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Published: August 30th 2009
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Ploubazlanec on the Cote d'Armor was one of the places I looked forward to visiting purely because of its name and the towns you have to pass through to get there. PLOO-BAZ-LAN-ECK. PLOUBAZLANEC. On the way and surrounding are Le Cabaret, Pleudaniel, Squiffiec, Ploumagoar, Lezardrieux, Plouagat, Plouisy, Plouadis and Plouadat. Way to name your bourgs Bretons!
Diving into the life of a bonvivant began with dinner at the Ferme du Kerroc'h. Nathalie was expecting a meal in ramshackle rural farmhouse. The ferme Kerroc'h however was a farm which had long ago been converted into a cosy local eatery and therefore wasn't set in a patchwork of fields but plonked on the side of the main road into town. We were not disappointed by our welcome. One host, one bar lady, one waitress: all in rolled into the same motherly personage. As a host she was warm, interested and funny, as a bar keep slow and as a waitress distracted. The chef did a great job when he/she eventually got our order, and my first proper dinner of our Petit Tour was a southern salad starter followed by a wicked sea food choucroute complimented by a chilled Anjou. Keep 'em coming
chef.
In Ploubazlanec we stayed at the Hotel des Agapanthes who's garden was bursting with the blue and white
agapanthes of the name. The fine dining continued here with carb-loading at breakfast: baguettes, white bread (for toast), black bread (more toast), croissants and madeleine cakes accompanied by
du beurre,
des confitures and various
fromages, all washed down with bottomless
cafe and
jus de fruit. They call bread
pain in these parts but I never felt so much as a tickle. After few breakfasts like this though, I think it would have been better named
bloat or
stuft. After pausing to loosen my belt, we headed out, not to quarry the local pink granite with our bare hands or to till the earth with a spoon, but for a few hours leisurely cycling around Ile de Brehat. We could have ridden to Ile du Diable easy on a breakfast like that.
Ile de Brehat was lush and restive, partly due to the absence of cars. Apart from cyclists and the odd mini-tractor there's no vehicular traffic. Residents can been seen fetching their baguettes (and other stuff - but mostly baguettes) with hand barrows.
The two adjoining islands that
make up Brehat are criss-crossed by narrow paths that wind between postcard like granite houses, smallholdings, beaches and inlets littered with apparently stranded fishing boats.
All over, the coastline is adorned with pink/orange granite boulders and angular seams of rock. Some of the paths lead to what in other situations you might call a dead end, but here those single track cul-de-sacs take you to an unannounced view out to the sea or across to one of the little islets that surround the main islands.
On top of a small hill there's an old one room chapel/church with a view of the fields, coves and bays. In one corner of the ile there's a sea-water mill, on another hill a semaphore, in the Bourg in the centre a lichen festooned church and joining the two islands an unassuming bridge built by the same Vauban of the Palace of Versailles excess.
Brehat smells of the blooming agapanthe and hortensia mixed with the sea and sea-weed: that salty scent that the French call 'l'aire de iodee' (iodine air).
After only two days on the road I could feel Cannon Street, London Bridge, firewalls and intrusion prevention being flushed
from my mental and being replaced by thoughts of rock hopping and spells of idle staring.
The unwelcome dinging of alarm clocks and timely recording of chargeable hours had been exchanged for enthusiastic praise of my amateurish French and my childish questioning of any, all and everything that somehow never exhausted ma cherie.
What I Learn Today OR Qu'est ce j'ai pris aujourd hui: 1 -
Le marenage is the difference between high and low tide. In northern Brittany
le marenage is an unlikely 14 metres, which accounts for the amount of sand we could see when we headed back to port and the stranded appearance of so many of the boats.
2 - The pink granite rocks of 'Le Cote Granite Rose' when we arrived we going to be, according to Veronique, much more beautiful, impressive and pink than those at Brehat. I thought she was writing cheques her ass couldn't cash but we'd were to find out soon enough!
What Nathalie told me yesterday OR Qu'est ce que Nathalie m'a dit hier 1 - Goose stepping is not the exclusive preserve of the early 20th century German army but a method of
moving ceremonally employed by soldiers around the world i.e. the changing guards at Buckingham Palace and at the India/Pakistan border, if I remember my GlobeTrekker.
2 - Most french people don't know about the Bayeaux tapestry and Nathalie was surprised to find out I, one, knew what it was and two, knew the story it depicts. It seems then thus the Norman invasion of England via Hastings by a bloke called Guillaume and the resulting arrow in Harold eye is not a major element of '80s French history lessons, like it was in the UK.
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