walls, and beckon to passersby from lovingly tended gardens.  The sound of laughter escapes from open windows or sunny patios as long family lunches and dinners begin.  Wine from other regions flows into waiting glasses, and the fresh bread, cheese, and meat platters fill the tables.  Life is enjoyed.  

  For most of a week, we visited other towns and saw many war memorials, since the French Resistance (Le Resistance) during World War II had been very active in this area that was a border between Nazi occupied and unoccupied France.  As we hiked through a tranquil, beautiful forest one day, I told Ben that I could not erase from my mind the thought of how life would have been during those days.  I could imagine the sound of machine gun fire, screams, and harsh yells cutting through the peace of the oblivious trees and songbirds' notes.  I thought of people possibly hiding in tiny caves on the top of the hill, holding their breath and living with constant fear and a wish that their bodies didn't need food and water, since that meant leaving their shelter.  It was a haunting image.  A small amount of guilt crept up my throat as I grabbed at the feeling of elation that came from knowing I did not have to live those experiences.  We must always respect and learn from history for our tomorrows will always take their place in its sometimes blood-soaked halls. 

  To rise to lighter topics, I want to tell you about French bread.  I am a bread lover.  I am a bread addict.  If my dreams always reflected my inner yearnings, they would always involve my search for the perfect, gigantic loaf of fresh bread and my subsequent actions of tearing at its flaky crust, digging through its warm, chewy center, and crawling inside it to promptly fall asleep, snug, stuffed, and with a grin on my face.  While I bake my own bread, constantly tweaking and experimenting to make it more delicious, I do appreciate a good bakery...and the French don't have a good bakery.  They have incredible and innumerable bakeries.  Les boulangeries francaises are some of my favorite places to go in the entire world.  Granted, these are newly discovered loves of mine, but I don't see how it could be possible for them to be topped.  One of my favorite images in my mind's eye from our trip is this vision of an old, gnarled French woman walking slowly across the cobbles of Bourganeuf one early morning, cane tapping the stones and basket hanging from her bent arm.  She made her way to her boulangerie of choice - probably the same one she's been going to every morning for many, many years.  No smile came from her lips as she passed us - only a curt and obligatory "Bon jour."  She stepped through the bakery door and came back out with her basket now cradling two baguettes, still fresh and warm from the oven.  I would say she didn't even need to tell the baker what she wanted.  I would say she still didn't smile.  But I do wonder, as she shuffled back down the street, invariably toward a brightly shuttered house, if, inside, she was beaming at the thought of letting butter melt through her first piece of bread like sunshine spreading over the cobbles and setting her teeth to tearing through that crust.  I wonder.  I really do.