Category: Brittany

Our destination today was Carnac. On the way to Carnac we made two brief stops that were recommended to us. Today is labor day in France so we were not expecting a lot to be open, but as we were driving we noticed that most of the stores that would be open on Sunday were open.

Our first stop for the day was Quimperle, a small town where two rivers come together. The first thing we noticed was that at every street corners there were little girls and some boys selling small bouquets of flowers. The flowers are Lilly of the Valley and they are considered good luck. The reason kids sell them on May 1st is because today wild flowers can be sold without a license or paying taxes on the receipts. So it is a chance for kids to practice a little free enterprise. We were finally cornered by two cute sisters about 8 and 10 and ended up with a sprig of Lillys.

The town itself was nice with some older half timbered buildings and a couple of stone archways, one of which fronted a parking lot for a grocery store. The town is subjected to frequent flash floods so they have built high walls along the rivers to help contain them when they happen.

Our next stop was Port Louis. It is another port town, that is famous for its Citadelle. It is a 17th century fort and is impressive. During WWII it was used as a prison by the Germans, and a lot of French resistance fighters were executed there. Along the walk there were signs showing photos of the Martyrs of the Citadelle, the photos were accomplished by the age and the occupation of the person who had died there. Most of them were 18 to 23 and their occupations were pretty mundane such as farmer, mechanic, and sailor. To me that made it even more touching, as these guys without any real military training laid down their lives for France.

Our last stop for the day was Carnac. Carnac is another beautiful Breton port city with a great beach. But the primary reason we came here was for the Alignments of Carnac. These are stones called Menhirs are laid out in three fields stretching over 4 km’s (2.5 miles approximately). There are over 3000 stones cut from granite, some weighing as much as 20 tons laid out in lines. There are also a few circular formations. Each of the sites has the largest stones at the western end of the field.

These stones were laid out approximately 4500 bc to 3000 bc by the pre-celtic people of Brittany. They are roughly contemporary with Stonehenge, but laid out quite differently. Also in the immediate area are several burial mounds that are 410 ft by 200ft and 39 ft. high. When they were excavated they found a main burial chamber and 5 sub-chambers off of the main chamber.

The work to build such a massive site with the tools available at that time is incredible. This is the pre-history equivalent of a giant cathedral, or the pyramids. No one is completely certain as to the purpose of the alignments or the motivation to devote so much work to building the site, but the most common theory was that it was part of a religious site.

Our first drive of the day was a relatively long 80 km’s to Cocarneau, the problem is we are still nearly 1000 miles (1500km’s) from Portugal, and we are 12 days into our trip. So if we are going to spend a lot of time in Portugal at some point we are probably going to have to get on the Autoroute and suck up some tolls. But not today, or tomorrow for that matter as we still have plans for Brittany.

Before we left we decided to revisit the bakery we had stopped in briefly the day before to pick up a Kouign-Amann. Brittany is famous for this desert that literally means Butter Cake. The area we are in is close to where it originated. We had tried it on our previous trip and thought it was ok. Yesterday when we visited the bakery near the campground they gave us a taste of some of theirs and we both thought it was fantastic, the problem is that we did not tell each other until we got to the campground.

While we were driving Ton researched another specialty of Brittany called Chouchenn. It is a mead like drink made from buckwheat honey with apple juice used to initiate the fermentation. It is supposed to have come over to Brittany from Scotland with the Druids. We picked up a bottle and used it as an aperitif with our Kouign-Amann. They were both delicious and complemented each other well.

Our first stop for the day was Concarneau which is another port town. The old town is on an island in the middle of the bay and is surrounded by 14th century walls. As we were walking to the old town we came across a line of very nice sailboats flying a bunch of company flags. It is a professional sail racing circuit that operates in France. The boats were really high tech compared to the typical pleasure cruiser.

The old town was nice and we enjoyed walking along the old walls of the town looking out on the port and in on the old town. In addition to the professional racers there was also an Argentine Navy vessel visiting town.

After a couple of hours of enjoying Concarneau we headed to our main destination for the day, Pont Aven. It was made famous in the late 19th and early 20th century when Gauguin settled here and a bunch of other French and foreign impressionist artists moved in. Today it is still a center for art with a lot of galleries and boutiques.

The unexpected adventure of the day was trying to gain entry to the aire in town. When we arrived there was a gate and a machine that you paid your entrance fee at. These are usually pretty straight forward and I have mastered them. This one even offered English, everything was going smoothly and after I entered a lot of information it spit out a card that I was to use at future aires managed by this company, (the card cost an extra €5 which I was not happy about). When everything was done and my credit card was processed, the gate should open. But it didn’t. I double checked everything and no go. Muttering some bad words I tripled checked and still no go. At this point a French gentleman came over, he double checked everything and said it should be good. After a while another French couple came over and tried their luck, they confirmed everything should be good, but no luck with the gate opening. Finally, the lady went and got her cell phone and called the help line, and after some explanation and confirmation of my name, the company opened the gate remotely. Now I have a €5 card that I am not sure works if I come to another aire run by this company, but I am in the aire. Once again the kindness of strangers got us out of trouble despite no common language.

The highlight of the town is strolling down the river promenade. The river runs thru the center of town with shops and beautiful homes on either side of it. There are several picturesque watermills and bridges across the river. Near the bottom of town the river opens up to a port surrounded by mansions and a very thick forest of trees. It is a pretty magical place.

At one point Ton and I were relaxing and enjoying a nice view of the river and the town from a bench when we found ourselves suddenly in the middle of a large group of tourists who were getting a guided tour of the town. The spot we had chosen was the place where Gauguin had painted one of his famous pictures from the area. They were very nice and told us not to bother, but we were clearly in the way and decided to move on.

Pont Aven is a really beautiful town and the port and the river combine to make a really beautiful landscape. We strolled around for quite awhile and Ton took so many pictures it took her over an hour to narrow it down to 15 to send to me to post in the blog.

We only had one fun stop planned for today as we wanted to take care of some of the routine things you have to do when living out of a RV. We began by visiting a Lidl to pick up some groceries.

After shopping was completed we headed off to Pointe du Raz which as the name says is a prominent point sticking out into the English Channel. It is a regional park, and is a moorland sitting on top of 200 foot cliffs above the ocean. It was only about a 20 km drive from Douarnenez, so despite our late start we arrived before noon. The weather has been about the same every day, mid 60’s with a good breeze and sun. For this time of year it is great.

About 10 km’s from the Pointe we suddenly left the forests and emerged onto the windswept moorlands that the region is famous for. Suddenly you could see all the way to the ocean.

They had a designated Campervan parking lot that you could overnight in for €20, or park for the day for €8. The parking cost also covers the admission price for the park. There are several trails that lead you to the top of the cliffs. The moors are covered with wildflowers, though the dominant plant looks like a type of gorse with yellow flowers. Ton was in her element as she loves wild flowers and I kept leaving her behind as she would see something else she wanted to photograph and suddenly stop.

When we reached the end of the point the view out to sea was spectacular. We scrambled thru some rocks to get a good view. By the time we got there it was lunch time and most of the French were sitting down to their lunch among the rocks. The French take their lunches seriously and they do it with elegance even when the table is a rock.

We were enjoying the walk so we decided to follow a cliff side trail back. This got us away from the crowds, and it was quite a nice walk.

We had picked a campground on a farm near the point for our stop today. We arrived in time to give the inside of François a good scrubbing before settling down for some well earned Breton Cider.

Today was a little more of a chore than other days this trip. The good news is that it ended well and our final stop of the day made up for the trouble. The day began with a longish drive to get around Brest which is a large industrial port. There is probably a lot to do in Brest but we are avoiding big cities at this point on the trip.

We have now transitioned from the north coast to the south coast of Brittany. Brittany is a large peninsula sticking out from the mainland of France and at some point is the point furthest west on the French mainland. As we moved south the land became a little different and the weather warmed up a bit. Today started out as the coldest morning so far on the trip and by the end of the day it was the warmest we have been on the trip.

The first stop of the day was a small village called Sizun. It had an interesting church, but otherwise a little less than we expected. After taking a quick walk around we decided to head on.

We were thinking about staying in a town called Le Faou, it had a nice waterfront, but not much else caught our eye. So we decided to carry on.

Ton was really looking forward to the next town on our agenda as it was used to film the movie Tess in 1979. Locronan is one of the beautiful villages of France and it is a pretty town, but felt like one of the most touristy places we have stopped at. We gave it a good look, but after about 40 minutes we both agreed it was time to move on. Up to this point the weather had been a little dreary, but just as we were leaving the sun came out and it warmed up.

Our last stop today was Douarnenez. You may have noticed that the city names today do not seem so French. On this end of the peninsula the place names reflect the Celtic past much more. The signs as you go further west on the peninsula shift from French only to French and Brezh (Bretagne)in the Celtic language.

We were looking forward to Douarnenez as it is a center for the sardine trade which is famous, and a beautiful port town. The problem is that Greta Garmin decided to go on strike as we entered town. I had punched in a camp ground in town that was in her data base. After directing us down a series of increasing narrow roads she announced we had arrived. The problem was we were sitting in front of a building that most definitely was not a campground, it turned out to be a restaurant. Using the Camper Contact app I punched in the GPS coordinates for the campground and Greta took us to the campground, but we did not like the like the location. I told Ton that there was another campground closer into town, but there was a warning in Camper Contact that the street approaching it was a bit narrow (remember this warning was coming from Europeans who have a much different definition of narrow roads than Americans do). Again this campground was in Greta’s data base, and off we went. This time Greta couldn’t decide on a good route in and had us going in circles between two roundabouts. Fortunately Ton saw a sign for the campground and we followed the signs down a very narrow urban street that I assumed was one way but is actually two way, fortunately we didn’t run into anyone before we arrived at the campground.

There was one more hurdle before we were home free. The Grand Mere of the family was manning the front desk and she doesn’t speak English and I don’t speak French. At first I thought she was telling me that they didn’t have any space. But than she led me outside and was pointing and trying to explain something to me, but I was not getting it. Finally one of the guests came to our aid and it turns out she was trying to tell me to go pick a spot and come back and tell her which one we were in.

We walked into town and it was a really beautiful port formed where the Pouldavid River enters the Atlantic. The river is down in a bit of gorge so most of the city is a hundred feet or so above the port which makes the port pretty dramatic. It is full of pleasure vessels now, though it once was the center of the Sardine industry in France.

After spending a couple of hours poking around we headed back to the campground because Ton had found a tempting washer and dryer and decided to get our laundry done. When I went to get the tokens needed for the washer and dryer Grand Mere was still manning the desk, but I managed to explain what I wanted and she managed to understand my mangled pronunciation of French, in the end we were both a little proud of ourselves for pulling off the transaction unaided.

Brittany is living up to our expectations. Today we had a great day with beautiful medieval towns, and incredible beaches.

When we planned the itinerary yesterday our first stop was Treguier which was described as a beautiful riverfront port. Since about half of the towns in Brittany are riverfront ports I was prepared for a quick stop before we moved on.

When we pulled into town it was market day which is always a treat in France so I knew it would not be a quick stop. This was a large market and there were all kinds of interesting vegetables, cheeses, and meats to look at. We spent some time in the lower market by the port, before heading to the upper market next to the cathedral.

The upper market was more clothes and other stuff than food. We enjoyed looking around there as well as popping into a couple of the stores on the main square of town.

The cathedral in town was also interesting. To our amateur eyes it appears to be a little more austere than typical French cathedrals.

Our next stop for the day was Tregastel Plage, which is a beach renown for its pink sand and interesting rock formations. The place was fantastic and only Ton’s pictures can do it justice.

Our last stop for the day was Trebeurden. After checking into our campground for the night we debated whether to go to the beach right away or way for sunset, after checking sunset and finding out it was not until 9:25 we decided to go right away.

Walking back we were trying to figure out why sunset was so late here. The latitude is about the same as Portland but the sunset is much later right now. Our friend Kathy Howe supplied the answer, the issue is not latitude but longitude. By all rights Brittany should be in the same time zone as England, but since France only has one time zone sunrise and sunset are about an hour earlier on the clock than they should be.

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.

We began the day with an excellent breakfast from Ton. It was Khao Tom which is a kind of rice gruel. Going thru François the night before she came across a bag of rice that neither of us remember buying. Last night it was a Rissoto to accompany our pork chops, and this morning with some spice and water it became Khao Tom.

After breakfast we had a long but uneventful drive to get us to the Northern base of the Brittany Peninsula, the total drive was 305 km’s which is roughly 200 miles. Brittany has been on our list of places we wanted to visit since we swung by St. Malo and Dinan on our second trip to France. We really liked the feel of both places and the mix of French and Celtic culture.

Once we were settled into our campground, it was time for our first day of walking. It was about 2 miles to the main beach in town. But the walk was pleasant with lots of interesting old homes to look at as we went. The main beach and promenade came into view suddenly and despite the blustery day was full of people.

The coast here is full of rocky headlands with relatively small beaches in between. They have done an incredible job of cutting a walking path thru and over the headlands between the beaches. It is one of the most spectacular walks we have done, and interestingly it does not even get a mention in any of the guidebooks about the area. All together we spent about 3 hours walking the beaches and the trails between the beaches. When we returned we were both a little tired and felt like we had earned our supper.