The last time I travelled in this part of France was in June 1983. Colin Vaughan and I arrived here via London following the conclusion of the Progressive Conservative convention that made Brian Mulroney our next prime minister. In Boulogne, we picked up a rental car. Our first destination was Vimy Ridge

Now, here I am again in the year in which Brian Mulroney died. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is also in Normandy, along with the British, French and American leaders, to mark the 80th anniversary of the D-day landing when nearly 160,000 Allied troops accompanied by 11,000 planes arrived to liberate France from the German occupiers on June 6, 1944.

My journey began in Paris, where I caught a fast train to Le Mans. My friend, the choreographer, poet and painter Serge Bennathan, met me at the station. He lives for a good part of the year in a beautiful part of Mayenne, the province wedged at its northernmost boundaries between Normandy and Brittany. Serge was an excellent guide over my three days in the region.

The drive alone is worthy of any travel brochure: vast gently rolling fields of wheat, corn, grazing cows, horses and goats, and near the village of Saint Mars du Désert, some handsome donkeys.

Trout break the surface of a murky pond, dining open-mouthed on surface insects. Goats approach a fence where a hand offers grass. There’s hardly a vehicle on the road and the birdsong is undisturbed by human or vehicular noises.

The cheerful chorus of birds (more than 280 species thrive in Mayenne), no longer heard in big cities in such numbers, is a consequence of a French ban on certain pesticides. In addition to birds such as chaffinches, magpies, dunnocks and wood pigeons, the removal of toxic pesticides has brought back the red poppies that dot the roadsides and fields in such abundance you’d think you’d walked into a Monet painting. Add the sight of the distinctive limestone-, slate- and plaster-built barns, cottages and grander residences and you have a recipe for serenity.

I’m desirous of a swim in the Atlantic and without my asking Serge has proposed a trip to see Mont Saint-Michel, not to tour it, for the roads there are crawling with tourists, but to get to a good look at it. Driving toward the coast of Normandy – after a quick stop to check out the Calvados, cider and other apple products en route – a sharp-eyed visitor will first see the tiny island with an abbey at its peak pop up like a blob on the horizon. Closer in, Mont Saint-Michel rises majestically like a mirage beyond the edge of the fields.

The next stop was Saint-Malo, across the border in Brittany. And a fine place for a swim it is, as well as a historic site with significance for Canadians. Here is where Jacques Cartier set out for what would become Canada; his tomb is in the magnificent Saint-Vincent de Saint-Malo cathedral. In August 1944, the Allied bombing that routed the Germans from France heavily damaged the church, which dates from 1146, including its 1859 neo-gothic spire, which wasn’t replaced until 1971. The pride of the repaired cathedral are paintings by Augustin Frison-Roche, including a triptych of the Apocalypse, installed in 2020.

Any visitor will quickly spot the images of the writer and politician François-René de Chateaubriand, who was born in Saint-Malo in 1768, but you need a guide to point out his tomb on an island just off the beach. It would be a shame to leave Saint-Malo, after a dip in the cool waters, without tasting the sweet Breton cake known as a kouign-amann; I tried the prunelle (sloe berry), said to be the traditional version. Shoppers should be sure to go into the high-end Épices Roellinger store for the finest selection of spices this side of Zanzibar. And after all that driving, reward yourself on the road home with a classic French meal at L’Assiette Gourmand in the small town of Pré-en-Pail.

Photos, clockwise: Augustin Frison-Roche painting in Saint-Vincent de Saint-Malo cathedral; estate home in Mayenne; Mont Saint-Michel; ramparts over the beach in Saint-Malo.