(Vitré, Brittany, France)
For the second time in three years, we are in France for Bastille Day (a.k.a. le quatorze juillet, or la fête nationale). This was not intentional – it just happened to be when we were in France this time around. But I do have a fondness for Bastille Day: as regular readers of this blog know, my previous Bastille Day post on St. Pierre & Miquelon remains by far my most-read blog entry.
Upon arriving in Vitré, we learned that the July 14 fireworks would actually take place at 11:30 p.m. on July 13. I suppose this is because almost every community in France has a fireworks display, so they have some of them the night before too. It was to take place at Vitré’s hippodrome, which turned out to be a 2km hike from our downtown hotel.
While it was a bit of a trek at that time of night, it did get us out to a completely different part of town. And, since Vitré has relatively few overnight tourists, we felt like we were really a part of the community: almost everybody there was from the immediate area.
Can you imagine sitting in a dark field, just before midnight, during a Canadian summer? It would be brutal, with ravenous mosquitoes being a constant annoyance. But, here at the edge of Brittany, there seemed to be no insects at all. What a pleasure!
Even though Vitré is not a big community, the fireworks show accompanied a rousing selection of music and dwarfed what you would see in a similarly-sized Canadian community. I was kind of hoping to hear La Marseillaise, as it is quite a stirring national anthem…it was being played a lot around France during our visit, especially with the World Cup Final taking place the next day. There were certainly a lot of soccer jerseys in the crowd that night!
While La Marseillaise did not make an appearance, the fireworks show was still very enjoyable. However, when the show was over and thousands of people began to leave the hippodrome, an equally stirring song was played and will forever be stuck in my mind when I think of this night. Yes, it was “The Final Countdown” by Swedish hair-metal band Europe! Call it cheesy, but you also can’t forget it!
With “The Final Countdown” on auto-repeat in our brains (and undoubtedly quickening our pace), we were back at our hotel before we knew it. And while this is not our country, we still appreciated being part of the national celebrations on this warm summer night in northern France.
It wasn’t easy getting to sleep that night. I’m sure it was much worse for the rest of the country: would the World Cup be theirs the next evening?