Normandy, Brittany, Corsica

Conquering the Lands of the Conquerors 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/stuvan/albums/72177720329870633/with/54873588178

In the year 1066, William could not even have conceived of it. In the early 1800s, Napoleon would have thought it impossible. But then, neither of them lived in the 21st century. We have just finished circumnavigating the globe in sixty-eight days, highlighted by visits to both of their homelands, with Normandy, Brittany, and Corsica being our principal destinations. Columbus and Cabot would have been thrilled when we later briefly brought our story to Genoa, but best of all, Hitler would have been despondent to know that I, a Jew, ran carefree and barefoot on what were once the beaches of his vaunted Atlantic Wall, after we had visited the nearby memorials to his victorious fallen opponents.

Our first stop, exhausted and jet-lagged after an overnight transfer through Dubai, was the whipped cream-famed historic town of Chantilly, chosen because it was less than a half-hour's drive north of Charles De Gaulle airport [we intentionally avoided previously-seen Paris and other large cities as much as possible], notable for a large chateau, and more unusually  for a 1700s palace-like stable that is essentially a palace for horses. The next morning, we headed north towards the beautiful Cote D'Opale, visiting several WW1 sites related to the horrific Battle of the Somme along the way. With over a million deaths for only about 10km of progress/retreat, its name has come to symbolize the meaningless carnage of trench warfare. The Canadian site at Vimy Ridge [and its nearby sky-scraping Canadian WW1 memorial, shown annually on Canadian news Nov 11th] is probably the best of them, as the trenches and tunnels have been left intact, allowing one to walk through them, and initially confusingly, also the German ones, as they are only a grenade's lob away, over the bomb-crater pock-marked narrowest no-man's land of the war.

Most with even a small interest in history can tell you that WW1 was set off by the actions of a network of opposing alliances following the assassination of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, however to this day, unlike for WW2, I can not give you any moral or practical justification for WW1 beyond trans-national politics, and many scholars believe that with better openness and negotiation it could have been avoided altogether. This leads one to wonder about where the world would have gone over the last century if WW1 never occurred. There are some intriguing internet threads musing about this unknowable counter-factual. WW2 was largely an outcome of the extreme settlements imposed on losing Germany, which led to the rise of Hitler, who wasn't taken seriously by mainstream German politicians, even after being asked to form the government, until it was too late. Clearly Hitler's rise and WW2 would not have occurred without WW1 [not to mention its name, by definition]. So does that mean no Holocaust [maybe instead just a continuation of centuries of waxing and waning antisemitism]? No State of Israel? No [or at least much delayed] nuclear weapons, and no Hiroshima or Nagasaki bombings? Conversely, maybe further delays in the vote and equality for women [their significant supporting roles in WW1 made it increasingly difficult to deny basic gender capability-related facts], and continued colonialism [European,and maybe more ominously, also Japanese]? These questions are really too sweepingly transformational to consider meaningfully. Underscoring such is the fact that, ironically, on personal levels, the contingent major and minor circumstances that determined so many lives of recent generations would have been altered, often to the point of incompatibility with our own specific very existences. Certainly, the likelihood of I, a North American Jewish descendant of interwar period immigrants meeting a Malaysian Chinese Canadian student-turned-permanent resident seems near impossible, not to mention that both our parents connecting and marrying would have been doubtful. So, more simply put, WW1 may have been a horrific thing, but I, and quite likely you, would not have come into existence without it.

The Opal Coast, where we stayed in a suburb of it's largest small city, Boulogne-Sur-Mer, is just south of Dunkirk in France's far northeast, and is France's counterpart to the Dover region of England, with equally high and stark chalk-white cliffs functionally sliced apart by the English Channel [called La Manche, "the sleeve", by the French, as it similarly gets progressively narrower heading east]. From the heights of Cap Blanc-Nez or Gris-Nez one can see the other side 28km away even on a somewhat cloudy, windy day. Staggeringly, 1/4 of global maritime traffic goes through here, requiring lanes; ships must stay right [the opposite of British roads], only going eastward along the French coast, and westward along the English coast. From there, this 16-day part of our trip largely followed the near-linear Normandy, and much more heavily-crenulated [extremely so at Crozon and Morbihan] Brittany coasts westward to France's Atlantic tip, before tracing it back a short distance southwest, in order to fly out of Nantes airport down to Corsica. The whole region is lined by, often particularly beautiful, hiking paths, with particularly noteworthy ones including the boulders of the pink granite coast of Perros-Guirrec, and the strata-layered and rotated cliffs of the Crozon peninsula's Pen-Hir headlands. The entire coast is also littered by remnants of the Nazi's Atlantic Wall, mostly large concrete gun housings. Further west in Normandy we visited Honfleur, the very picture perfect, but incredibly tourist-overcrowded [on a rainy day in mid-Sept, I fear to imagine how bad it, and much of the region's main sites, get on a nice summer's day] 1608 departure port of Quebec City founder Samuel Champlain.

The next day was dedicated to D-Day. Normandy's epic story of the largest and most complex naval landing ever staged is beyond incredible, and likely was an indispensable turn on the road to winning WW2 [Russian historians may disagree- their wartime losses were of a magnitude higher than those of the Allies]. I recently listened to a fabulous 12-part [~9hrs] Noiser.com history podcast which covers it completely including the successful deception of Hitler into being certain the landing would be further east, weather delays, logistics, contributions from French resistance, and gliders and parachutist endeavours hours pre-landing, the beach landings, female support as nurses and in other roles, journalist coverage, and onwards after establishing the beach-head, much of it ground-breaking in character as well as scope. We visited Arromanches, where remnants of the amazing portable prefabricated "Mulberry Harbours" [allowing for tanks, trucks and other support material to be rapidly brought over to a previously undeveloped beach] still can be seen, the American cemetery at Utah Beach, Canada's landing site of Juno Beach [where I ran &  danced barefoot to Israeli folk music], and the Pegasus Bridge [taken by surprise by 3 gliders at 12:15am as the very first operation in preparation for the landing] and museum, among other sites. One could easily spend a week here if desired.

Normandy is of course synonymous with the Norman William the Conqueror, who staged the only successful cross-channel invasion [prior to D-Day] on his way to taking the English crown in 1066, and soon replacing all the English aristocracy with his own Norman nobles. So the English upper crust is really French. Or should I say Scandinavian- as the term "Norman" refers to Norsemen who came down south centuries earlier to that part of Northern France. But then those replaced were actually Anglo-Saxons, Germanic invaders from earlier centuries post Roman downfall. So where are the "real" English? Maybe they are the Welsh and Cornish,  who were pushed westward by the Anglo-Saxons. It all gets very confusing for a kid from Montreal... Bayeux was my principal stop for medieval history in the region, however the museum housing the famous 70m-long tapestry detailing William's victory [over the former king's brother-in-law, who only had a slightly better claim to the English throne, and who had just defeated an attempted Viking usurper, Harald] was unfortunately closed for renovation, so I opted to read the illustrated children's book version while standing in the tourist office, before we drove on.

Our last major stop in Normandy was the postcard perfect, unmissable tourist-trap, cathedral-shaped and dominated, small island of Mont St. Michel, reachable by walking over the sands when not high tide. What I didn't realize [despite navigator JC's repeated efforts to explain it to me] is that they won't let you get within 4km of it unless you are willing to pay 20euro for parking and then take a bus. Due to a combo of outrage and cheapness, we found a semi-legit parking spot and unhappily walked the 4km, crossing the bridge at mid-tide to get there. Still, it is undeniably very beautiful, and admittedly a must-see if in the region. It is, in a sense, even more impressive when seen from across the water 20km away after the coast turns at the border with Brittany, from where it appears like a huge isolated triangular mountain rising out of the sea.

Soon after entering Brittany, we were very impressed by the medium-sized walled old city of St. Malo, where the cathedral's floor has a large plaque supposedly marking the spot where Jacques Cartier's voyage of discovery was consecrated in 1535, however anyone educated in Montreal can tell you that his first voyage to the area was in 1534. So either the date is wrong, or more likely it was his 2nd voyage to ''Canada" that left from there, with the church taking some historical license [so uncharacteristic of any religion!] to aggrandize its claim. Brittany's relationship to the rest of France has much in common with that of Wales to England. Both are at the far west, have Celtic heritage with current attempts at revival including bilingual signs, and a renewed independence streak. Although that of Brittany is at a much earlier stage with no degree of political independence, and the adults we spoke to [including in a bakery selling their traditional sweets, kouign amann and ker-y-pom] unable to speak the language [Bretonne] at all, although much like in other progressive parts of the world, it is again being taught in schools [in Corsica as well], so who knows what will be in another generation or two...  . France itself is enough of a political mess on a national level, with a "blocquons tous [let's block everything]" protest occurring while we were there, preventing us from going up the clocktower in Dinan [unclear if it was closed because of fear of violence from the protestors- there was a lazy police presence, or if the staff were themselves participating in the far-left's called-for national strike]. Mostly it is about "French Rights", with particular unhappiness over the planned increase in retirement age from 62 to 64, although there was a Palestinian flag on the periphery of the protest we saw. Two of Macron's prime ministers were forced to step down during the month we were there. Ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy has just begun a jail sentence for campaign finance conspiracy [with money from then Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi]. There were also plans for an air traffic controllers strike that got put off just before we left, and, to top things off, the crown jewels were stolen out of The Louvre yesterday.       

Around Brittany there are also quite a few megalithic sites, with the region around Carnac being unequalled in terms of number & concentration of menirs [tall standing stones], totalling thousands, hundreds in a single view, some quite impressive individually although most only about 5-10ft high, and also quite a few dolmens [T-shaped burial structures]. It certainly brings home the vastness of human history compared to our lives, not to mention how completely even that is dwarfed by geologic time, itself so readily visible in the area's layered cliffs.

The towns of both regions are almost all incredibly picturesque, and the food fabulous, with every small town having at least one great bakery/pastry shop with countless special choices, and markets and both small and large grocery stores with similar fare, including cheeses, pate, & gazpacho soup,  I however essentially stuck to meals prepared for me by my renowned personal French chef, Jacquechine. The late opening time of most restaurants for dinner, as well as the unfortunately continued ubiquitousness of smokers on the otherwise attractive patios, prevented us from sampling much in the way of restaurants. Great cheap wine [Norman cider as well], with good bottles starting as low as 2-3euros, making price per liter of alcohol and bottled water almost equal [vs ~5-1 for the cheapest wines in Canada]. Although there is quite a bit of tourism in the areas, it is mostly French from elsewhere in the country, or British, with much less in the way of North Americans or Asians than France's primary destinations. The September weather was variable with some generally short-lived rain and wind, but still warm enough for some great short swims in the ocean.

Mostly for my own future reference [unless you like details, skip the rest of this paragraph], other towns and sites seen in rough order included, in far NW: cobble-stoned Senlis [great old town and small market], Peronne [Somme museum], Thiepval Memorial [to missing soldiers], La Grand Mine crater [100m, created as the beginning of the attempt to break through German lines], In Normandy: Dieppe [ancestral home of many French Canadians], Fecamp [Dom Benedictine liqueur], Etretat [twin limestone cliffs book-ending beach], Trouville and Deauville [upscale home to film festival], Dives-sur-Mer [stayed at Palmira's AirBNB] and attached Cabourg, then hill-top city Coutances [landscape garden], before crossing into Brittany. Other destinations in Brittany included Cancale [hike to a rocky headland], Dinard [took 10min ferry across harbour from St Malo, swam alone in circular ocean pool], inland Dinan [steep cobble-stoned road down to river], and Huelgoat [boulder hike in rain, huge balanced trembling rock that one can, shockingly, make move slightly], Crozon peninsula's Camaret-sur-Mer [lobster fishing boat cemetery], Concarneau [with its walled old town peninsula, Ville Close} Quiberon peninsula and gulf of Morbihan.

With late September having arrived, it was time to head further south, as we had planned with the flight from Nantes to France's large Mediterranean island of Corsica [we had spent a few weeks on its Italian sister island of Sardinia, 12km directly south, the same time of year in 2018]. The two islands actually have a lot in common, with cultures distinct from their "owner" mainland countries, although in many ways, including their distinct languages, closer to Italian than to French. Corsica actually was under the control of the Genoese [and countless Genoese towers dot the coastline] for many centuries until it achieved brief independence, led by the still revered Pasquale Paoli in the mid-1700s, before coming under French control. Similar to Brittany road signs are bilingual [here, however, the french version is often crossed or scratched out], however here the local language is truly spoken, and desire for independence, especially among the youth as reflected in ubiquitous graffiti glorifying revolution and liberty, is seemingly widespread [one older local told me what at least the more thoughtful want is more like what Quebec has/wants from Canada], and violence has periodically erupted in recent decades including the 1998 assassination of a French politician, and more recently riots in 2022, when his jailed murderer, Yvan Colonna [who is widely glorified in graffiti around the island], was himself murdered by a jihadist prisoner [apparently for mocking the prophet]. But don't get me wrong, the only time the locals are of any safety concern is when they are behind a wheel.

The French refer to Corsica as their "Isle of Beauty", and it is indeed spectacular. Heading counterclockwise from the capital and largest city, Ajaccio, the fiery red granite rocky cliffs and outcrops of Les Calanques, is probably the island's most stunningly beautiful area. The tight road winds right through them, with all drivers slowed to a crawl in jaw-dropping amazement, and most out of their questionably-parked cars, instead wandering the "highway". We were the worst affected among a group of cars forced to back up as a bus tried to make a cliffside turn, with only 2-3 inches both in front to the slow moving, but aggressive bus, and behind to the cliffside rockwall guardrail. A close challenger is the south-tip limestone white [geologically unlike from the rest of the island] cliffed and citadel-topped touristy town of Bonifacio [including its 187-stepped King of Aragon's Stairway, said to have been carved into the limestone cliff in a single night in an unsuccessful 1420 siege], and surrounding peninsula. Historically, Corsican culture was centered in the interior, and therefore there are countless tiny, but unbelievably picturesque hill-top or hill-side stone and cobbled villages and towns [esp. Sant'Antonino, Pigna, and Corbara inland from Calvi], in addition to the city of Corte, capital of its brief independence. Other areas of note-worthy beauty included the sweeping mountainous vistas of the thumb-like northern peninsula "Cap Corse", the rocky island attached to the town of Ile-Rousse, and several drives through gorges and along rocky mountains. The east coast near Aleria is the only region not full of obligatory curves, with long sandy beaches, great for a run with a Genoese tower at its terminus.

Ajaccio is the birthplace of Napoleon [we visited his house-turned museum, who was also a Corsican nationalist in his youth, before switching his sights to much larger territories. Less well known is the widely sworn-to [including by an inland airBNB hostess of ours] supposed fact that Christopher Columbus was also born on the island, with a plaque outside the site of his house in the citadel of, the now Mediterranean resort town, Calvi. The theory goes that he claimed Genoese origin [there is a supposed birth home that we later saw there as well, but it was shut on the Monday], because of a recent Calvian massacre of a Spanish garrison. Apparently there are no fewer than 25 towns claiming Columbus' birthright, with now a 2024 Spanish genetic study [released on television instead of via journal publication] reviving what I previously viewed as a marginal claim of Spanish Jewish heritage. Of course, even should the genetics be accurate, it wouldn't negate what seems to be his fairly clear self-consideration of being a Christian, and somewhat radical behaviour [by today's standards] corresponding to such. Furthering the irony is an article by a rabbi stating that, given Columbus' modern recasting as a colonial villain, such would be the last thing the Jewish people would want/need given current widespread misconceptions of Israel as a colonial enterprise.  

The weather during our stay was perfect- low 20s with only a few drops of rain our first day, and nothing at all thereafter. The ocean, where/when not too windy,  was a perfect temperature for swimming. The northern 2/3rds of the east coast, however, was suffering from a bloom of medium-sized, beautiful purple "mauve stinger jellyfish"-in some places up to 100 in view at once. Although  I didn't get stung, their stings can occasionally be dangerous [with reports of anaphylaxis], limiting my swimming until we got further south. The snorkeling in Corsica is only fair- the water is crystal clear, but it is too far north for reefs, so the fish are almost all of a boring silver colour. The hiking is, not surprisingly, spectacular. Where Corsica falls surprisingly short, is the food [unlike Sardinia, which has the imagined excellent twist on diverse Italian gourmet fare]. While the wines are very good [with several grapes distinct to the island making them worth sampling in place of the ubiquitous French Bordeauxs, if seen], and there are some good local cheeses, the only real food specialty are chestnuts, mixed into everything from jams to pastries to beer and pig-feed [although I couldn't pretend to be able to taste it in the pork]. As mentioned, the island's traditional culture revolves around the inland mountain villages, and shamefully not the ocean or fishing. Resorts and what seafood is available are just for the tourists. Like further north, there was no shortage of mainland European tourists at the more popular spots this time of year, and I again shudder at thoughts of the July/August crowds [not to mention the attendant heat, with a/c a rarity].

Large hawk-like red kites majestically rule the mountain skies [the internet claims 3000 pairs, however I think such is an underestimate]. There are also loads of wild boars. In addition to roadside sightings, there was a pair that seemed to have become semi-domesticated visiting a rural maquis-surrounded accommodation of ours daily in the hopes of being fed. The mountainous roads are almost all non-stop winding, and often very narrow, although you wouldn't know it from how the locals drive- at insanely high speeds and nearly in a straight line, ignoring the curves and usually on the wrong side of the center line, where present. Motorcyclists, often visiting the island for sport, go even faster, and think nothing of passing with an oncoming car or blind curve ahead, preferably both. Although most highways have speed limits of 80 km/h, we rarely got above 50 km/h, even when not slowing down for the near-constant sightseeing.

In addition to dealing with the crazy locals, our Hertz rental in Corsica was also our first experience with driving an electric vehicle, a dark grey Renault Zoe. I had not noticed any comment about such when making the booking, however the agent told me allowable substitution was in the fine print and less easily seen on 3rd party sites such as the booking.com that we'd used. Furthermore, the only gas-powered vehicles they had left were 7-seater minivans. Although concerned, she reassured me that car had a range of 350-400km, and there were lots of chargers on the island, and her lot staff would explain to us all we would need to know about how to drive one [in addition to how to hook up to a charger, there is no "P" gear, just the start button and the brake pedal, and an additional "B" gear, a form of enhanced engine breaking allowing for increased battery charging, that can be used when going downhill] . As we didn't have any single drives longer than 3 hours planned on the 200x90km island, I figured that this was as good a place as any to try an EV out, and that the new experience would be an additional part of the adventure for us, so I didn't protest much before giving in. She also offered us an unlimited charging deal of 72 euro at e-Motum sites, of which she said there were many around the island. I quickly estimated [almost precisely] that we would drive about 1200km in our 17-day circumnavigation of the winding roads of the mountainous island, meaning at least 3 full charges, which she told us were about 35-40 Euro each, so this seemed like a great deal for us, which financially ending up being so. Its downside meant that we could only use that brand of charger. It quickly became apparent that the actual range was probably no more than 300km, and that limited chargers, with many towns having none, the larger ones only usually 2-slots [which were often occupied- a full charge taking about 2 hours], and a few being out-of-service without such being updated on their map app, meant that we were always needing to carefully plan where our next charge would be. Generally we charged after ~100-150km , with the battery at 60-70%. We did get good at generally finding places to do our grocery shopping, or occasionally sightseeing, during the ~45 minutes of charging. I was surprised at the listed cost of charging, which at 0.75e/KW would be about 40 euros for a full charge driving distance of ~300km, slightly more than the ~60euro for ~600km of driving for our gas-powered Citroen C3 [with its constantly beeping exceeding the speed limit warnings] in Northern France. I was always under the impression that once you bought an EV, the driving costs would be lower. I suppose such is probably indeed the case if you have a home charger, and are using it at reduced nighttime electricity rates. In the end, although the new experience was interesting, I would certainly suggest avoiding EVs when doing a road trip as a tourist, [and would also tend to dissuade anyone who does regular long drives at home from considering one unless there are future improvements in range [Tesla's claim 450-650km], charging speed, and charger availability, but for daily commuters and city dwellers they seem to be the environmentally sound choice for a home vehicle, and driving the car itself was fine.

This trip was actually my sixth time [JC's 5th] going around the world- but my first time headed west. Having family in Malaysia and Toronto makes the 1-way journey a worthwhile option any time we are considering travel in Europe, especially now that we no longer have any time constraints. Unfortunately our trip started off very sadly, with Jiak Chin' s father [who had become very frail over the prior 18 months] passing away just after our arrival in Malaysia. Although unrelated to our trip, I also feel compelled to mention, given my largely non-Jewish readership, that the same week, back in Canada, a relative of mine was the victim of an unprovoked anti-semitic stabbing in a large grocery store that made national news [she's ok now], while a friend's recent deceased father's unveiling had to be cancelled due to an unspecified threat against the Jewish cemetery in Montreal. From Malaysia we flew to France through Dubai [our first experience with flying Emirates- less than impressed, only finding out afterwards that one of the legs was with their partner, Fly Dubai, and that we had to book our seats with them separately, food only fair]. The best flight to Toronto from the area was Transat via Rome [a month after booking, they cancelled the flight, offering instead a transfer through Montreal a day earlier]. Ferries to the Italian coast were largely finished for the season, so we flew into Nice [only nearby option], day-tripped to Monaco, then took the train to grimey and smelly, but ornate and fascinating, hilly Genoa [where I had not previously been], where we rented a car [initially I had planned to rent it in Nice and drive from there, unaware the 1-way rental fee in Europe rises from ~$100 to ~$1000 when crossing borders], and then kicked down the Leaning Tower of Pisa [all hate mail should be addressed only to myself] before continuing driving to Rome's Da Vinci airport.

Currently we are sitting on a quiet [not a single kid on board?] Porter 2x2 [no middle seats!] Embraer jet flight back to Vancouver. They are by far our favorite of the Canadian airlines, although that is not saying much...

A La Prochaine,

Stu