We were up, bright and early, by 7 am, so D ran out to grab breakfast. If there is one thing I love about France, it is the constant supply of freshly baked croissants and pain au chocolat. Buttery, flaky deliciousness consumed, we got ourselves ready to go and headed out to explored Bordeaux.

As we arrived at the coast, everything looked different–the architecture was much more Spanish or perhaps Italian, there were palm trees abound. The coast was beautiful, but as we edged closer to Nice, we passed through a spectacular thunderstorm, with a very heavy downpour of rain, which was a trifle ominous. Mercifully, when we rolled into Nice, the storm hadn’t passed over yet, and so we booked it to our hotel, just beating the rain.

It was an early start and out to Gare Montparnasse to catch our train to Rennes. It was a pleasant, restful train ride. Upon arrival, we transferred to coach to get to Mont St-Michel. Driving up to it was certainly an impressive sight, with its large abbey rising high above a little medieval-looking town on its own little island. Though we did pass an ominously full parking lot and braced ourselves for hordes of tourists. We found our hotel and dropped of our luggage before walking outside of the village to get a good view of the abbey.

We set our sights on tackling the Louvre, and, thankfully, T’s presence allowed us to jump the lengthy queue, as per usual, as well as gain us free entry. We picked up a map (a vital tool in a museum that size) and set off. The Louvre is far and away my favourite museum we’ve been to thus far, and there’ve been some good ones. The setting was fantastic–gorgeous galleries with lofty, ornately decorated ceilings. housing equally pretty paintings.