we bought eurail passes for the month, the unlimited global pass. but we had 33 days of travel, so we rented a car for these first few days before using our month pass. to avoid Paris traffic and also a longer drive, we rented the car from Angers, France. we took a 7am TGV west out of Paris. was great to be back on the high speed trains of europe again, racing through the misty morning past old farmers’ fields.

the rental agent lady saw our big packs and gave us the biggest car she could, we had wanted a small one, but we ended up really liking this Kangoo.

onto the freeways, my first time driving in europe traffic, glad we could speak and read french! we made our way to the west coast of the continent. we wanted a little taste of oceanside to anchor ourselves into the trip - nature always helps. looked at the map and picked out a little peninsula that we figured had to be cool. and it was. the little towns of Quiberon and St. Pierre-Quiberon were charming and the ocean cliffs and windy roads made us happy. 

driving into Brest, found the address we needed. it was our first of many living room concerts, this one hosted by Gwen and Yoann, a hip and friendly young couple. they greeted us and fed us, and soon after our next house concert host, Patrick, arrived. he knows how to play ten instruments and had learned both our albums by ear. he joined us for the latter half of the set on mandolin, it was great!!

all of the people at the concert were really receptive to our music and we had a great first concert of the tour..