SEEING BRITTANY LIKE A LOCAL 5 Tastes of France In The Off Season

Posted on 03/04/2016 | About La Baule, France

In February, the French town of La Baule with its castle-like hotels and grandly ornate stone homes looks like a fairy tale ghost town.  In a sense it is.  When the season is over as the leaves fall, the owners  shutter their multi-million dollar “summer cottages” and head home to Paris or Marseilles, leaving behind a beautiful beach, 5-star hotels and unique cuisine.

But in reality, winter never really comes to Brittany–one of the longest-settled parts of France. Warm ocean currents along the peninsula on France’s west coast mean the temperature seldom dips below freezing and, coming in from the airport at Nantes in mid-February, the road is lined with wildflowers, leaves are emerging on the trees and pastures are brilliant green.Arriving in Saint-Nazaire, at the mouth of the Loire River, the sun is brilliant and the temperature is so warm that a wool sweater seems too toasty. We’re here for a tour of the STX France shipyard where Royal Caribbean’s Harmony of the Seas,– the biggest cruise ship ever built–is getting its final fitting