Cat's Eye View @ MPL: My Retirement Travels, Part Trois

Monday, February 29, 2016

My Retirement Travels, Part Trois

Since my retirement as MPL feline roving reporter last year, I've been world-travelling. We've already talked about my visits to Montana (in search of relatives) and Peru. Next on my itinerary was Saint-Marc-sur-Mer, France, birthplace of my ancestor, Cyrano Le Chat (1924-1937), about whom I blogged previously. As always, click the photos to bigify.

Moi sitting next to the statue of

Jacques Tati (as Monsieur Hulot)

(from Tati's film comedy, Monsieur Hulot's Holiday [1953])

(sculpture by Emmanuel Debarre) (erected in 1999)

at La Plage de M Hulot ("Monsieur Hulot's Beach)

Saint-Marc-sur-Mer is a seaside resort located six kilometres (3.7 miles) west of the center of the town of Saint-Nazaire. I was able to locate Cyrano's birthplace in Saint-Marc-sur-Mer. The house has been heavily renovated but was originally built around 1920.

Birthplace of Cyrano Le Chat

Saint-Marc-sur-Mer, France

(House constructed circa 1920)

Cyrano was a superb "mouser," as humans call cats adept at catching rattermeeces (sometimes also spelled rattermeeses), so, in 1926, Cyrano became ship's cat first class aboard the French passenger liner, S.S. Île de France, which was built in Saint-Nazaire and was the first post-World War I French vessel to exceed 40,000 tons.

S.S. Île de France (1926)

Cyrano disembarked in New York City to requisition canned tuna-in-oil for his feline shipmates when he was abducted by a sixteen-year-old American girl from Brooklyn, Clarice Monsanto, who was at the docks awaiting her grandparents' arrival on another ship. Clarice assumed Cyrano was a stray who needed a home. So, like it or not, he had one, in which he eventually settled down.

I wandered the beach and resort, in which we had a very nice room. My tour minions were able to capture some decent photos, but not including moi. What's up with that?