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Monday-6th and we planned a much different week than usual. Our friend Geneviève had moved from Saint-Malo to Nancy in the department of Lorraine in eastern France. We had met Geneviève in 2019. Sandy and Geneviève had corresponded by email over the last few years. When we learned in February that Geneviève was moving to Nancy, we decided that a road trip might be needed to visit with her.

Monday was spent mostly getting ready for our first road trip in France. As usual, Sandy did most of the preparation, thank goodness. We had already made a rental car reservation (Philip) and a hotel reservation (Sandy). To make things interesting, Sophie the cat was coming with us.

Tuesday-7th and we got the rental office at 9:00 to get the car. Back to Intra-Muros to load up the car and then we started out of town. After about 10 minutes, the car signaled that the left front tire pressure was low. A quick stop at a service station to add air to the tire solved that problem. We hoped.

1. started in the west of France in Saint-Malo
2. south to Rennes the capital of Brittany
3. east to Laval
4. continued east to Le Mans
5. northeast to Chartres (had some rain between Le Mans and Chartres)
6. continued northeast toward Paris (a lot of traffic in the Paris area)
7. then turned southeast to Troyes
8. east and then north to Nancy in the east of France

Our travel time was about 9 hours including 4 stops and lunch. Yes, this was more like an American road trip than a French road trip, but we wanted to try the autoroutes, renting a car, visiting another city and visiting a friend in another city. All things we had not done before. The autoroutes in France are predominately toll roads and there are plazas at fairly regular intervals. The big plazas have restaurants, a service station and other facilities.

We had no problems on the autoroute, the highway, but when we got to the center of Nancy, the gps failed us. There was a large number of small road closures due to repairs in the center of Nancy. The gps was unaware of the closures, so it failed to get us to the hotel, all we did was go around in circles for 20 minutes before we gave up. We found an underground parking lot by the train station and parked the car. The train station is a 5 minute walk from the hotel. Got checked in at the The Best Western Plus Crystal in central Nancy, got Sophie setup in the room then went out for a pizza.

With a quick call to Geneviève and we agreed to meet on Wednesday morning to start our tour of Nancy.

Wednesday-8th and Geneviève took the bus to our hotel. She lives on a bus route and that ride took her 10 minutes to get to our hotel. We started out by going to the BRASSERIE EXCELSIOR, a wonderful  art nouveau style restaurant. We had coffee and viennoise while we discussed things to do.

Then we were off to visit Place Stanislas. It is a wonderful square with beautiful entry gates and buildings. Stanisław (Stanislas) Leszczyński was at one time the Duke of Lorraine and Bar, King of Poland, and Grand Duke of Lithuania. His accomplishments are memorialized in this beautiful place.

We spent the rest of the morning walking around central Nancy and the old city area of Nancy. We had a delightful lunch at a small restaurant in the old part of town. Sandy had a giant salad, while Geneviève and Philip had Quiche Lorraine. Very appropriate since Nancy is in the department of Lorraine in France.

It started to rain after lunch, so Geneviève invited us to see her apartment. She had only moved to Nancy in May so she had hardly been there more than a month. We took the bus to her stop and then walked 5 minutes to her apartment building. She has a great apartment. We talked and snacked for the rest of the afternoon. Then Geneviève took us on the bus back to our hotel. We had spent a great day in a beautiful city with our friend.

THURSDAY-9th and we plan to spend the night in Chartres. But first we had to check out of the hotel and then find our car in the underground parking lot by the train station. That did not go as planned. We had written down the location of the car, but it was not quite correct. So we had to do some searching, but we found it.

Chartres is about 5 or 6 hours from Nancy. We looked at the map and decided to take a different route than the one suggested by the gps. We decided to stay on an autoroute south of Paris, travel in the direction of Orleans and then go north to Chartres.

1. started in the east of France in Nancy
2. south and then west to Troyes
3. then west to just north of Orleans
4. northwest to Chartres

The plan worked great and we avoided the Paris traffic. We had a nice night at the Ibis Styles hotel on the outskirts of Chartres. We did not get to see the famous cathedral, but maybe next time.

FRIDAY-10th had us eating an early breakfast, packing our luggage and getting Sophie ready to go. We left the hotel early for our trip back to Saint-Malo. Today, we had the same low tire pressure issue as Tuesday, but a quick stop at a service station corrected that problem.

4. started in Chartres
5. west to Le Mans (next day was the 24 hours of Le Mans)
6. continue west to Laval
7. continue west to Rennes
8. then north to Saint-Malo

Got Sandy and Sophie back to the apartment. Filled the car with diesel and returned it to the rental office. Took the bus back to the apartment and then took a nap.

Sophie did wonderfully throughout the trip. In the car she wants her carrier open and she just naps on the carrier door. In the hotels she is great. Sandy sets up her food, water and litter box and Sophie adapts very quickly.

This slideshow contains all the photos we took on our trip to and from Nancy.

SATURDAY-11th and it is a marché in Rocabey day! We purchased our vegetables (green beans), fruit (melon and peaches) and meat (filet mignon de porc and sausages) at the marché. We also purchased some Thai food for dinner. The rest of the day we spent recovering from the trip.

SUNDAY-12th with great weather, clear skies, light winds and the temperature around 16°C (61°F) we took an hour and half walk on the digue. A lot of things were happening on the digue. The sail school was having kayak competitions and were going to have events all day.

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Now that you have made it this far you have a choice on how to continue. Below is a gallery of photos from this week titled 2022-06-12 week album. There are two ways you can view the photos.

The first way is to click on the title area of the album. So click on the 2022-06-12 week album and the album will open in FLICKR.

The other way is to click on the right ＞arrow in the area below. Clicking on the arrow all show the next photo in the album.

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That is all for this week in Saint-Malo. Au revoir.