beach day galettes

It felt delicious to sleep in late with no alarm to wake me up for a train to catch. Instead I lingered in the room doing basically nothing til shortly after noon, at which point I ventured out to explore a little bit of the town while everyone else got ready to head to the beach. I had spotted a really cute pair of embroidered jeans hanging in a boutique window, but when I peeked in to see them and saw the tag for €400, I adjusted my expectations to strictly window-shopping.

For my NorCal friends I'd describe La Baule as similar to Carmel in terms of having a bougie commercial strip that leads to a beach. But today the beach was absolutely mobbed by large groups of teenagers making the most of a weekday heat wave. It was so much warmer than yesterday and the Kiwis scouted out a nice spot to rent a shaded hut, so Bill rented us the one next to it.

I still needed to head back to the hotel for my beach stuff, so I also decided to do a lunch run and ended up grabbing baguette at a bakery, cheese butter and drinks at a Carrefour, and galettes for takeaway from Crêperie Barapom La Baule. I was exceedingly proud of my unexpected ability to order in French. Then I piled everything into one bag which looked so tourist-in-France with baguettes and galettes poking out of it as I carried it all down the main drag towards the beach.

When I found everyone at the huts, James and Ben had relegated themselves to the back of ours looking completely wiped. The heat is definitely tiring, and both of them had spent some long stretches in the sun. Ben quickly revived with water and a galette, but James just didn't have the same beach energy he did yesterday so decided to head back to the hotel. All the rest of us settled in for the long haul and enjoyed the laziness of listening to music, snacking, and watching the kids play. I set out a “gastronomique” butter in the sun to get deliciously melty. Interesting La Baule fact: there is strictly no alcohol allowed at this beach, and it's policed pretty aggressively.

The beach scene was wild today — the groups of teenagers all had footballs and were gathered in big circles both on the sand and in the water to play boisterous games of "keep it up." Roving groups passed one another or combined, and one cool thing I noticed was that even the boys carried purse-like bags for their belongings — sometimes black leather and sometimes more like bum bags slung over their shoulders. It is so dumb that Americans have an aversion to guys carrying bags.

I spent a couple hours alternating reading with waist-high dips into the water, and then went at 5pm to a salon nearby that I had spotted earlier and made an appointment for a hair wash and blow-dry which in France they call "shampoo and brushing." It was fun to navigate the salon with staff that spoke barely any English, and we managed ok. It was so relaxing to be in the air-conditioning and have my hair washed and head massaged, emerging with Paris-ready hair for tomorrow.

I came back to the beach to find Ben still enthusiastically playing in the sand and the big groups of teenagers beginning to clear out for whatever parties they'll be going to tonight. No idea what the night life scene is like in La Baule but I can't imagine it's that exciting. I finished my book and then took one final half-dip in the water before we eventually wrangled the kids and headed back to the hotel at 7pm even though in terms of sunshine it really felt more like 4pm. Having sunset after 10pm really makes it feel like there's tons of time to kill while waiting for cool evening.

We finally headed out to dinner at 8pm and Bill found us a lovely restaurant in the opposite direction from the busy main drag. We sat outside on a patio watching two young kids on rollerblades get pulled around by their dog on a leash as the French parents ignored it all. Ben accidentally ordered the kind of shrimp that you have to disassemble yourself, which Bill generously did for him, but the rest of us were happy including me with a truffle-covered pizzetta bianco. Then we strolled to the main drag which had gone quiet and stopped at one of the creperies that was still open, so that Ben could get a savory galette — literally his third one of the day. I got a crepe with banana and the boys both got scoops of mango passion fruit sorbet.

We were going to meet back up with the Kiwis who had gotten assortments of snacks for dinner and were playing card games on the hotel's front patio, but then the exhaustion of a hot sunny beach day sank in and they went to their rooms to crash. The sun was just setting so we decided to take a short detour to the beach to take in the view, which was pink and lovely at low tide like last night. We sat along a ledge watching lots of people hanging out by the shore before heading back. There was no Giants game to keep us up late so we went to bed a little earlier in our overheated rooms, thankful that our next two hotels both have air conditioning. Of my many trips to Paris this year, this will be the first time that we get a warm summery day there.