C'est quoi, ce truc rond et jaune ?

Paris is currently all abuzz about the weather. After a cold, wet spring that I think was technically called "late winter", the sun came out and the earth heated up and we've had a stunning past couple weeks.

Picnics and festivals and concerts outside are all much better without getting pelted by rain, and having to layer your cute summer dress with wool tights and layers of sweaters. Rather optimistically, I picked up bottles of fancy sunscreen during the Soldes and this year, I've actually gotten to use them.

I totally get the magic of Paris now. It's truly a spectacular place with shadows and long, low light in the extended afternoons into evening. The sun doesn't set until almost 10pm still, which means you can laze around in a park until security chases you away.

I've barely eaten anything that wasn't picnic food lately. I do miss having a BBQ. Even in NYC, I had a little bucket grill that I would haul out to Prospect Park to fire up on nice weekends. In Paris, there are no fires permitted in the city, so you can't even grill if you have a little backyard. I miss that.

Cafe business is booming.

But mostly, I am in love with the light.

Last summer, we barely saw the light until August. This is just refreshing.

And people here are out, and the attitude adjustment has been remarkable. How can you be having a bad day with the sun smiling down upon you? Everyone hates a killjoy on days like this.

There's barely any outdoor space devoid of picnickers. In theory, having a bottle of wine will get you a ticket, but I've never seen it happen. It's just what you do here. You sit out, you drink your wine, you chat with friends while clouds of cigarette smoke drift by. Which, lately, has been replaced by electronic cigarette vapor, which is just not the same.

I hope you are having a fantastic summer. Take a lesson from Paris and enjoy it!

FO: Vine Yoke Cardigan

Just in time for warm summer breezes, a heavy winter wooly cardigan to see me through. It's the Vine Yoke Cardigan by Ysolda from a Twist Collective that was published in 2009.

Springtime here was not exactly an airy brief silken clothing inspiring event, so I sat down and churned out a quick sweater despite the fact it might be a while before it actually gets some use. Some people make hay when the sun shines, I make wool winter sweaters while the populace dons winter coats in June.

Actually, this was intended as a gift, so I made it size up than what I normally would make myself. The pattern is unusual as you knit it sideways, which lets the unique lacy cable wind its way across the shoulders, and I loved the small lace details of the cuffs and waist. The pattern wasn't hard at all, but there were a lot of short-rows involved so you had to pay attention, but otherwise you could have this done and blocked in a week or two and be done with it. It's hard to adjust the fit in sweaters like this, but you could easily modify to make the sleeves longer of shorter.

What's better than getting a wintery-warm sweater in July? Nothing. It's almost like one of those anti jokes: What's worse than finding half a worm in your apple? Cancer.

The pattern called for buttons and button holes. I thought it looked sloppy, so I left them out. I am currently in the market for some lightweight pewter clasps to fasten the front. That dpn is just for show!

The yarn is The Fiber Company Canopy Worsted. I used 8 skeins- a mere 800 yards, so it's very easy on the yardage. It's a 50% alpaca 30% wool 20% bamboo blend. Quite warm, if I have to sum it up. It's lovely to work with, with very little of the prickle that I grew tired of alpaca for. Every time I declare myself "over alpaca" this yarn brings me back. The color is a lovely heather green "yerba mate".

The Abbey

The lovely old Abbey at the top of the Mont.

We ended up going through the abbey later in the afternoon and had most of it to ourselves.

One of the things I wish we would have done was the walk across the quicksands to get to the island. The combination of fast tides and, er, the quicksand means you should probably go with a group (there are a list of guided tours on the MSM website for you to pursue). You could see them working their way across the plain of sand.

The chapel at the tippy-top:

The rest of the site was a series of large halls and vaulted cellars where the monks would eat and pray and entertain visiting pilgrams. An impressive pile of architecture, but denuded of any furniture or art work to help you put the pieces together.

Just based on the train and bus schedules, we had decided to spend the night at a hotel just off the island so we wouldn't have to rush and hustle. The hotels on the island were very tiny and quite expensive, so we opted to be on the other side of the causeway, where they were bigger but shabby and cheaply furnished. There's really no difference in the end as everything here closes at 5 except for the hotel restaurants.

There wasn't even a local bar to cozy up at. We decided in the end that 12 hours here was more than enough time to see everything. Aside from the Abbey and the views, there was nothing but gift shops and places selling crepes and overpriced omelets and mediocre kouign-amann. A pastry that is mostly butter and caramel should never ever be mediocre.

Everywhere you looked, shops were selling gorgeous pictures of the iconic Mont, with long shadows and sunshine and snow and pretty much in every condition except of the one you are most likely to see it in, which is overcast or being pelted with sideways rain.

We did find a fantastic place to eat though. I was getting suspicious of all the places with traditional Bretange dancing and music that lined the area, so we walked past the gate of the pedestrian area and there was a cute renovated farmhouse called La Ferme St Michel. I had a lovely bit of pre-sale lamb, which is the local specialty of salt-marsh fed lamb, and they had really good woodfire cooked omelets for much cheaper than the fancy place on the island. You can get sick of crepes while traveling in this region pretty quickly, so it was nice to sit down and have a glass of wine and eat something that was not wrapped in a pancake.

But I guess the best thing about staying the night was being able to see the landmark splendidly lit up.

The next day was dreary with rain and enough fog to obscure the view, but we took a walk around the city walls while waiting for the bus to take us back to Rennes. The main street was packed with umbrella-toting tourist trying desperately stay dry. True to the place, devoted pilgrams/tourist do not let a little rain stop them.

Like I said before, 12 hours is plenty of time. 24 hours and you'll be a bit bored (especially in the rain) and you might actually start to drift inside the plentiful gift shops just to have something to do.

Mont Saint-Michel Adventure

I have been intrigued by the mother of all tourist traps for a while now. True, it's a bit hard to get to, and that was part of the reason why I hadn't been yet. I waited until I had in friend in town who really wanted to see it before planning a trip. It's about four or five hours drive from Paris. We looked into bus trips direct from Paris, but that would mean joining a tour. Unless the tour would promise to take us to back alley kebap stands, I'm alright with independently getting there, even if it means a little creativity.

I found that you could take the TGV to the city of Rennes, and then hop a bus from there that takes you to the Mont. It was fairly easy, and the layover between the train and the bus meant we got to walk around Rennes for a bit and eat pastry.

Two hours on the train, a bit over an hour on the bus through the Brittany countryside, and we arrived. There's no town around le mont, but a handful of tourist hotels on the country road that leads to the causeway.

So, they are doing mad amounts of construction as they are building a new bridge to replace the causeway. The old causeway blocked the tidal flow in the bay and created enough silt build up so that the abbey is no longer technically on an island. Once the new bridge is built, they will take out the causeway and the parking lot at the base of the island, and it will once again be a tidal island.

They also built a snazzy new dam that they are using to flush out the bay and deepen the channel. It's designed to be a nice viewing platform as well. Very slick.

The Mont itself is a sight to behold.

Since the 8th century, there has been a monastery at the top of the hill, and it's been a pilgrimage site for just as long. It's portrayed in the Bayeux Tapestry, including the knights getting trapped in quicksand! About 40 people live on the island, most of them being monks or nuns as it is still a working monastery.

You can take a shuttle right up to the base of the mont, or you can walk or bike the 1km across. We opted for the walk just to spend more time taking it all in. Hopping a shuttle bus for the last mile seemed very anti-pilgram of us.

A touch of rare blue sky....

The weather in Normandy and Brittany was predictably between dreary and miserable. Wearing a rain jacket is a pretty good idea no matter what the forecast says.

The delicious stink of the sea was all around us. I miss that living in Paris.

You enter the city through a gate, and you wind your way through a tiny, steep street filled with cute medieval buildings and shops.

Mere Pollard has a monopoly on most of the real estate here. They sell their ridiculous 30 euro omeletes at their fancy place at the bottom of the hill, and every other shop has their name on it. The cuisine is pretty limited anyway, as you will get sick of crepes if you spend more than a few hours here.

The views from the top were pretty spectacular. The bay, the sea, the farms and fields. They've done a really good job of preserving the area from development and spoiling the views. If this would have been anywhere else, I feel as there would be condos touting their view of the landmark built up everywhere. Instead, the sheep get the majority of real estate is given to the sheep that graze the salt marsh.

The abbey is a Unesco site, so it's well-funded and well maintained. We ended up going later in the day, so it was fairly quiet, with none of the crowds I thought we would be fighting through.

I would dare to call it peaceful even.

I'll have more pictures for you of the Abbey tomorrow. As usual, I have way too many pictures for one post.