Caen to Rennes to Clermont‐Ferrand to Dijon, France (June 28–30, 2013)

The last few days in France were characterized by moderate to severe tiredness, difficult travel, difficulties eating… too many difficulties that made it rather unfeasible to sit down and write anything.

In fact, I hardly even used my laptop at all since I left Caen on Friday morning.

From Caen, the shortest train ride to Rennes requires you to change in Le Mans. Early 9:02am train to Le Mans, about an hour and a half spent trying to catch up with some sleep and failing. About half an hour stop there, then a TGV train to Rennes arriving 12:30pm.

My experience shows that, when planning to follow a tour, relying solely on public transport, your best bet is to always book your accommodations as close as possible to the port of travel from which you’re heading out the next day (a central railway station, an airport etc.), and worry about getting to and from the concert venue later. So, the good thing about the Rennes experience was that all key locations—the central railway station, the hotel for the night and the concert venue—were all located within a few minutes walk from one another.

Having learned the lesson from the miserable experience in Caen revolving around looking for food, the intention in Rennes was to go out for lunch as soon as possible. Arriving at the hotel, Hotel le Sevigne, the room wasn’t ready yet so luggage was stored there and the search for food began. It didn’t take long. Less than one minute walk from the hotel, there’s a French restaurant that received excellent reviews online: Le Galopin. It was my first French dining experience in France, and it was nothing short of amazing. Three course lunch menu for under €20.

One thing I like about French restaurants—and I am referring not necessarily to restaurants serving French cuisine, but restaurants that are “behaviourally” French—is the dining experience. It’s not only about the delicious food that often makes you wonder “how on earth did they come up with that?”; it’s about the experience involved in actually spending time in that restaurant. From the moment you’re led to your table until the moment you leave, you get the sense that you’re not only there to eat, but also to enjoy yourself.

Happy that I got dining and nutrition sorted out for the day, I headed back to the hotel and worked on finishing the previous post. That took a while. Then, instead of heading out to the beautiful day and explore the city, my brain signalled that it needs a rest; my body complied by crawling under the blanket and falling asleep within approximately 4 seconds.

It is indeed disappointing that, often, I need to give up some time in the sun exploring new places. However, that’s a risk I was already aware of when I decided to write this blog. It does take an awful lot of time—time which could otherwise be spent sleeping (at night) or exploring (at day). But if it wasn’t for the writing, I wouldn’t have followed this tour to begin with.

So please, if we happen to run into each other, please don’t bring this point of “but you don’t get to see anything” up. I am well aware of it.

Woke up at around 6:00pm feeling fresh. My friend Laurent and his wife Carole were in town for the concert: the concert in Rennes being a general admission one, Laurent has decided to arrive at the venue early in order to catch a good spot. Carole decided to pass, so we opted at taking a walk around the city center and grab a bite together before the show.

The city of Rennes (pronounced “Renn”) is located in France’s northwest, and is the capital of the French region of Brittany. A little more than 200,000 people live here. Comparing to Caen, which I had visited just a day before, Rennes had much more to offer in terms of scenery.

Spent less than an hour in the old city area, which was enough for me to determine that this place deserves a spot in my list of places deserving another in‐depth look in the future.

Jeroen, who went to see the city earlier by himself, took a few photographs as well:

Before heading back to the venue, it was time for a quick bite. Being asked what is it that I wanted to eat, I told Carole that I simply don’t care, and that I grant her full authority (and responsibility) to decide where it is that we’re going to eat, and what it is that I’m going to eat and drink. When in France, let a Frenchwoman decide such minutiae for you, that’s what I say. Delicious crepe with salmon, spinach and other goodies, finishing with some apple cider. Apple cider? yes. I wouldn’t have thought of that my self, but Carole said that it’s either apple cider or I don’t drink anything at all. You know what? fine. Hit me.

Was great. Big thanks to Carole for showing me around and telling me what to do.

Headed back to the venue, a short walk from the old city center, arriving about 5–10 minutes before the scheduled start time.

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The venue, Le Liberté, is located near the city center. For this concert, there were seats only at the perimeter—about 10 rows of seats or so—while the entire area between the stage and the back seats was open. The entire venue was “general admission”, including the seats: therefore, even if you opt at sitting at the back rather than standing, you need to show up early in order to grab a seat.

Arriving a few minutes before the concert’s start time, the venue was absolutely jam‐packed with people. I can’t recall other general admission concerts that were as packed as this one. In his diary, Richard Bennett wrote that you couldn’t possibly shoehorn another person into that venue: that’s exactly what it felt like.

When entering the venue, I didn’t stand much chance looking for Jeroen, who was already at the venue. We had agreed to meet in the venue earlier, an agreement that I violated by opting to spend more time in the old city center. Asking him through the mobile for his location, he responded with “right in front of FOH”. Now, apparently I was expected to know that “FOH” means “Front of House”, but for the life of me, I had no idea what “FOH” stood for and, even if I knew that it referred to “Front of House”, I wouldn’t even know what “Front of House” meant.

As I was struggling to figure out the meaning behind the secret acronym of “FOH”, it turned out that Laurent and a few other friends were seated right above the entrance. Asking them for help locating the Dutchman, nobody really stood a chance doing so as there were too many heads around. As I was still pondering what to do, Laurent called my name again saying that a seat was vacated right in front of him, upstairs. A couple of minutes to show time, I decided to head upstairs and be seated.

As a consequence, I ended up watching the concert with no Dutchman around, for the first time since autumn 2011 (the joint Knopfler‐Dylan tour).

At the back of the venue, sound is usually better than in the front section, so the loss of visuals is often compensated for by better audio. As usual for standing audiences this tour, Cleaning My Gun was played (Haul Away just doesn’t fit such concerts), and it was surprising to find Gator Blood played at the encore. Loud concert, loud audience, good experience.

As Ruth Moody and her band are opening for Knopfler in France, and concerts in France typically kicking off at around 8:00pm, it’s usually around 11:30pm when you leave the venue. All of the energy gathered during that afternoon’s sleep seemed to have flown out the window. Had to pass on drinks with Laurent et al, bid everyone goodbye and headed directly to the hotel.

Tired, hungry… and tired again, which wasn’t very pleasant knowing that it was going to be a very short night.

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After Rennes came Clermont‐Ferrand. Now, getting from Rennes to Clermont‐Ferrand by public transit is far from being pleasant: leaving Rennes at 7:07am (!) to Lyon, arriving 11:30am; then a very short 10 minutes connection time, departing Lyon at 11:40am arriving Clermont‐Ferrand at 2:05pm. That journey was one of the closest calls in the tour with respect to missed connections: any delay during the journey from Rennes to Lyon would result in a severe delay arriving to Clermont‐Ferrand. Unfortunately, so far in the tour, train delays have been more common than I would have expected.

Woke up at around 5:30am after a short, insufficient night sleep. Got everything ready and went to the hotel’s dining room for breakfast as soon as breakfast became available at 6:30am. Nothing beats eating breakfast in a rush, after a short night sleep: a day starting like that is bound to be far from perfect. Mediocre breakfast—which appears, by the way, to be the norm in French hotels—all consumed within 10 minutes and then a short walk to the central railway station to catch the TGV train, right on time.

The long train ride from Rennes to Lyon—more than four hours—was spent mostly trying to fall asleep. When the journey began, I pulled my laptop out and started writing this post. Two sentences later, I realized that my eyes can’t quite focus on the screen anymore; shut the laptop down with a great deal of frustration and spent the entire ride trying to fall asleep. Didn’t manage except for a few naps.

These are the moments—when your eyes are glazed; focusing on nothing; your brain feels like a mush; you’re tired, but can’t fall asleep; and all within a train riding at 320 km/h—these are the moments that make you wonder what it is that you’re actually doing here. It’s not a new feeling—I have experienced it many times during the 2010 Get Lucky tour, especially towards the end. Almost three months away from home, out of which two months spent in extreme travel, homesickness kicked in right above and below the belt.

Homesickness, towards either homes.

On one side, there’s the city of Vancouver—whose standing as the best city on this planet to live in (in my eyes. Don’t start getting sensitive and defensive on me here) has been strengthened even further during this intense travel in Europe. The more I travel in the old continent, the more I learn to appreciate how fortunate I am to be living in that beautiful city in Canada. I fully understand now why Vancouverites are perceived as snobs in the eyes of their fellow Canadians—it’s just that the city of Vancouver is such a damn fine place to be in. I long to once again live in its beautiful city center, surrounded by beaches, parks and snow peaked mountains.

Those who think that I am exaggerating in my appreciation of that city are well advised to attempt living there for a while. I have heard of many, many cases of people who came to visit and never went back to wherever they came from. Try and see for yourself.

On the other side, there’s the metro area of Tel Aviv, Israel. Israel… that exciting, troubled, constantly misrepresented and undervalued country to the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea, and where I happened to be born and raised. The country that is portrayed by worldwide media as the constant violator of human rights; as a war‐mongering monster seeding worldwide political instability. The country that was condemned by the ridiculous United Nations more times than North Korea, Syria (I suppose the United Nations isn’t intervening there because it’s still busy counting the casualties), Iran, Iraq, Libya, and Saudi Arabia (where they still behead criminals. Well, at least they’re considering stopping doing so, as they’re running out of swordsmen. They’re considering crucifixion and firing squads instead) combined. The country which is currently undergoing a profound, immense change led by the younger generation who is sick and tired of the conflict‐ and corruption‐laden mentality of their predecessors. Scenery‐wise, it can’t compete with much else: it has no snow‐peaked mountains; even fresh water is scarce. Life is very hard—virtually nothing can be taken for granted there nowadays—but this is where my entire family, as well as the vast majority of my circle of friends, live.

Two homes I have, and I am spending three months crisscrossing the old continent which is right between them. Visions of Vancouver’s Stanley Park mingle with recollections of Tel Aviv’s beaches; visions of my beautiful apartment in the 27^th floor of a a high rise located in the very center of Vancouver’s downtown—with my five guitars all laid up next to my piano just begging to be played—are mingled with those of the poor, neglected neighbourhood in Tel Aviv’s suburbs where I spent my first 25 years of living.

Eyes went shut…

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… And then reopened. 11:30am, stormed out of the TGV train as if I was on fire. Ten minutes to catch the connecting train. Line‐up to get out of the train: an annoying small kid refuses to leave the train, prompting his mother to attempt all sorts of methods to convince him to comply, and holding dozens of other innocent passengers hostage. “Pick the kid up and just leave the damn train”, I said. To myself, of course.

YES! Mr. Prince Charming finally agreed to leave the train. On the platform, running towards the exit. A flight of stairs. And another one. Now where is the damn departures board? oh, there it is. Wait, which one is our train? YES—there it is. Hurry up! another flight of stairs. Carry luggage up—of course, with my left hand, as the right hand is still out of commission—

—Made it. Arrived at the platform about a minute before the connecting train arrived. Phew. Boarded the train, 1^st class cabin… which left much to be desired.

Slow ride, again spent staring at nothing in particular with thoughts running in virtually all directions. Two hours and a half, and arrived at Clermont‐Ferrand on time.

Clermont‐Ferrand is yet another city in France of which existence I knew nothing of before looking at the tour’s schedule. It is located almost at the very center of France—about 400km south of Paris—and is known for being surrounded by (dormant) volcanoes (the Chaîne des Puys). As implied by the city’s name, what’s known nowadays as Clermont‐Ferrand used to be two separate towns—Clermont and Montferrand—joined together in the days of Louis XV.

From Clermont‐Ferrand’s central railway station, it was a long, hilly 2km walk from to the hotel for the night, Kyriad Hotel Clermont‐Ferrand Center. As the hotel was located very close to the city center—two minutes walk, maybe—we decided to look for a place to eat before even checking in: we were that hungry. Quickly enough, we realized that carrying luggage around while looking for food wasn’t going to work out: headed to the hotel, checked in and went back to the city center area.

In the meantime, my friend Ingrid was making her way from her home in The Netherlands to Clermont‐Ferrand, to attend the concert (now, I should tell you that the distance involved is just about 850km). The three of us agreed to get together in our hotel, and catch a pre‐concert dinner together; however, the Dutchman and myself were so hungry that we couldn’t really wait anymore.

Looking for lunch in Clermont‐Ferrand turned out, quite expectedly, to be a nightmare. Many tourist‐centric cafes around the city’s main square—places that you just know are bound to provide mediocre food for stupid prices. On the other hand, there’s TripAdvisor recommending a French restaurant, Le Dome, located inside a big shopping center right by the city’s main square. Problem: expensive. That resulted in us walking around the main square looking for other options, failing to find any. It’s either that places are closed, or not offering any seating space, or are obvious tourist traps… one restaurant—an Italian one—was actually open, but once we sat down inside, we were informed that it’s only open for drinks and snacks: no lunch. I suppose nobody there thought it might be a good idea to put up a huge sign in front of that place, saying “NO FOOD HERE, PLEASE GO AWAY”.

Somehow, I get the impression that my most useful suggestions are often ignored.

Nightmare, I tell you. Being hungry in small cities in France, while outside normal dining hours, is a nerve‐wrecking experience. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone.

What a mess.

Eventually, resorted to that expensive French restaurant located in the shopping center. At least they agreed to serve lunch. Good food (though not as good as that wonderful experience in Rennes), blood sugar level back to normal. Sanity restored, you can talk to me now.

Back at the hotel, and Ingrid showed up moments later. Whenever Ingrid is present, you get the sense that things are going to be OK from now on (that is, assuming that Ingrid is on your side. If Ingrid is not on your side… well… mercy on your soul). Asked Ingrid what it is that we should be doing next, as I was too tired and too apathetic to my surroundings to even care; but this is Ingrid, and you can trust Ingrid to come up with good, solid plans for pretty much anything.

Out of the hotel again to the city center for a few snacks and some coffee.

Now, I have to tell you this: as good as the French cuisine is, and as good as restaurants in France are, their coffee generally sucks. Well, “sucks” is not a strong enough word; I would use another word, but then I would violate my own rule of not using that word ever again (in writing) after receiving some constructive criticism from a reader (who just happens to be the mother of my ex. You see, I learn from everyone). At any rate, I keep giving it a chance and I keep getting disappointed.

As we were sitting in Clermont‐Ferrand’s main square, suddenly the drums started banging. What the heck? what’s going on? well, it was some sort of a parade. If any of you knows what this parade is for, or what it represents, please add a comment to this post and explain. Thank you.

Update, July 5, 2013: According to a commenter by the name Benoit, this parade is a part of the Saint‐Jean celebrations in France. Thank you Benoit for the info.

Back to the hotel as it was time to head to the venue. Luckily, we had Ingrid on our side as the venue was located far away from the city center so a car was needed to get there. As a matter of fact, it wasn’t even located in Clermont‐Ferrand.

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The venue, Zénith d’Auvergne, is located in Cournon‐d’Auvergne, about 10km away from Clermont‐Ferrand’s city center. It is yet another venue in the French Zénith series of venues: opened in 2003 and has the capacity of 8,500. Located right off the nearby freeway, the entire area seemed scarcely populated, and perhaps as a consequence, a huge parking lot was adjacent to the venue, free of charge.

My friend Nelly, who lives a couple of hours away from Clermont‐Ferrand, was on site along with her parents. Many other familiar faces and figures made it to the concert. After the Rennes concert experience, it was good to be seated closer to the stage in a much less crowded venue.

Good gig, after which a group of us gathered together in front of the venue, chatting, passing the time until the parking lot clears up a bit (that’s usually the problem with arriving to a concert venue with a car: it takes forever to leave the parking lot). Half an hour after the show, there was still a traffic jam leaving the venue. Ten minutes to ride approximately 50 meters. Finally hit the highway… minutes later, Ingrid dropped us off at the hotel and went on her way to spend the night in Saint‐Etienne, about an hour and a half away.

Altogether, Ingrid drove a little more than 1,000km in 18 hours. She attended the show and didn’t seem tired in the slightest. I have not the tiniest clue how she did this. A normal human being should not be capable of driving so much and still maintain such level of energy. I call for a DNA check on Ingrid. Something must be wired a bit differently there.

At the hotel, I discovered I’m starving. Held to my guns and decided to go to sleep hungry. Time to lose a couple of pounds I gained over the last two months.

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Sunday morning in Clermont‐Ferrand was beautiful:

And, as it was beautiful, it was quiet. The usual morning routine and we were ready to go traveling again. Next destination: Dijon.

The original plan was to take the train from Clermont‐Ferrand to Lyon; then change and proceed to Dijon. That, however, would have us arrive at Dijon outside normal dining hours… on a Sunday. The day before, I discovered how awful such an itinerary might be. As Ingrid was going to attend the Dijon concert as well, the revised itinerary was to get off the train in Lyon, wait for Ingrid there (as she would be making her way up north from Saint‐Etienne), have lunch together in a proper restaurant in Lyon and then go by car to Dijon.

That idea (to which I take the credit for coming up with) seemed to work well for everybody. Everything worked as planned: Left Clermont‐Ferrand at 8:57am, arrived to Lyon’s Part‐Dieu station at 11:20am. Ingrid was still about an hour away by car, so we went on to look for a nearby restaurant.

Nothing was available, which is not very surprising as we were looking at the wrong place. Lyon Part‐Dieu, while being Lyon’s prominent railway station, isn’t exactly located in the most interesting area of the city.

I have been to Lyon before, during the 2010 Get Lucky tour. Wish I had more time, this time around, to look around. Lyon is a gorgeous city.

Agreed to meet Ingrid at the railway station and explore from there. A quick look in Google Local hinted at a place called Brasserie Georges, receiving raving reviews left right and center. What can I say? another extraordinarily delicious meal in a French restaurant.

I also got to try what turned out to be the spiciest Dijon mustard I ever had in my entire life. Put a respectable amount of that mustard on a piece of bread, ate it and felt as if my eyes were coming out of their sockets. Really, it felt as someone was setting my throat and nose on fire; and just as it was spicy, it was irresistible.

Spent about a couple of hours enjoying fantastic food in the restaurant’s patio, enjoying the beautiful weather. Was hard to leave the seat… I’d camp there for a few days if I could. Alas, time was running out: need to get on our way.

From Lyon to Dijon, Ingrid drove about 200km. Now, rumours are that I was asleep during the entire ride—rumours that I passionately dismiss. I did take a nap, two or five hundred, but I wasn’t asleep the entire ride.

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Dijon is located in the Burgundy region of France. Around 150,000 live in this small city, which is famous for the International Gastronomic Fair it holds every year, but perhaps more famous for the Dijon mustard which was invented here—the same type of mustard that almost set me on fire two hours before I arrived here.

After arriving at the hotel, Hotel Montigny, took another nap for an hour and then the three of us headed outside for a pre‐concert snack. Oh, how lucky we were for having a big meal in Lyon earlier: virtually everything was closed.

Found one place that was open. Sandwich, terrible coffee and headed back to the tram station to take the tram to the venue. The machine selling tickets for the tram appeared to be broken: whatever we tried, we just couldn’t by tickets—the machine didn’t let us. We decided, then, to board the tram and do some explaining if and when an inspector comes on board, which they didn’t.

The venue, Zénith de Dijon—yes, another Zénith—seats 7,800. Again, many familiar faces made their way to this concert.

Unfortunately, due to other commitments, the Dijon concert was the last one for Ruth Moody and her band to perform as an opening act for. To me this is a shame: for twelve times this tour, Ruth and her band delivered excellent performances that left the audiences in the UK and France in awe. I cannot recall such a fantastic reception of a Knopfler opening act before: after each and every concert, dozens over dozens of people lined up to purchase Ruth’s albums. During her band’s performances, you could feel that the audience was very appreciative of whatever was going on on the stage.

Hats off to Ruth, Adrian, Sam and Adam for delivering fantastic performances. Good things are coming their way, no doubt about it.

If you don’t have Ruth’s albums (there are two of them: These Wilder Things and The Garden), then I strongly suggest that you buy them.

Half an hour after the opening act, the band of eight took the stage to deliver another good performance. Unfortunately for me, I couldn’t quite stand the heat in the place (although it wasn’t as hot as, say, the Frankfurt concert) so I watched a part of the concert from the back. It was funny to witness the Running of the Bulls—essentially, it looks as if a huge magnet sucks entire rows of people into the stage. I watched it all from the back, sipping cold water. Let the kids have fun, I say.

After the concert, a late night tram back to Dijon’s city center and off to a good night sleep.

Special warm thanks to Ingrid van de Maat for being the golden hearted woman she is. It’s always fun to be in the vicinity of such a lovely woman, and she did help a lot. Many hugs and kisses headed your way, darling!

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Signing off this post from my hotel room in Köln, Germany. It was a much needed day off today… concert tomorrow, the first one of five in a row, all in Germany.

Isaac