There’s a British TV comedy series that inspired today’s blog post title about a week we spent on the north coast of Brittany. In the show, when former mistress of the manor, Audrey, loses her husband, she sells the grand estate to a wealthy businessman but moves into the property’s small lodge house where she can keep an eye on the new owner. We both enjoyed watching it so it wasn’t unexpected when Bill asked me if I wanted to stay in a manor house. What did surprise me however, was that he was investigating a seaside vacation where we could walk along a rocky coast. Could this be the best of both worlds?

When I saw the words “sleep tourism” (le tourisme du sommeil) in our newspaper, I thought that they were talking about “slow travel”. That’s something that Bill and I have embraced since moving to France, now that we no longer need to fly over here from the US, dash around seeing everything we can in 2 weeks, and then immediately fly back. Taking the train over long distances gives us a chance to enjoy the journey, the scenery, the food and wine, the legroom, and arrive downtown within walking distance of our hotel. In fact, since “sleep” was in the title I figured they were talking about overnight trains that are making a real comeback in Europe, giving you a comfortable bed allowing you to wake up in your destination city. We have already covered that topic and the book you see here in this paragraph in previous blog posts. But this new style of travel was something totally different.

When we first visited the capital of Portugal a few years ago, we were staying about a 40-minute walk from the waterfront, so we made extensive use of the city’s public transit system. Going downhill was easy enough; however, for getting back up to the equivalent height of a 16-story building, the Metro (subway) was a welcome relief. This time our apartment was closer to the sea so we were able to see much more on foot, with plenty of time to stop along the way to admire the views, the shop windows, and even stop for a coffee or a beer. Thanks to a Rick Steves guidebook we had our own do-it-yourself walking tour of the neighborhoods, complete with maps.