Bon Délire

 OK...I have to make this disclaimer; I am writing the remainder of the blog from the comfort of my home in Rossmoor. In the past when we have travelled and I've written a little family blog, I did the writing each day in the quiet times of early morning tea/coffee drinking when we have first awakened, and then in the evening before heading out to dinner - another quiet time as we rested and regrouped over a quiet glass of wine before heading out.  This trip, traveling as a group of 6, allowed for no quiet down times!  The combination of chatty sisters in law, corralling 6 adults (harder than herding cats every morning!), and the mental fatigue of dealing with the rental van just made keeping up with the blog too difficult.  But here I sit in Walnut Creek, after a great night's sleep in my own bed, and I am raring to go...wanting to preserve all the memories of our fun family trip! So I last left off after we returned "home" to Dinan after having our rental van towed...

Our little home is just so cute, I can't stop taking photos of it! Gary and I got up early and walked through the town to the TI (traveler's information) office to pick up some maps and restaurant suggestions.  Ironically one of the top restaurants the gal there suggested was the place we stumbled upon last night, so I count that as a win! This is the Rance River...Dinan Port is on the left bank and Lanvallay is on the right bank...we are staying in the walled town of Dinan which is at the top of the hill on the left, above the Port. The town was so beautiful and quite in the early morning as the sun was coming up. We found a little cafe and sat for a cup of coffee and croissant (heavenly!).  Next thing I knew, John and Babette passed by and joined us!  Our cafe was in the shade and Babette was chilly so the owner (another Scottish rugby player who relocated to France!), brought out a shawl for Babette to wear and he insisted on placing it on her...so charming! Heaven!! W...

Let's get a rental car...it will be fun! (or so we thought!).  I truly am confused by the timeframe of our rental car situation, because so much has changed but I'l try to simplify what is going on!  Due to the anticipated train strike in France on Sept 18, we decided to get our rental car earlier than planned.  I had changed our car reservation online before we left California.  We (all 6 of us) took a very small taxi (a Prius...Lenore and I were basically sitting in the trunk of the car!) to the Bordeaux airport to pick up our rental van.  When we got to the car rental desk they had no record of the reservation...after a bit of back and forth it was determined that our reservation was for the prior day, and as we had not picked up the car, it had been given to another family.  I think the mixup occurred because EuropeCar had changed their online booking platform between the time of the original booking, and the change order I put in.  In fact I actua...