The Tranquility Of A Low Tech World

 The instant your car takes exit 15 off of the N165 towards La Chapelle-des-Marais in Loire-Atlantique, France, you realize you're somewhere else. Floating between Vannes, Nantes and La Baule is the Parc Natural Regional de Brière, an ecological preserve characterized by a rustling sea oat marsh inter-cut with meandering waterways.

Photo by M. Twardowska

Photo by M. Twardowska

You're following the signs to Ile de Fédrun, an island in the middle of the marsh. Its border is marked by a 10-foot wide waterway, so getting there isn’t dramatic, but crossing the paved bridge into the Fédrun is -- because when you cross that 10-foot waterway, you have left the world behind. Thatched cottages line the streets and you can feel the past rise around you and the age of technology fade away.

In the morning as the sun rises in the East and the clouds still hover in the West over the marsh, you can hear a horn and see an old white van slowly making its way down the small streets. One honk of the van and doors open and old men and women carrying the tiny French ubiquitous change purse, emerge to buy bread from the van. That van has no Twitter following. They just know it’s going to be there.

PROMOTED

Photo by M. Twardowska

Photo by M. Twardowska

In the midst of this quiet marsh lies La Mare Aux Oiseaux. An unusual three-star hotel capped with a Michelin star restaurant with the same name created by the avant-guarde and controversial chef, Eric Guérin.  It's a scene of unique beauty. His cuisine is a heady blend of  Moroccan, Japanese and French using cooking techniques from all three cultures and his experiences in those regions. I spoke with the second chef, Albert Riera about why he chose to leave his native Catalonia and come to a marsh.

"I came for the magic of Eric's cuisine and what the local environment inspires us to make with it," says Riera. "I want to bring the perfect blend of Catalon and French cooking to the menu for people to enjoy."

The hotel is built to blend into the sights and smells of the Fédrun. Cottages backing up onto the waterways,  their fronts lining the small streets pinned in by colorful wooden gates with native flowers and the sound of rustling sea 0ats.

It's as if they took all the textures, feelings and colors from the marsh and put it on the inside of this hotel, but with man-made materials. The hotel only has 15 rooms and to get one of those 15 rooms is not easy. I mean not easy in the conventional sense of what we have come to expect when booking hotel rooms. Sure, you can book a room via the internet for the hotel, but it won't be easy to 1) find the hotel online and, 2) do it in English (after a lot of searching, also no email address). So guess what you do? You call them, the old fashioned way. And you know what? It turns out it's okay to talk to another human being when booking a hotel room.

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The low tech world doesn't stop there, it carries through in everything you experience or want to do. You want to hire someone to row you around the waterways in a flat boat? You have to call or do what we don't do much anymore, just go see M. Moyon. The rooms are actually in restored thatched cottages mirroring the colors and textures of the marsh and punctuated by three pieces of technology: A Samsung Smart TV, a docking station for your iPod and a fancy espresso machine (not Nespresso). That's it.

La Mare Aux Oiseaux entrance

La Mare Aux Oiseaux entrance

The chef is well known for his food. The   hotel and restaurant are full at all times, despite its location in the middle of a marsh. Clientele are mostly from all over France, so the staff were eager to try out their English and were mostly amazed we had found the place. None of the clientele had a mobile phone on them at dinner or in the gardens.

Guérin is planning on opening another hotel and restaurant between Paris and Rouen sometime next year.  The chef keeps pushing the envelope in order to create tranquility in both the food we eat and the environment we consume it in - he's pushing us out of our busy, high tech world back to the calm of nature.