On our way to Angers

View from our room

Crossing the Maine and Loire 

No, we aren’t mad. Angers is pronounced on-jay. Ironically,  Angers may be our happy place.

Known as the “Garden of France” Angers is also home to the Bibliothèque Anglophone. http://ellia.org

I reached out to the BA to ask if they could connect us with some American expats, so we could learn from their experiences. We have been overwhelmed by their outpouring of kindness and friendship. 

Librarians Mandy and Phoebe are hosting a welcome coffee meeting on Wednesday where we will meet them and some other library members. Thursday, we meet a couple with ties to the PNW. We have had a delightful video meet up with another couple who returned to WA state and are still missing Angers. 

Angers already feels like home.

Tours was a fun city to explore and Michéle, our hostess, already feels like family. Tours is a central point for visitors to the Loire Valley’s many chateaux and wineries. Having lived in a tourist destination in Florida, we have absolutely no interest in revisiting that experience. 

Angers is on the edge of the Loire and is mostly bypassed by tourists. Our concerns here are the size 180k in the city +400k with the burbs. Also, humidity in summer. We are unaccustomed to big city life and we are used to having our own space. That will be a problem anywhere we choose as we will need to live where there is strong mass transit. We would like to be car-free. Reality may change this.

Maybe we will find a quiet apartment with proximity to the BA and gardens and find that this is our ideal. We would love to volunteer at the BA and partake of all the fine arts Angers has to offer.

This sculpture is in the Jardin des Plantes in Angers. The title is “The Matinee” 

The grand opening must have been really something!

Nespresso machines are France’s Keurig. We hate Keurigs and the waste they generate. We believe Nestlè is an evil company so we try to avoid supporting them, but we need our coffee. Just pop in a pod and voilà! Nope.

Yuck! Watery espresso, no foam. Five tries in, it was all milk. What gives??

That’s when I noticed the different color pods. I was making either all milk or a full cup of a short espresso. Now we have 3 espresso pods left and a bunch of milk. Yuck. Live and learn.

Apartments in France are often rented with no furniture or even kitchen appliances. It is up to the tenant to purchase their own refrigerator, stove, washing machine, etc. We think this furniture looks perfect. Just blow it up and when you are ready to move deflate it.

This is from a walk through the local cemetery. Gorgeous!