France Day 22
We got up early to pack the last stuff, empty the tanks a last time and make the van ready for return. We also had breakfast eating most of our remaining food. We did another gas stop and then returned to the rental station. After the formalities we took a taxi to our hotel in Nantes.
Our room wasn't ready, yet and so we took off to explore the city on foot. One thing we noticed was the big police presence everywhere in full riot gear. It felt very weird. We stopped at Starbucks for the obligatory vacation coffee and for using their toilet, then continued to explore.
After walking around for a while we decided to get another round of galettes which were very good again. Meanwhile we had learned that a big protest by the yellow vest movement was scheduled for today which explained the police presence.
Google Maps recommended the Castle so that was our next visit. We got the audio guide and spent about two and half hours learning about the history of Nantes. It was a great experience but we were quite exhausted afterwards and returned to the hotel to check our room.
It had a large flat-screen TV but the remote was dead. Luckily my phone has a IR blaster so we didn't have to communicate with anyone to watch some TV. Much to Kaddi's delight we found a rugby game (La Rochelle vs. Toulouse ) and watched the rest of the second half followed by some cartoon network.
Finally we decided to go out for food again. However the Ramen place I had picked on Google maps turned out to be too close to the riot zone so we wandered in the opposite direction in the search for food. But first we had to go into a pastry shop to get some pastries Kaddi had seen earlier this day.
Unfortunately it was still too early for dinner in France. So we decided to do as French do and sat down in a bar to have drink first. We had an excellent Belgian cherry beer, than walked on to find dinner. We tried a supposed burger place first. But no one there was eating. And Google maps did not show any photos of burgers either?! After we had been ignored by the staff for long enough we decided to leave. In the end we ended up in an Italian place and the food was great.
Back at the hotel we watched another rugby game (Bordeaux vs. Paris) and went to bed to the sounds of distant screaming and police sirens.
