Teen Travel Talk » Brittany http://www.teentraveltalk.com The Trusted Voice of Teens Who Travel Sun, 05 Feb 2012 00:49:35 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 This little piggy went to market…. http://www.teentraveltalk.com/2009/10/19/this-little-piggy-went-to-market/ http://www.teentraveltalk.com/2009/10/19/this-little-piggy-went-to-market/#comments Tue, 20 Oct 2009 00:35:00 +0000 Elaine http://www.familytravelmarketing.com/tttblog/2009/10/19/this-little-piggy-went-to-market/ So the other day I dissected a pig in my Human Phys. and Anatomy class, and I thought of my wonderful trip to a pig farm in France! :( Yeah, seriously, one of the strangest experiences of my life.
My aunt and her family have a pig farm in the heart of Bretagne (Brittany), France and my family and I visited about 6 years ago. It’s a typical country house: dirt driveway, giant oak dinner table, and the ever-abundant, slightly appealing, earthy scent of hay and manure. Honestly, I love farms. I love the outdoors and the animals and the hard work. The mud room in their house is actually muddy ( no way….) and everyone works hard to do what they have to do.

When my mom first told me our relatives had a pig farm, I expected a Charlotte’s Web – type barn with a few pigs and hay, but was met with a giant metal warehouse that houses hundreds of pigs. With hundreds of pigs comes quite a powerful…aroma. Seriously, this smell is one of the most pungent to ever grace my presence. It’s a very distinct, slightly sourish, piggy smell.
But once you get over the smell, you hear the noise. HUNDREDS of pigs. In a warehouse. It’s pretty intense. They have the mother pigs (sows, I believe) that have just given birth, the baby pigs, and the teenager-ish pigs separated by partitions and housed in different rooms. My siblings and I looked into every room, took some pictures, and got to pick up some of the babies. Little squealing, squirming bundles of stinky pink. Adorable.
We didn’t stay inside too long [for fear of suffocation ;) ], but then walked around the rest of the farm and enjoyed the raspberry bushes and the tire swing.
So my lesson to you: enjoy the little things. go outside. explore the outdoors. pick up a pig or two, and take a deep whiff of life :)
]]> http://www.teentraveltalk.com/2009/10/19/this-little-piggy-went-to-market/feed/ 525 Reasons That I Love France, numbers 37 and 38. http://www.teentraveltalk.com/2009/07/12/reasons-that-i-love-france-numbers-37-and-38/ http://www.teentraveltalk.com/2009/07/12/reasons-that-i-love-france-numbers-37-and-38/#comments Sun, 12 Jul 2009 14:57:00 +0000 Justine http://www.familytravelmarketing.com/tttblog/2009/07/12/reasons-that-i-love-france-numbers-37-and-38/ After two jam-packed-with-activity days in Paris, we drove to Damgan, a cute little beach town in Bretagne. Bretagne (Brittany) is a region of France south of the English Channel. The apartment we rented was right on the beach, and since it was low tide when we arrived, all of the fishing boats sat on the sand among beds of dry seaweed.

Like any beach town, Damgan wasn’t exactly teeming with sight-seeing opportunities. The neighboring towns had a few fun activities, but for the most part, we relaxed on the beach. I enjoyed walking along the shore, eating a lot of seafood, shopping, kayaking out to the little islands off the coast, and digging for clams (we didn’t find any, but it was really fun anyway, because the tide pools were full of little sea creatures). One of the days we took a ferry out to Ile D’Arz, a charming island with beaches perfect for swimming, with the temperature of the water just right and not too many rocks underfoot.

Before we left, we visited a museum about Neolithic rock formations, then went to actually see them! I’m well aware of how utterly dull that sounds, but in truth, it was an awesome experience. The museum had tons of tools used by early human species and diagrams of how they were probably used in everyday life. Out in the fields, there were over a hundred huge boulders propped up in straight lines. There was even a little man-made tunnel. If you close your eyes and picture early humans walking around right where you’re standing, moving these huge rocks into perfect rows… it’s just mind-boggling. If you’re ever near Carnac, I highly suggest you go.

On the way back to Divonne, we stopped overnight in Angers. If you’re ever there for as a brief a time as we were, I would recommend just seeing the Château D’Angers. It’s an actual defensive castle built in the 13th century. It looks over the Loire River, has a huge waterless moat around it, it contains several colorful gardens, and it has a 600-year-old tapestry of the Apocolypse inside. Woo!

Stay tuned for more French adventures back in Divonnes les Bains! Tuesday is the French Independence Day, and the sixth Harry Potter movie comes out Wednesday, I believe. Anybody as pumped as I am?

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