During my first Summer I experienced France at some of the finest moments, the long sweeping shadows of the Chantrerie defining the late afternoon, small sparkling flower heads leaning in as we lunched alone on the rear manor house steps oblivious to any activity the caryatids behind us had witnessed in centuries past. Nantes is visible only as a sole highrise, its only high rise tower, occupying a small spot at the centre of the horizon, the forest in the foreground and the Erdre River in the mid ground.