Anyways, I went by the station early Monday morning to figure out times and prices and found that for only €3,40 I could get a ticket for Fougères. So I get the ticket and wait at the bus stop for the next few minutes for the bus to arrive.

A dull drive through the country side that has started showing the brown of winter. I kind of wish I had brought my mp3 player to have a sound track to the drive, but I hadn’t planned on leaving town and sitting in a bus.

The bus comes in to the town from the side that has all the medieval buildings.

I wander off the bus at some random stop before the bus station to look at all the medieval buildings.

The town is built on a hill. It has been too long for me to not be walking around on hills in cities. Taking note of the interesting architecture that forms from trying to deal with a surface that is very much not flat.
The street that I walk down to get to the castle is full of store fronts that look like they have all recently been vacated.
The reality of the modern financial world, the reality of small town businesses, or a reason completely unseen?
I wander in circles. Distrated by small winding streets that take me back to where I had already been.

While wandering through the city trying to make my way to the castle I passed while on the bus I find that as I wander closer that old walls break up the elevations of the town. At one point I wander through a small parking lot for some apartments and a small patch of grass that it seems the locals take their dogs to shit. Muddy and full of shitty landmines. I climb up a small wall with old glass in the mortar. On the other side of the wall there is a small landing and a staircase that leads down to what looks like a small garden. I lean out on the landing and take a picture of the houses rising over the old stone wall. A small round table sits on a small field of grass. Perhaps someone’s quiant spot for a Sunday brunch outdoors. At least that is what I would use it for.

This town appears to be full of parks. As I get closer to the castle there are parts of the old city wall that still stand and the area around becomes a collection of parks that are hard to tell when one stops and another begins. The first park I wander into has the remainder of some old buildings that had been bombed out. A spiral staircase made of stone has become a form of playground equipment. I see a group of students having a picnic at the base of the city wall, next to the moat. The parks themself seem to be collection of mazes. A few times I left not knowing how to make it to the next one and then when entering it from the street I would find the hidden passageway tucked under some tree branches.

While being in Fougères I kept thinking about the little trips the family would take to Red Lodge. A little town with not much going on, but everything just feels a bit slower than everywhere else. The streets only have a few people walking around. Because of this I kept thinking about how much Taryn enjoys Red Lodge. It is too bad she won’t be able to make it over here while I am living in Rennes. Although I would have to say that Red Lodge doesn’t have a castle and city walls. Sadly the only day that the castle is closed happens to be Mondays and the day that I was there. Something to go back to.