We had been advised that when we arrived in the port of
Montoir de Bretagne we would be in a very industrial area with not much to
see. That was an understatement. Not only was there not much to see, but the
skies were heavy with thick dark clouds.
Not much to look at for sure, and of course we had a river cruise scheduled. (I had scheduled three shore excursions which
focused on scenic cruises. I guess if it
were baseball, I’d have totally struck out.
Each time the cruise was on a very cloudy and somewhat rainy day!)
We were off the ship early so we could get a decent seat on
the bus for our excursion, Cruise on the
River Erdre. Since I have “handicap
priority”, we had gotten our stickers without having to report to the Showroom
at Sea to pick them up. We barely got
off in time – we were just boarding the bus when the skies opened up and the
rain came down! Ugh! But at least we were on the bus!
Since we were so early, I had a chance to visit with the man
I thought was our guide. It turned out
later he was the bus driver. He was very
friendly and commented that my French pronunciation was easy to understand,
which I appreciated. (If I could just
spend a few more days in France, I would probably be able to do more, but I
can’t get the language back if I’m only here a few days every three or four
years!)
Our destination was Nantes.
France is divided into 22 counties (and further divided into
departments). Nantes is in the county of Pays de la Loire, or Loire Country,
and in the department of Loire Atlantique.
This is an agricultural region that produces grains, most of which are
used in cereals: wheat, corn, oats, and barley.
They also do a lot of cattle breeding, both for dairy cows and meat
cows. In addition there are lots of
small animals that people enjoy hunting: deer, fox, wild pigs, pheasant,
partridges, etc. In fact one forest
nearby is associated with the knights of the round table.
The people work 39 hours a week; they don’t work on Sundays,
and usually don’t work on Saturdays or bank holidays. In addition everyone gets five weeks of
holiday each year. There is a high rate
of unemployment (about 5 million people unemployed). Part of the cause of such
high unemployment is that in 2002 they opened the European borders and many
people wanted to move into France because of the excellent social laws. People are provided for even if they don’t
work. (Sounds strangely familiar!!!)
Just north of the Pays de la Loire is Brittany. Nantes was once the capital of Brittany but
now it’s the capital of Pays de la Loire.
The Dukes of Brittany have their castles in Nantes. Many die-hard residents of Nantes insist that
they are still part of Brittany. At one
time Nantes was also part of the infamous triangular trade – taking slaves from
Africa to the Indies and bringing goods back to France.
We had left the port a little late, and we got caught in a
gaper’s-delay traffic jam on the expressway so our arrival in Nantes was behind
schedule. As a result we only had a
brief tour of this lovely city. Our main
goal was to arrive at the river where we would take our boat cruise along the
Erdre River. Things were a little
confusing and hectic at the pier – two busloads of passengers and one bathroom
with only three stalls will do it! But
once we’d taken care of the necessities, we headed out to board our boat, which
reminded me greatly of the Bateaux Mouche that ply the waters of the Seine in
Paris. Chuck had gone ahead to procure
seats which would be convenient and at least somewhat comfortable.
We settled in for our cruise just in time for the skies to
begin brightening. It was a 2-hour ride,
leaving Nantes, and heading into the suburbs and countryside. As we rode along, we had an escort of
cormorants and grey herons. The
cormorants were really enjoying putting on an exhibition of landing (it looked
like they were digging their “heels” into the water) and then doing surface
dives to find the fish that the boat had stirred up.
The Erdre River is about 60 miles long, a little over a half
mile in width in certain places, and about 10 feet deep. No wonder the fish were coming to the surface
as the boat sailed along the river. The
scenery was lovely. We assume that it
must be a tributary of the Loire River, though we never found out for
sure. The fact that there were so many
manors and chateaux along the river indicated to us that we had to be near the
Loire River valley. I had visited the
Loire and a few of the chateaux (my two favorites being Chenonceaux and
Chambord) on other trips to France, but I’d never heard of the Erdre River
before. On our river cruise, we passed
several lovely mansions as well as about a half dozen castles. And the weather had cleared enough to allow
people to go out on the front deck to enjoy the scenery and take pictures.
All too soon we found ourselves back at the pier in
Nantes. We were given a few minutes of
free time to shop and pick up a few of the very limited souvenirs available
before boarding the bus. At least that
was the original plan. However, when we
got out to the bus area, bus 6 was there for the other group, but no bus 7 for
us! The original bus had dropped us and
left; we had been told a different bus would pick us up. We waited and waited, and the tour guide was
frantically phoning various people.
Turned out the bus had been there, but the police wouldn’t allow him to
stay because there were already too many buses there either dropping off or
loading passengers. We finally boarded
and discovered that the bus was not up to HAL expectations – no working
microphone, and pretty dirty. When we
got back to the port, the driver was really confused on how to get to the
ship’s docking area. He was just about
to turn around when he was waved through.
His lack of knowledge of the port really mystified us. However, when we found some things out later,
we cut them some slack.
We arrived back at the ship about a half hour late. After a quick lunch, I made myself scarce to
give Chuck some time and space to do some serious packing. I sat in the Crow’s Nest, reading and writing
in my journal. I overheard a man telling
someone else that there had been quite a ceremony in the Crow’s Nest that
morning, with the Captain Andre and a couple of mayors present. He said that the captain was discussing with
the mayors what might be done to attract more cruise ships and tourists.
Before trivia, I was talking with a couple teammates, and
they wondered why, if we could sail all the way up the Garonne River to
Bordeaux, we couldn’t have done the same to get to Nantes. I commented that on the excursion I’d learned
that the river there was less than 10 feet deep – way too shallow for the
Prinsendam!
Just before we set sail, Captain Andre made his sail-away
announcement. From what he said, we
gather that this was the very first Holland America ship to visit Montoir de
Bretagne, and possibly one of the first cruise ships ever. This would explain the lack of organization
on the part of the locals, who did want to make a good impression, but who
weren’t used to handling such large crowds of foreign tourists. It also explained why the bus driver hadn’t
known how to get to the dock. We were docked in a cargo area, and he probably
thought he was going into a dock area that was restricted to passengers.
We also found out that the local gangway had to be used, and
the restrictions allowed only nine people at a time on the gangway. Therefore, people had to be stopped while
others got on and off. The captain
explained that he advised the locals to either provide sturdier gangways or
allow the ships to use their own. The
Prinsendam gangway can hold up to 33 adults at one time.
It wasn’t the best day or the best excursion we’d ever done,
but it was an interesting day, and we were glad to be “pioneer tourists” in an
area that apparently is just starting to open its doors to the cruise
industry.
BT
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