Onward, to Nantes!

After London and Paris, the 'city' of Nantes was a refreshing withdrawal from the bustle of metropolitan life.

The Gare du Nantes was the simplest and most straightforward train station I had yet to deal with, and my impression of this one building did well to preface my experience of the city itself. No tube, no metro - just a humble tram system, ambling past sloping, cobblestone streets lined by columnar cypresses, crossed by their parallel shadows swaying in the breeze. After leaving the station, I crossed a lazy street dappled with growing mid-afternoon shadows to a cafe (called The Globe, or something like it) where I was, to much amazement, able to purchase a filling lunch of meat, bread, potato, ale, and coffee, all for around 13 euro - a meal whose Parisian counterpart may have cost over 20.

The type of meat that I consumed at this cafe shall forever, for better or worse, remain mystery. However, because of its rare cooking, unique texture, and mysterious origin, I am tempted to call it horseflesh! Cheval! I had already been told of the French disposition for consuming horse meat, and my knowledge of such a practice had in no way averred me from the prospect of meeting such a dish at the table. As the closest appellation for my meal that I could conjure into English from my French menu was something approaching 'meat of the day,' I contented myself with allowing that, very likely, horse was the day's fare.

My brief respite complete, and head a bit fuzzy from ale and caffeine, I muddled through my thoroughly-packed rucksack for directions to the residence of Ms. Celeste Tarbox, the likes of which I had scribbled down - nearly as an afterthought - the night before I made my frantic sprint to the Edinburgh airport. They turned out to be, just about, the best directions I had been given - and, retrospectively, was to get - during my entire trip. On to one tram and off for another, a five-minute stroll through the quiet, two-storeyed outskirts of Nantes, and a left turn down, if I recall, Rue Longchamp, and I was before a largish creme building, with the knowledge that Ms. Tarbox would be arriving any minute home from her employ.

My visit with Celeste was half-providence and half-imposition, though the latter half in the most well-meaning spirit. She is a Franklin and Marshall graduate of 2010, now living abroad in Nantes as an ESL assistant teacher at a local school through a program set up by the French government. Originally having arranged my two-night stay in Nantes at the suggestion of my friend Katie Cooper, who studied there last year, I was delighted when Celeste read on facebook that I would be in her area and told me she lived there. Already at a complete loss as to what I wanted particularly to do in Nantes, following, as it were, that providential wind which whisks travelers to perils and wonder alike, I inquired whether or not she would mind letting me occupy a small area of her floor for two nights, enough to sustain the restful hours of a 5' 9", 130 lbs., 21 year old young traveler.

She happily consented, and even extended to me the loan of an inflatable mattress.

Not knowing Celeste particularly well beforehand - or at all, really, our only connection being that we may have been present once or twice together at parties between my fraternity and her sorority - we spent the evening in conversation over a little dinner in her flat, after which I retired to my mattress. If nothing else of enrichment may be said for my various European travels, I assert that the friendships I made and re-made over my weeks absent from Edinburgh rank just for me as highly as my awe at scanning Paris' rooftops from the Eiffel Tower's summit or standing before the David in Florence.

The next day I spent in comparative leisure from the days of rushing around England and France's capitals. After a visit to the post office and pharmacy - my 100ml travel shampoo had run out - I settled at a cafe near the convergence of three small streets to sip on a beer and read in the sun. I remained in this way for much of the day, extending my residence at the cafe's table with strategically-timed orders of cafe latte and another beer. A older man with an accordion, I recall, came by to court the lunchers and leisurely for the sweeter part of an hour, and though I did not pass him a coin for his troubles, I reconciled myself with my lack of charity through the words of Robert Louis Stevenson, who writes thus of the artist:

"What shall he have enjoyed more fully than a morning of successful work? Suppose it be ill paid: the wonder it should be paid at all."

I had acquired in Cologne, earlier the previous week, a keen appreciation for the pleasure-seeker's necessity to judge the movement of the sun, and how the surrounding structures would cast their shadows resultingly; for there is nothing ruder that spoils a young lounger's day than to plant himself with a book and baguette at a sunny cafe, only to have the sun shift so that all is thrown into shadow, and have the metal table upon which he rests, and the cobblestones upon which he places his feet, turn cool and hard, and consciously so, that the idea of their discomfort impedes the pleasures of reading and drink. Such a lack of judgment in myself effected my move from one table to another, and then to another cafe overall, so that I had drifted down the cobbled lane by the time that Celeste came to meet me after work.

She had some fruit-infused, sparkling wine (quite popular in France), and I finished my beer, and soon we parted ways, that I might meander about the town. Meander I did, and toured the local castle (chateau) and surrounding shops and alleys. At an antiques store, I bought, for 50 cents euro, a 1 franc coin, which, taking the conversation rate that would apply today between those currencies, probably accounted for that old Frenchman's most lucrative sale in history! He may as well have sold me a bottle cap for a dollar. In any case, I count the franc as an interesting acquisition, and well worth the purchase, especially for the tidy sum of 50 cents.

From the chateau, quite close to the town hall square, where I'd lounged earlier, I continued up a street flanked on one side by the castle's moat, and a row of shops on the other. With no destination in mind, I faced in the finest direction that the leisurely traveler may choose: any, and was soon on a main road, the one flanked by cypress. Eventually finding myself at the Nantes Musee de Beaux Arts, I took a stroll around inside, delighted to find many works and artists with which I was familiar, and others I had previously been ignorant of which caught my fancy, such as this painting by Chabas.

Though apparently the sixth largest city in France at around 250,000 residents (Phoenix is America's with about 1,400,000), I reminded myself that comparisons to America were needless, as both my land and that of France's defy evaluation through quantitative means. For instance, though France produces nearly twice as much wine annually, some French wines must certainly taste worse than some American vintages. So with inhabitants, as many French men and women I met had far more character than many Americans I'd met at home.

Rather I measured the city on its own terms, as I feel is usually healthiest approach in evaluating anything, at least initially.

A slower city, a quieter one, too, yet a city of endearing quaintness, the kind often wished for by the inhabitants of more prosperous, more central, more relevant cities in the world. To walk by the river Loire, to navigate without direction the intertwining streets leading easily back to where you began, to take in the subtle contentedness lying static near the cafes and brasseries - all a pleasure, and all unique to Nantes. In other aspects I am sure it is less pleasant. I merely had the advantage of being the traveler who is pleased by pleasure alone, and does not seek out worry or disadvantage with what surrounds him. To him, all is bliss, or he is poorly constructed.

That night Celeste and I abandoned all thoughts of another night in and struck out for a creperie. The crepes I had tried before had all been street fare, vended to passersby from street stalls and mobile carts, made hastily in the Parisian afternoon by careless hands that worked by habit, and closed off minds which dwelt not with the body's dismal labor. Rather this restaurant was a place of domestic charm, fitted with homely decoration according to the French style. For dinner I had a thick crepe mixed with crisp cheese, topped by an egg and strips of thin ham. Delightful is all I shall call it, for who can do justice in words to pleasures divined by pallet alone? Dessert defied description likewise: a sweeter crepe toped with fresh vanilla ice cream drizzled in melted home-made caramel, garnished, perhaps, with a strawberry.

Both courses demanded and done with, we finished off the last of our pichet of dry cider and sought a drink across the street, after which we strolled home through the calm but vibrant night, full of busy Nantes-peoples on their way to and from houses of drink and song.

So concluded my stay in Nantes - simple, indeed, yet full of pleasure that may not properly find communication. The same dumbness of language may visit a vacationer to the Rockies as simply as a holiday-seeker in the French countryside when called on to produce a tale of their travels. The moments of travel as sweet joy to the traveler, the joy itself meted out partly in recitation, and the rest, one could say, is silence.

Of Celeste I may only sing praise. She was gracious to let me stay with her, and the most pleasant of surprises where concerns finding a friend. Our talks were refreshing, our dinner joyful, and it was nice enough to simply have a semi-familiar face to be around in a strange country, among foreign landscapes.

The last event of any note to take place for me in Nantes was my morning of departure. It being a Saturday morning, I rose softly from my air mattress so as not to wake Celeste on her morning intended for rest from a busy week, and moved into the other room to pack my things up. After some dabbling on facebook and email, I left Celeste's with roughly thirty minutes to get to the humble Gare du Nantes. With the aid of the able tram system, and a route that I had already picked out, I stepped on to the cab with little worry on my mind. Yet calamity struck when the car stopped in the center of town - for a street market had set up there with dozens of stalls, and straight across the tram line! Thus impeded, the content tram began its journey back the way it and I had come, leaving me a confounded straggler.

By backpack was not light, I was wearing khakis and a button-down, and beneath the sun of the gently warming day I had no small amount of difficulty barreling past grocers and shoe salesmen in the crowded market of Nantes as I scrambled to direct myself towards the train station. At last I discovered from afar an unimpeded tram line, yet when I boarded its car, gasping "Gare du Nantes? Oui? Gare du Nantes?" into the faces of its bemused and partially alarmed passengers, I received only the unfortunate reply of, "O...ehh...serry, but ozzer way." Ozzer way! Other way! Now I was four hundred yards back from where I had begun, and had to run now to follow the track to the station on foot, as my train left in eleven minutes, and the next tram in its direction was eight minutes away.

So I ran - and how swiftly and clumsily I ran shall never be known to man. I hardly recall the fleeting minutes of mad scrambling towards the station, hands full with my jacket and a poster tube, legs burning, shirt clinging to my chest. All I recall is a driving thought, only half-materially, more of an emotion than anything else. It is, likely, what rowers or other endurance athletes feel during their various performances, and translate roughly to: "Yo, don't stop going, because stopping now will only make all the way you've come worthless, and all the way you have to go more painful." So I didn't stop, and I ran, and ran and ran - onward until I nearly collapsed in front of my train, which had arrived the moment I set foot on the platform, and which I certainly would have missed had I stopped running for a moment.

Tired temporarily, I took my seat next to a quiet French girl about my age, and readied for a pleasant three hour train ride through the countryside to Bordeaux, content in my recent show of willpower, excited for the continuation of my travels.

Lastly, I have to say that - forgive, but I can't help myself - my time in France really gave me an appetite for 'French film.' Look below: