Photo-Illustration: The Strategist; Photo: Brad Ogbonna Everyone knows that person who spends weeks sniffing around travel blogs, going deep into Tripadvisor rabbit holes, collecting Google docs from friends of friends, and creating A Beautiful Mind–style spreadsheets to come up with the best vacations/itineraries possible.
La Belle Folie Book at Booking.com Buy Day 2 10 a.m. Wake up to pastries outside your door We took a very leisurely approach to our trip, and every morning we woke up late, sleeping in until 10 a.m. The hotel would leave us pastries and coffee outside the door. We’d each read a book, go on our respective walks or get exercise, then head out for adventures around noon.
Day 3 12 p.m. Peruse a seaside farmers’ market We drove to a nearby town called Carnac, a beautiful coastal place that almost looked like it was in Ireland. We found a farmers’ market selling goods from the region, so I bought some wine from Brittany and some caramel. Brittany is known for caramel and cider. Laurianne bought a really great tuniclike shirt. We ate a seafood lunch at a bistro called La Calypso that has got a whole maritime vibe.
We ordered everything, around six courses. We started with sea barnacles, and at first I was kind of like, Yo, what is this? I’ve had barnacles once before in Senegal, but this was a very different presentation. They had it in some kind of white-wine sauce, and it was extremely tasty. Then there was this great sea bass with egg. The grilled oysters with seafood foam were incredible, and there was another fish lightly seared with soy sauce.
1 p.m. Visit a medieval abbey on an island We went to check out Le Mont-Saint-Michel, which is essentially a castle on the water. It’s pretty surreal, you have to park in this lot and then take a little bus ride or walk out to reach it. It’s a little city with an abbey and restaurants and a village. It’s a tourist trap, but regardless, it’s extremely beautiful and feels epic.
Day 7 12 p.m. Go thrifting around Megrit We drove to a thrift store called Brocante La Tremigonne in Megrit. A lot of people had signs up saying to give them a call if you wanted to go inside. We called one woman, and she said she’d be there in 25 minutes. So we roamed around town and met a man who invited us to his backyard and poured coffee and tea for us. He showed us around his space, and we told one another about our travels. He said Americans used to come to the area to go antiquing.