We had a great time in Fall 2023 traveling through Southern France and we really wanted to see some more of this country so we planned to return for the month of September 2024. Our flight came into Paris on September 2nd and we planned a couple of days here to get over jetlag. We were last here together in 2007 where we saw most of the major sites and museums. These 2 days were just to slowly get back into the European groove and eating some good French food. We missed seeing the Pompideau museum (modern art) last time but unfortunately our one full day in Paris was a Tuesday and most museums weren’t open. The city was still buzzing from the Summer Olympics and the Para-Olympics were still going on. We were able to see some of Para Olympic goings on huge TV’s in front of the Hotel De Ville. We also found a museum about the WWII French Resistance in a museum near our hotel. But mostly, we just tried to get our bodies in the right time zone while being awake enough to eat good French food every few hours.
While we did get better on our sleeping schedule, our bodies were not helping in other ways. The second night in Paris, M started feeling sick. After taking a train to the seaside town of Saint Malo, Bill got it too. Coughs, fevers, congestion and everything that goes with it. We were all out of Covid tests and the pharmacies in this small town didn’t stock them so we can’t be sure that we didn’t actually have Covid. In fact, it kind of felt like it. We decided to lay low and get better for the next two days in Saint Malo before we start hiking. And hopefully we would feel better to start our 5 day hike to Mont Saint Michel.
Saint Malo is a really cute town and we had an Airbnb right in the heart of it. We were above an awesome bakery in the old walled city. One of the reasons we were excited about Saint Malo was that my wife M’s family, the DesJardiens, are actually from this town. We can trace her father’s line back to the 15th century when they called Saint Malo home for most of the 1500’s. Their family name at this time was actually Le Roy, which means “The King” so we are really interested if that really means something. We could not find a way to track them to royalty but maybe in Saint Malo someone would know something about the Le Roy’s of the 1500’s. Unfortunately the Saint Malo History museum closed permanently during Covid and the other history museums of Saint Malo were more focused on the Corsair period (“legal” pirates), World War II, or other famous Saint Malo people that would not have been around in the 1500’s. So, because of our sick bodies, and our lack of preparation to find Saint Malo historians, we were unable to find any more info about M’s 15th great grandfather. It was still fun to walk around town and know that they walked these same streets 500 years ago. The Le Roy’s changed their name to DesJardien in the 1600’s (for an unknown reason) and eventually made their way to Montreal, Canada but those investigations will have to wait for a history trip to Montreal.
We wished we had more time in both Paris and Saint Malo but with our sickness it is probably best that we start a long walk all by ourselves and not spread whatever we have. Next challenge is a 4 day hike from Saint Malo to Mont Saint Michel.