Rennes (3 of 3): Eating in France

This is the last (and slightly delayed) post on our trip to Rennes during May 2011. It will be only about the food we had. It is well known that we like to eat and that France has good food. It is difficult to describe how we feel about eating especially where they have some talent for fresh well prepared food so we recommend the following video (in full screen) to convey some of our experiences:



For more information on the rest of out trip click here or here.

R&C

p.s. many thanks to Francois and his parents for hosting us with an excellent barbecue.

p.p.s. thanks again to Weronica, Xia and Zheya for the photos.

Rennes (2 of 3): St. Malo and Rennes.

After our visit to Mont St. Michel we went to St. Malo. Here we spent the afternoon walking on the fortification wall of the city, enjoying the seaside view. We also had some ice-cream at Sanchez's ice-cream parlor (more about this in the next blog). St. Malo is about an hours drive from Rennes. Below are some photos of the afternoon.

 

 Fortified wall.

View of the sea (note the old sailing ship in the bay).

Zheya on the wall.

Francois and Maria.

 

Apartments where you could keep an eye on the English-channel.

The conference we attended was in Rennes. This is a lovely city and also the capital of Brittany. Some of the buildings date back to the 15th century and we spent a lot of time wandering between the wooden/concrete/modern buildings, all flowing into each other. Many of the shops sell stuff to eat and the whole next blog will be dedicated to the reason why we love France…food :) Below are some pictures of Rennes.

View from the street.

 

Beautiful old church. 

Old fortified city gates with drawbridge.  

Both St. Malo and Rennes are well worth a visit.

R&C

p.s. Again many thanks to Weronica, Xia and Zheya for the photos, Francois and Maria for hosting us, as well as everyone else for providing a very entertaining time (see also our adventures at Mont St. Michel).

p.p.s. leave a comment if you can't wait to see food :)

Rennes (1 of 3): Mont St. Michel.

Part of the Computational Biology Group went to Rennes for a  conference  and stayed for the weekend. The group included Marcin, Mats, Weronica, Xia, Zheya and me. After the conference Carina and Olga (Mats' wife) also came over for the weekend. In addition we joined up with a previous colleague, Francois (and his partner Maria). He grew up in Rennes and was therefore was coerced into being the guide for the whole weekend. In total we were 10 people (see video below).

This blog is about our trip to Mont St. Michel and the video below is mostly pictures of the tidal city. The trip started on Saturday morning in two cars and took about 1 hour from Rennes to Mont St. Michel.



Mont St. Michel is located 1 km off the cost. It has been a strategic fortification point since ancient times and became the seat of the St. Michel monastery during the 8th century AD. The whole place is breathtaking. From afar it stands out on the horizon and the size is only appreciated when standing at the bottom. We climbed to the top, past the citadel, to where the monastery is built. The view from here is awesome. We walked trough many stone corridors and chambers and emerged with almost everyone unscathed.

If you ever have the chance a visit is highly recommended.

The following blogs will be about out trip to St. Malo, our stay in Rennes and the magnificent food of France.

R&C

ps. for more information click here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mont_Saint-Michel

Good French Food

During my visit to France I realised something, it is not just a cliche that French people know about food... they really do. Here are some examples of the bait I brought back,

 Really good cheese that we bought from a cheesemonger at the morning market and saucisson (a type of French salami)

Foie Gras, a guilty pleasure - but what a pleasure

and then... a recipe recommended by the French people that visited the market with us,

you buy this particular cheese, I think its a type of Brie...

it is specially packed in these wooden boxes or the more expensive ones in a type of ceramic, that you can put in the oven,

you make a whole in the middle and put some garlic and white wine on,

and bake in the oven till brown,

and then you dig in...

it was recommended to be eaten with potato,

really, really good   :)

C&R

Visit to Grenoble, France

Our research group has a colaboration with a group in France and the past week we visited them in Grenoble. Grenoble is a beautiful city in southeastern France at the foot of the French Alps. The city is also known in France as the 'Capital of the Alps'. The city is overlooked by a fortification, the 'Bastille', which is built on/inside the mountain slope and dates from the middle ages. Although we had quite a crammed work-week, our group took the opportunity to climb the slope to the Bastille and enjoy a wonderfull French dinner of
foie gras, duck, and some good wine at the restaurant on top. The next day we visited the morning market where we bought very nice Saucisson and French cheese (with names that I never heard before) directly from their makers.  :)

Here are some pics.

The Alps from the streets of Grenoble

The Bastille from below

The view from halfway up to the top of the Basille

Looking down

The cable cars known as 'Les Bulles'

The view from the top

A beautiful sunset

Nightfall

Next morning at the market checking out the cheeses

C

p.s. next week more on the food from France

Busy, busy, busy...

The last few weeks have been quite busy. For no clear reason we had loads of extra work. In addition Carina is taking a course in statistics which requires some extra time spend preparing for the lectures and are going on a work related trip to France next week which also requires some preparation. Our Swedish course has become reasonably challenging and the amount of homework has doubled. We also needed to finish a number of applications for conferences and grants for various projects during the last two weeks. So we were quite busy.

Next week I will on my own  experience the very slow increase of temperatures (also finishing some of the Swedish assignment that Carina needed to do earlier). Not much is planned otherwise but I am sure that Carina will have some interesting things to share after her trip to the land of wine, bread and cheese…

R&C