France and England on $98 a Day - Why We Rent

Kitchen window overlooking garden.

Our Dinan stone house, built in 1900, with its foot-thick walls and curving wooden staircase, was difficult to leave. From the street it looked as though it were a typical rowhouse, but, once inside, the house welcomed with spacious rooms, generous windows and glass doors that led to the garden.

The kitchen didn't have granite countertops or stainless steel appliances, the floor was linoleum, and the walls were papered with tiny blue figures stenciled on a white background. In short, the kitchen had none of the features Home and Garden television viewers want. But sitting at the table for six and looking out the glass door or the window near the sink into the garden beyond where iris, lily of the valley, azaleas, and gladiolas bloomed, David and I thought this kitchen one of the most beautiful we'd ever seen.

We lingered over breakfast even though we had much to do. We carried our suitcases down the stairs with one of us on each end to make them manageable. (I promised myself yet again that some day I'll learn to pack light.) Then we tidied up as best we could. Cleaning is not usually required in a gite, but Armelle and her husband had treated us so kindly we wanted to make sure the place looked as good when we left as it had when we arrived.

As we worked, we admired Armelle's paintings yet again. She has decorated the house with her colorful watercolor scenes, and David and I hoped to buy one at the market as we left town. Of course, getting to the market was dubious as it required navigating Dinan's serpentine streets, but I was determined to try.

France and England on $98 a Day – Mont St. Michel

You'll recognize the romantic image even if you don't know its name. Rising from the flatlands of white sand, from a distance Mont St. Michel shimmers in a magical light, seemingly conjured by a giant deity specializing in improbable castles birthed by the sea.

Actually the “castle” at the top of the island is an abbey for monks, founded in the 8^th century by Aubert, the bishop of Avranches. The site of many miracles, it became the destination of pilgrims for over a thousand years. Because of its many defenses, it is also the only fortress in northern France that didn't fall to the English in the Hundred Years War. Mont St. Michel's history and beauty earned it, in 1979, a UNESCO World Heritage Site designation.

The Abbey maintained its mystery and isolation for centuries due to geography. Until the causeway was built, if visitors weren't careful and failed to remember that fifty feet high tides rendered Mont St. Michel an island, they could be stranded until low tide. Today, with the causeway, acres of parking lots, and shuttle buses, a visitor's main fear is not being stranded, but being overwhelmed by the tourist kitsch. Shops touting tchotchkes line the only street on the island. Still, the place is stunning, and one of the most popular tourist sites in France, second only to the Eiffel Tower.

France and England on $98 a Day - Mustard Fields

The lavender fields are on my must-see list, but, until I have that chance, the mustard fields will do nicely.  David and I have seen them stretching for acres all over this part of France.

France and England on $98 a Day - May Day/Mayday

Storybook-perfect days happen and May Day was one of them. 

David and I enjoyed the crisp air as we walked from our hundred-year-old Bretagne house to the center of town where boys stood on street corners selling tiny bouquets of flowers for a euro or two. Of course, everywhere we looked, flowers added punches of lavish color to the lush green landscape; it wasn't hard to persuade ourselves to climb the stairs leading to the ancient city walls for a better view of this medieval city and its gardens.

From the ramparts, the views were indeed spectacular. This trading city, established as a port in the 12^th century, is one of the few not destroyed during the war. Its river scenes and twisting streets are the stuff of postcards, but what I particularly like about it is that Dinan is also a “real” town with people who live and work here and take pride in their place in history. This is not a town that only exists for tourists.

We visited St. Malo the other day and it was chockablock with gimcracky tourist stores. David and I prefer the honesty of a place like Dinan or one of the harbors like this one, visible all along the coast of Brittany.

Still, we would have been happy almost anywhere since the sun was shining and our mayday calls had been answered. Truly, the travel gods had sorely tested us during our first week of travel.

France and England on $98 a Day - Out the Door

David and I have checked every list at least twice, but the frisson of nervousness that started yesterday is still there. 

The bags may look as though they are listing a bit, but they are ready to go with everything we think we'll need for the next three weeks.  And the scale tells us they are within the airline's weight limits.  Phew....

Next stop, London!

France and England on $98 a Day - Las Vegas First

What do Las Vegas and London have in common? Absolutely nothing. But David's Just for Openers convention meant we had to go.

The place makes you want to scream for help because your senses are violated at every turn. Music blares from speakers lining the streets, buildings careen at odd angles, lights blaze wherever you turn, and boys in sunglasses thrust little packets of photos in your face. Las Vegas is where brass trumps charm.

It's full of excess. The meek have no place in Vegas. While the Bellagio Hotel and Casino gardens are reliably lovely, that's the only area of The Strip that is tasteful.

White clouds and blue skies never change in the Miracle Mile Mall shops--not even when it's "raining" every hour on the hour into the pond below.

The All Saints Spitalfields avant-garde clothing shop has 1,800 old-fashioned sewing machines dressing its considerable storefront.

The people who visit this town also intrigue.

This man, Art Santen, is in The Guinness Book of World Records. He has over 32,000 bottle openers. Yes, bottle openers.

These octogenarian twins still dress the same way every day.

We met a man from the California Coast who said he towed his boat to a Vegas parking garage. He roamed the streets during the day and retired to his private yacht every night to sleep.

We met only one man who tilted at windmills, trying to sell his photocopied booklets of poetry to passersby.

I'm delighted that what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas because I couldn't pack all the brash bravado of that city in my suitcase no matter how large the bag. 

Practicalities -

If you do go to Las Vegas, consider staying a block off the strip in one of the less frenetic hotels that doesn't have a casino.  We had a lovely room at the Carriage House, complete with its own kitchen. 

France and England on $98 a Day - Suitcase Security

I love taking the train in Europe. I don't lie awake the night before wondering whether the diet I imposed on my suitcase did the trick or if it will be declared overweight. There's no panic about my luggage ending up in Peru when I'm in Paris. And I'm pretty sure no one will rifle through my underwear during a layover in Lisbon since no one else will touch my luggage except me--and David if he's feeling chivalrous.  

In fact, the only aspect of rail travel I do worry about is the getting-off-the-train part. That's when I think it might be easy for someone in a hurry to accidentally grab my suitcase instead of his and be on his way before I even know what's happened. This occurs because the luggage compartment above the seats is narrow so most people store their bags in the area at either end of the train car. There are so many suitcases clustered together it would be easy to mistake one anonymous black bag for another. Mistakes are made. Then, too, of course, a thief would have no problem grabbing a bag and hopping off the train before David or I even got down the aisle.

So, we have decided to ensure worry-free train travel. We've got a handy-dandy cheap solution to the Mistaken Bag Problem, and it's guaranteed to foil thieves, too. We're going to wrap this luggage strap through the handles of our suitcases after we shove them into the train car luggage area and thread it through the luggage rack slat one time before locking it.

It may take five minutes to undo the whole contraption at the end of the trip and make us the last stragglers off the train, but it will be worth it to know that we'll be leaving with the same suitcases we started with.

France and England on $98 a Day - Our GPS

I have an unerring sense of direction. My instincts are always correct and never fail me. If I know deep in my bones, without a shadow of doubt, and beyond deliberation that I should turn right, then the only sensible thing to do is turn left.

It's uncanny how I can be so accurate, yet David seems unwilling to trust my directional proclivities on this trip driving the back roads of France. He seems to think we need additional verification that we're on the right routes to get us from Vernon to Dinan and on to Calais.

So, to satisfy him, we have investigated global positioning system, GPS, devices. Unfortunately, most of the rental offices in the little town in Vernon near Giverny, home of Monet's water lily gardens, do not carry cars equipped with GPS. EuropCar does offer it for $178.13, but we'd rather get lost than pay that amount.

We called our rental company, Avis, and inquired. A spokesperson today assured us they offer the service, but another agent two months ago just as confidently promised us they did not. I guess we won't find out who's right until we get there.

We also thought about downloading the European maps to one of our United States GPS devices, but according to advice on travel forums, that may or may not be successful.  Spending $79 to find out is too high a price to pay.

David isn't taking any chances. He's used mappy and viamichelin.com (European mapping services similar to Mapquest here in the USA.) to plot our routes, we've received instructions from our hosts on how to reach our accommodations, and I bought several detailed Michelin road maps at the library used-bookstore. And if all else fails, he can simply ask me which way to turn and then go the opposite way.

France and England on $98 a Day - London's Ceremony of the Keys

The United States has a lot going for it with abundant natural resources, an ingenious populace, and clever inventors who regularly change the way we live with new technology.

What it doesn't have is much pomp and circumstance. With only 235 years under our belt, we just can't compete with a country like England that's been studying Miss Manners for a thousand years or so.

And when it comes to ritual, the Brits brook no nonsense. They have ceremony down pat. If a ritual works well the first time, they see no need to ever change it.

Have you seen the commercial where the woman feels so wealthy with her new credit card that she tries to buy the Crown Jewels?   Hundreds of years before that woman ever thought of approaching the Beefeater in the Tower of London, a ceremony to secure Britain's wealth was born.

The Ceremony of the Keys is a fifteen-minute ritual that locks all the doors in the Tower. It's been enacted every night in exactly the same way with the exact same words following the exact same footsteps of the first Yeoman Warder for over seven hundred years!

And every night a few lucky people are invited to share in the securing of the jewels. David and I will be among them one night in early May.   We can't take photos, but I promise to tell you all about it in the blog.

Practicalities -

The tickets are free. All we had to do was send a request a couple months in advance with a self-addressed (stamps-enclosed) envelope. The only somewhat challenging part of the request process was acquiring the stamps needed for the return address. Obviously US stamps are not accepted by the British postal system, so we had to go to our post office to buy international stamps that the office in Britain exchanged for their British equivalent.

Here's some information about the ceremony and ticket procedure, and here is the official government website.

France and England on $98 a Day - Our Accommodations

Finding accommodations in seven different locations wasn't easy, but after a longer search than usual, we found some economical places that are also unique. We will stay in one hotel, two gites--a traditional Bretagne granite house built in 1900 and a gite that began life as a barn in the 16th century--a garden flat in fashionable Notting Hill in London, and three B&Bs, one of which was converted from a former convent.

Not only are the accommodations diverse, but the prices are within our Tightwad budget, too. The B&Bs plus one night's hotel average around $100 a night ($50 per person) while the gites and London flat average slightly more at $110 per night ($55 per person). Since one of the top-rated London hostels, the Oxford Street YHA, charges $63 per night per person for a private twin-bed room with a shared bathroom, I think our $55 is a bargain.

The price is even more of a bargain considering all the advantages of having our own place. We'll enjoy en suite bathrooms, free wi-fi (The Oxford Street hostel charges extra for an Internet connection.), room to spread out and relax, a washing machine (We'll be able to take fewer clothes because we can wash them frequently.), and, most importantly, we'll enjoy the money we save by preparing our own food.

Maybe our accommodations aren't the stuff of headlines, but David and I think they should be!

[Note that all prices are quoted in US dollars with an exchange rate of €1 equals $1.30.]

Practicalities -

A gite used to be defined as a simple rural vacation cottage, but the term now includes much more luxurious lodgings as well.  Today, a gite might be a ten-room villa overlooking the sea or a stylish apartment on the outskirts of Paris.