A grand day out in Nantes was planned, initially because we had located a shop that sold Cognac aux Amandes (Almond Cognac), which had proved a great hit with friends who had recently visited us in Malestroit. This warming Cognac, with a hint of almond flavour, can be found in a few restaurants in Malestroit and is served after dinner as digestive.

We had scoured the shops and supermarkets but had never seen it sold locally, so after a bit of internet searching we were in luck and found a shop in Nantes, about an hour and a half away by car, or as it happens on a direct train from our local station at Questembert. With our friends willing to pay the advertised €23.00 a bottle, we had planned our day out using the somewhat sporadic rail service that is on offer in Brittany as we also had use of our free travel coupons for SNCF. We need to keep our costs low being unemployed, so using the free rail travel seemed rather semsible even if there are not many trains to choose from!

We need not have bothered planning a day out as on our first day in Brittany, on a shopping trip to the local Super U, we stumbled across a stash of the flavoured cognac at lower prices that expected. Even though it was just past 10.00 in the morning we sneaked to the checkout clutching four bottles of the hard liquor. A win-win situation for all concerned as it saved me lugging the heavy bottles back on the train and our friends got the merchandise at a much lower price of €17.00.

We still had our day out to Nantes, which sits in the Loire Atlantique region of France and has not officially been in modern day Brittany since 1969. The city is dominated by a grand château, of which parts date from the 15th and 16th centuries when Nantes was the capital of the Dukes of Brittany. Given the souvenir shops selling all sorts of Breton goods it still seems to hold true that at least in spirit the city has links to the north west region of France that it once controlled.

The city is a big place, with around 280,000 people in the central area but around half a million living in the region and surrounding towns and villages. It is a bit spread out too, it does not have the 'city centre' feel of Rennes or the much smaller Vannes so navigating the streets does not come intuitively, instead it seems like you are walking from square to square and area to area rather than enjoying one city centre. There are some really grand buildings, but very few Breton style wooden buildings to see in the city (or at least we did not see many). One area that does stand out is the rather quirky Jardin des Plantes, very close to the railway station, with some huge examples of topiary and slightly bizarre artwork. What was noticeable about the garden, considering the proximity to the station, were the lack of down and outs using park benches as a bed as may have been expected - the one we saw seemed happy sat outside the station café drinking an espresso. Maybe they just have a better class of homelessness in Nantes?