After our casual and nicely surprising exploration of Trentemoult, this little fishermen’s village on the left bank of the Loire,
We came back by the river shore, and we found this amazing and wonderful little multiuse café.
You can see it, all pink, in the background of the picture.
“Le café du Port” ( the Harbour Café) is also tobacconist and Post office and it’s obvious that the owner, a very energetic and determined slim lady, cannot not play all the roles at once, so she relies on her clients' good will and help.
We didn’t know, so we sat at one of the wooden tables in front of the café and politely waited for a little while, until a gentle but not very talkative all tattooed man showed us with his forefinger the interior of café, on the other side of the street and we guessed it was a kind of self-service.
So Sergey went there and disappeared into the dark interior. He knows only ten words of French, but mysteriously he can always make himself understood and get exactly what he needs.
He appeared again after a few minutes exactly with the two white beers we looked for, then he informed me that the lady-owner had told him that they were going to close.
I regret my lack of trust in Sergey’s understanding of French, but I thought he had not understood anything, since it was just noon and there was not any apparent reason to close the café, post office, tobacconist and all the rest of its functions...
But immediately after that I saw that the lady came out from the café and let the rolling shutter down , leaving only a little space which allowed her to slip out bowing.
All the tables around ours were suddenly occupied by local people arriving from all little streets and they started celebrating the birthday of the owner’s son, the silent tattooed guy who before had informed us about how things worked by a simple gesture.
An accordionist got materialized apparently from nowhere, and also another man with an ancient hurdy-gurdy arrived.
We asked if we had to leave, feeling more than simply strangers, but they told us that of course not, but simply they could not take other customers at present, so we were there by chance at the last good moment.
The whole atmosphere was so lively and old fashioned;
The accordionist played wonderfully well, while the hurdy-gurdy was dramatically out of tune.
We had really the impression, once again, to be inside an old French movie.
What else could we do? We joined the celebration…
Sergey had his personal success wishing “Happy Birthday” in Russian to the tattooed guy, who appreciated, since he got up and kissed suddenly both of us with warm spontaneity.
We drunk with them and when we had to left, to get the little boat which would have taken us back to Nantes, they all waved at us!
I could not taken good pictures, I had the impression they were in a way reserved and I would have felt too uncomfortable if I had somehow “violated” their private celebration.
So I have only these two poor images to connect with this story.