Charron

          Hello! Today I will tell you about the place we discovered about 1.5 years before moving back to Poland - Charron. It is a small coastal and estuary town and a small seaside fishing port, especially known for the production of mussels that are the pride of this city. After finding this town, I regularly went with my parents on Sunday walks along the shores of a pebble beach, where we could find a lot of shells of St. James.

The photo shows the place (I don't know what it's called) from which the mussel nets were planted.

Very often you could see all-day outflows in this city. At the time, my sister and I were running around in galoshes and looking for the prettiest shells - and how many were those that were closed and at home it turned out that there was still life inside, haha

The photo shows a fishing boat that got stuck ashore before the tide

In addition to the beach, which stretches along the shore, you can also visit the castle and the church of St. Nicholas. Unfortunately, I did not go deep into the knowledge about these monuments and do not have their photos, because somewhere they had to be mixed with other photos and I do not have them, but I saw them live, and they really make an impression. I put two photos from the Internet here:


          The town is quite small, but very charming. From what I remember, most people sat in restaurants and tasted fresh mussels, instead of walking or bathing in warm water, so the crowd was not there so you could relax in the sound of the waves. I recommend you this city 😎

Maillezais

          Today I will write briefly about the place where I was with my parents - Maillezais. You can associate this place with literature classes. Does the name François Rabelais tell you anything? Yes, he was the author of "Gargantua and Pantagruel" and he was the secretary of Father Geoffroy d'Estissac in the abbey of Maillezais.
          Maillezais is famous for the ruins of its Gothic abbey called St.Peter Cathedral. I remember the ruins were huge. Very high and extensive. When I was in this place there were a lot of people, tourists, so you can easily conclude that it is worth seeing this place, because in addition to these ruins there is also a park surrounding this place, a meadow on which you can sit in the sun and relax and...

...and the path next to which are huge body parts. These are broken sculptures depicting Gargantua, in honor of Rabelais, who, as I mentioned above, was very connected with this place. I think it is a great attraction for people and especially for children.And here I will show you how big these sculptures are - in the picture I am 9/10 years old. 🙈👀

If you ever have the opportunity to visit this place, don't hesitate a minute, it's really worth it!

Photos in the post, contrary to appearances, also come from my parents' album and they are not taken from the internet.

To the next! 😄

Fontenay-le-Comte

          Hi! Today I will describe to you the place that I have already mentioned to you last academic year on the occasion of a story about family shopping - Fontenay-le-Comte. I don't really know if today, in adulthood, I would go to Fontenay if it would still be such a big city as I thought in my childhood - it was huge then and for me this city had no borders.

          Apart from the huge number of supermarkets, Fontenay-le-Comte has in the center a very large church built in the Gothic style. This is the only church in the area (within 30/40 km) where masses were held every Sunday, sometimes exceptionally every 2 weeks. It really was like that - in the town where I lived, the church was used in cases such as funerals, and this was not always the case, because very often there were funeral only in the cemetery without mass.

Next thing - I remember that the roundabouts in this city were very original decorated - a car designed for scrap metal and planted flowers in it, or a washing machine drum also filled with flowers - something beautiful and original. Each roundabout in the city was somehow decorated so that it would not be boring and please the eye.

My mother likes greenery and nature, that's why I remember from my childhood that we often came here to take a walk in the park / well-kept small forest with various flowers. Something I just remember the most about Fontenay are flowers, lots of flowers wherever the mayor and people could put them.

          I hope that this type of posts will be interesting, instead of just telling stories I will upload photos (I sorted them from CDs for two days to find the right photos, haha) which will illustrate what I'm writing about. By adding photos from the family album I want to show you how pretty this city is. Perhaps for you this city is like any other - ordinary, but when I see these pictures and I write to you what is on them I have a flash in my eye and it bring back many wonderful memories.

          Of course, there were many events in the city and many other things could be found to go sightseeing like a museum, but I will write in these posts only about what I remember from the time I lived there and I will write about what I saw and not all possible information from internet, Wikipedia.

A short introduction to start with

          Hi everyone again. I hope that the holidays, which unfortunately passed quickly, were pleasant for you. The new academic year equals new ideas for creating new blog posts. This time for the next dozen or so posts you will accompany me on an unusual traveling through my memories of the time when I lived in France, but they will be a little different from what I have already published.
          Until now, I have been describing stories from my childhood in every post. This time, I would like to devote my 15 posts to traveling around the French cities I visited, whether with my family or on a school trip. For four years, several such places have accumulated, and I'm not talking about such famous cities as Paris, Marseille or Lille, but about such small towns with a small number of inhabitants but being very charming. Cities in which you can participate in various events, or in which the famous castles of the Loire are located. And who knows, maybe I will open the old archive of family photos and I will show you photos taken by my family from these places. 👀😅

See you in a week, then I'll come with a description of the first place. 😉