It is time for us to pause and answer the call of family and friends who beckon us home for the holidays. But before we go, we want to share a little about the ground we covered since leaving Belgium.

We worked our way westerly toward the Brittany coast and hunkered down for two nights in a chambre d’hôte above the Cancale harbor. Cancale is famous around the world for its succulent oysters so it was easy for us to go native and join the villagers in their evening ritual. At about 6 pm, we would pop down to the shacks at the water’s edge, make our selection of just-harvested mollusks, and carry the large filled plastic oyster plates garnished with half a lemon to the steps of the seaside amphitheater. Then we would buy a glass of white wine to complement our slurping of the briny creatures from their shells before pitching the empties to the rocky beach below where seagulls feast on the leavings.

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