We’re not even snowbirds any more. When we left Loreto at the end of April we loaded the car with everything we meant to keep from our life in Mexico. We had not received a firm offer on our house there, but soon we did, and by August the deal was closed. We had gone from being true expatriates, in 2009, without a home in the United States, to being semi-nomadic, traveling “al otro lado” annually; and then back to being simply Seattleites, with nothing to distinguish us except our fading suntans and vocabularies. Failing to find a year-round climate, we chose one that was convenient to escape instead.

In fact we wasted little time in escaping. July found us in France, on a cycling trip through Normandy and Brittany — you can see the trip description on the Backroads homepage.

Alex arrives at the Chateau d’Audrieu, our billet for the night.

A change in the rail schedule meant that we didn’t have so much time in Paris at the beginning of our trip as we had planned, but more in Caen for museum-going. Also, the 70th-Anniversary D-Day crowds had thinned out before our arrival, but the weather was still good.

The tour ended at St. Malo and from there we took the train, changing at Rennes to the TGV that goes directly to the airport.  We spent the night at the aviation-themed Sheraton at Charles de Gaulle, meaning no cab ride in the morning and not even much of a schlep.  Here’s a picture of the hotel’s atrium from outside our room.