Rennes and Normandy.

Our third day of tours kicked off with our make good visit to the organic bakery. Not only do they use organic materials, they also bake in the ancient method of hand mixing and rolling dough and baking the loaves in woodfired ovens. Each month they bake nearly 10,000 tons of bread. In addition to the bakery the family farms wheat and raises beef cattle.

The second stop of the day included a tour of a cidery museum that housed presses that were 300 years old. A video showed us the process the cidery takes to care for the trees, collect the apples, press the apples and transform the juice into cider and apple brandy. After a tasting session we were free to purchase apple juice, cider, a drink that was part brandy/part juice or a 40 proof brandy known as calvados.

Our final tour of the day was of a Normandy farm that had turned to agrotourism as a way to survive. This farm kept a small amount of a variety of animals, mainly to help educate children. They host day trips and campouts for youth to come milk cows, make bread, see sheep, learn the difference between donkeys and horses and pet chicks and rabbits. Each year they host 2,000 students while still running a small dairy herd of 40 cows.

Our night ends at Omaha Beach, where we will spend tomorrow touring museums and learning the French side of World War Two. We will remain tourists on Sunday, since it is difficult to schedule farm visits or meetings on the weekends, and close out our weekend with a trip to Versailles before heading to Paris.