Today we started our exploration of Brittany in earnest. To help guide us we are using the Backroads France book published by DK books. These guides are Ton’s favorite guidebook that she uses to do her planning as we move around.
We are still a little slow getting going in the mornings, but as Ton said today we are not in a hurry so who cares. Our first planned stop for the day was the village of Saint Cast-Le Guido. It is a pretty beach town with a nice view and a small but lively promenade. We didn’t linger long as we had a lot of ground to cover and while pretty it didn’t tempt us to linger.
We had seen a picture of Fort La Latte. It is an old castle that was turned into a coastal fort later in its life. It is everything Hollywood has taught us to expect of a a castle on the coast, and in fact it has been used a few times in movies. It is perched on some rocks not quite attached to the main land with two drawbridges to enter it. A central tower dominates the grounds of the castle. We spent a couple of hours exploring and climbing up and down the stairs. We were surprised to find out it was privately owned and that the family still stays there sometimes in one building that is not open to the public.
We had planned on stopping at Cap Finistere which is the point of land next to the Fort. It is a French national park and billed as one of the largest moorlands on the continent. But, by the time we finished with the Fort and had lunch it was getting late so we decided to push on to our final stop for the day the port town of Paimpol.
We pulled into the aire next to the train station about 3:30 and got one of the last sights away from the main road with electricity. The aire was fuller than we expected as so far most of the places we have stayed have been pretty empty. By the time we settled in for the night there were 22 RV’s in the aire with a nominal capacity of 28. It is a good deal for €6.90 with electricity, a dump station and very close to the waterfront.
Paimpol is a very pretty seaside town with a great waterfront promenade. So we promenaded for a couple of hours, people watching and poking around in cute shops that weren’t too touristy. Ton took a ton of pictures as we walked around and thoroughly enjoyed herself.
