Today was the first day of Robert's conference, so I was on my own, but we did have breakfast together. I just love French breakfasts. I had a croissant with butter and jam, a brie sandwich on French bread and cafe au lait. There is nothing better than drinking coffee out of a bowl. After breakfast, Robert left for the conference and I went into the city to explore. I went to the Fortress Castle, built by the Plantagenets in the thirteenth century. One of the main attractions at the Castle is the Tapestry of the Apocalypse, a series of seventy-something tapestries illustrating the text of the Book of Revelations according to St. John. The tapestries were commissioned in 1374 and are amazingly well-preserved. After seeing the castle, I took a little 45-minute tram tour of the city to get my bearings. The spoken part of the tram tour was en francais and I followed along fairly well. After the tram tour I came back to the hotel to take a nap.


When Robert came back from the conference, we took a walk up to the castle so he could see it. Then we went to a reception at the Mairie given by the Mayor of Angers for the conference attendees. It was hot and boring, but the cookies were good and so was the champagne. We met up with Robert's friend Guido and Leo, a man from Vancouver, B.C. whom Robert and Guido met at lunch. We wandered around looking for a restaurant to eat dinner at and wound up at a creperie, much to Robert's extreme pleausure. I don't want to bore people with the minutae of our gastronomic tour of France, but I had a galette aux champignons and Robert had one with duck, apples and peppercorn sauce. For dessert, I had a flaming crepe with apples and calvados and Robert had a "crepe split" with bananas chocolate sauce, pastry cream and whipped cream. We chatted and before you knew it it was 10:00 and time to head back to the hotel.