All posts by Sunny Bridge

I love travel, seeing and photographing new places, meeting new people, learning languages (focusing on French, although I've recently started also learning Spanish). In the past few years, I've been discovering the joys of poetry, both reading it and writing it. You can reach me at sunnybridge@msn.com.

Home is Where the Heart Is

Serenity and Celebration

24 July 2019 Sunny Bridge 12 Comments

I’m temporarily back in Colorado, but certainly have more photos to share of beautiful France, I promise you!

Whether home in Colorado or here . . .

. . . I am officially back in the states after spending six and a half very busy weeks in France. I loved it, but I love being here, too.

The first morning at Sunapee, I woke very early. I don’t see many sunrises, since I’m more of a night-owl, but 6 a.m. in New Hampshire is noon in France, so for several days after my return, I was able to catch a bit of this beautiful serenity . . .

, , , before the more active lake life begins. This place, like La Rochelle, is a home away from home for me, which is fortunate since I’m headed back soon for yet another wedding in the family.

I love sharing times of celebration, but I also deeply appreciate serenity and the two don’t always go together. Sometimes they do, though. Soak in the tranquility of this view from the top of the Dune du Pilat, near Cap Ferret in southwestern France . . .

Here’s what was actually going on when I took the shot . . . .

Dune du Pilat, near Cap Ferret, France (yes, that’s Pascale)

. . . lots of people celebrating this marvel, not to mention the fact they made it to the top!

And another shot from on high . . .

The view from Mount Sunapee, New Hampshire, USA

. . . which was more about celebration than serenity, since we were VERY high up on a chairlift, so not feeling completely serene as we headed down from Nellie and Stefani’s wedding to their reception, but look how beautiful it is!

After the festivities and a few more days enjoying the lake, people started heading back to their regular lives and peace took the place of parties. It was then that I had another wave of missing David so much the sadness threatened to overwhelm the serenity. And I suspect it will continue to do so sometimes. I know I’m “allowed” to miss him and to still feel sadness, but sometimes the sharpness of it catches me by surprise. When I tried to take a walk up the road, I remembered this . . .

David at Sunapee, July 2014, during of our grand year of adventure

. . . and I had a choice to make. I could be sad he wasn’t walking up the road to greet me–and I was, I have to admit–but I could also choose, even while feeling sad, to be grateful that he had introduced me to this beautiful place, and even more, that he had chosen to spend the bulk of his adult life loving me. What a gift.

So I’m finding that sadness, serenity and celebration continue to dance through my life, at times politely taking turns like newcomers at a church picnic, sometimes weaving in and out and joining together unexpectedly, forming intricate patterns more complex and beautiful than the contra dancing I enjoyed at the Folk School. But the music continues to play, and I guess all I can do is dance.

France, New Adventures

Île de Ré Blues

26 June 2019 Sunny Bridge 2 Comments

Only a few more days here, and I’m not even close to caught up, so you’ll probably be hearing about France for a while yet. Hope you don’t mind! This mini-adventure actually happened on June 6th.

I’ve always loved blues, the color in all its various hues and shades, and the music, whether haunting or funky. Not so much the emotion, but I suppose even that can have a certain tender poignancy sometimes.

Jacky, Pascale and I headed back to Île de Ré a few days after I moved into Le Patio. Fortunately, this year was mostly about the color.

Shimmering, shifting blues and greens so stunning I could barely catch my breath. I had to remind myself to put down my camera occasionally and just soak it in.

We started with lunch in Saint-Martin-de-Ré in Le Belem, the same restaurant where we lunched with David in 2017. Then on out to the western end of the island. where I took the picture that you sometimes see at the top of these posts (and most of those above). A lot more cairns now.

Ile de Ré Photo Redux — Low tide, so not quite the same view, but still stunning.

Pascale and I climbed the lighthouse this year, something we had not done on past visits.

Gorgeous views in every direction. . .

The island that day was an absolute celebration of color. And not just blues and greens. The coquelicots were carpeting the fields in bright orange-red.

Then just as we were leaving, we caught a glimpse of the famous donkeys of Île de Ré that wear pants and give rides to children. Jacky obligingly stopped to let us jump out AGAIN for photos. None of them were wearing culottes, since they were off-duty, but this one was posing like a model. I couldn’t resist. The more traditional shaggy ones were all dozing in the sun, facing away from us. Not the ideal photo angle.

This post, with the uncooperative photo subjects and the blues and reds, is starting to remind me of an old post from our adventures in Key West 2015. Another memory that makes me smile.

There was certainly a moment the emotional kind of blues threatened, when we came upon the tree where David and Jacky sat for this photo in 2017. . .

I even took a photo of the empty branch with the beautiful sea behind it, but it’s too sad. I had to remind myself to be grateful we were even able to get back to this place he loved. I am.

It is not happiness that makes us grateful. It’s gratefulness that makes us happy. —David Steindl-Rast

Wishing you both gratitude and happiness!

France, Home is Where the Heart Is

Bonjour La Genette !

20 June 2019 Sunny Bridge 2 Comments

After our tour of Bretagne, it was time to give Pascale and Jacky back their own space. We returned to La Rochelle on Sunday the 26th of May. I was moving into Le Patio on Tuesday, so Monday we had a chance for a long walk around Les Minimes, the larger beach and port of La Rochelle.

It was blustery but sunny and we walked all the way out to the end overlooking the new port and the channel into the vieux port.

Looking across to La Genette where you see the trees on the other shore.

A channel is absolutely necessary, because here when the tide goes out, it goes OUT.

So I’m now on the other side of the port. It used to be about 10 minutes by car, but now much of the central part of town is restricted to buses, bikes and pedestrians, and it’s a LONG way round by car. I can walk to Pascale and Jacky’s in about 40 minutes, with lots of people watching on the way. They pick me up for adventures involving luggage or events happening on my side and beyond, like our day on Île de Ré (next post).

This, by the way, is NOT where I’m staying, as you know if you read the first Bretagne post. But this gorgeous place IS in my neighborhood, only about a block away, so I walk by it all the time. Most houses come right up to the narrow sidewalk, but a few have a bit of garden in front. It’s more common to save the garden for the private space in back. Still there are lots of tall roses trémières (hollyhocks) growing up from the tiniest cracks where the pavement meets the walls. Excellent reminder to never give up.

David and I used to love the huge marché in the center of town. We rented an apartment about three doors down from it the last time we were here in May of 2017. This year I walk around the corner and inland a few blocks to the cutest little grocery, about the size of my kitchen at home and not much larger than my kitchen here, actually. But it has everything I need, including all the fancy French cheeses, a surprisingly sizable wine selection, produce so amazing I’m always tempted to buy more than I need, and dozens of fascinating little jars of soups and sauces and who knows what.

Marché du Mail — Straight up this street a block and a half, then left to “my” house

I treat the place like a museum. I spend so much time perusing, eventually someones asks me if I need help. I don’t. I’m just enjoying myself too much to leave.

So like the roses trémières and these roses from the patio, I’m trying to bloom where I’m planted, no matter how temporary. Wishing you the same!

France, New Adventures

Au revoir Bretagne !

18 June 2019 Sunny Bridge Leave a comment

Here it is mid-June and I’m still writing about May, but there you go. Sunday, the 26 of May, we were headed home to La Rochelle in the afternoon, but in the morning we had a chance to tour a bit of the southern edge of the Golfe du Morbihan, including the Château de Suscinio, which was so enormous I couldn’t manage to fit it into one photo. Plus, the sky was rather dreary and it was breezy and cool, so I didn’t spend a lot of time trying. I promise you can find photos if you Google it.

The back section you see in the photo below houses an elaborate and creative exhibit devoted to the legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.

Château de Suscinio, walking from the front section to the other building

Part of the King Arthur exhibit at Château de Suscinio

Turns out Bretagne has as much claim to the legends as Grand Bretagne has. This was news to me, probably because my main exposure to the legends was T. H. White’s The Once and Future King (which I loved) and Hollywood, including Disney.

Château de Suscinio was built to house various dukes of Brittany, and even housed Henry Tudor, later King Henry VII of England, for a while, but I found these two characters in one of the rooms claiming to be the châtelain and châtelaine! Although I’m not sure why they were not wearing these fab red shoes.

Another story of ruin and restoration, this château at one point had been completely abandoned and was in the process of being dismantled, serving simply as a source of stone. It is still a work in progress, but what has been done is very impressive, with various interactive exhibits (obviously–see Pascale and Jacky above). Well worth the price of admission. Bonus: No creepy, crumbling, dark staircases.

Pascale made sure to buy a final Kouign Amann to have at home. And of course she had the ice cream, the whipped cream and the caramel sauce to go with it. No tiny Breton flag though. Somehow, we managed to eat it anyway!

Our four-day adventure in Bretagne was an amazing whirlwind of beauty and history, although I have to admit that my ability to accurately take in thousands of years of history and legend, all in French, remains moderate, at best. Still. I loved every minute of it. Many thanks to Pascale for all the careful planning, and to Jacky for all the nerve-wracking driving around a bazillion roundabouts, while the GPS only sometimes helped. But what’s an adventure without a bit of losing your way? It was fabulous and I’ll never forget it.

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