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There are a lot of people who talk about the difference between a traveller and a tourist with most wanting to see themselves as the former. I particularly like G K Chesterton's description. “A traveller sees what he sees. The tourist sees what he comes to see.” I do have a sneaking suspicion, though, that a traveller is something that you call yourself when you don't like being called a tourist (and that is a quote from a blog I read somewhere). One thing that I do know is that, when you are on the road for a long time and you have been doing a bit of the touristing thing, there comes a time when you need to just sit down. So for the last week or so that is pretty much what we have been doing.

Brittany, and its neighbour Normandy, are not high on the lists of the 'must see' places in France produced by those who produce such lists. Mont St Michel and perhaps the Invasion Beaches and that is about it. So we didn't come here with a list of any kind - not that we are very good at that at any time. Brittany is a place that evokes images of tough fishermen, apples, good Celtic music and the weather of the English Channel. Now that we have been here for a while it will also bring back memories of cider, friendly people with a slightly different accent, wonderful villages, highly changeable weather and a very relaxing time.

I do admit that there are parts of Normandy you might not call beautiful, unless perhaps you were a Norman yourself. And, if you were a Norman, then with forebears who took over England, set up a kingdom in Sicily and established outposts in various other countries, you might take umbrage at someone who described parts of your region as pretty flat and not that dramatic. So I won't. But just quietly, part of the place is really only interesting if you are into farmland - more on that later perhaps. The other parts, though, are as good as it gets and, in France, that is saying something.

In our considered opinion France does villages and associated farmland very, very well. There are a lot of beautiful villages and small towns in Europe. Italy, Germany, Austria and particularly Spain have their share but, a little reluctantly we have come to the conclusion that France has the game won. Not by much but the winner it is. And Normandy is up there with the best of them.

Take for instance a little place called Mortain. We had a particular reason for going there. A business in the area prepares vehicles for the sort of travel we are planning in the Americas next year and we wanted to have a chat. The municipal camping ground was easy to find and very nicely set up. Only small but with connections to electricity, clean ablutions, green grass and a few trees. What more could you want? Well, in Mortain on the day we arrived you are invited by the local tourist office to gather with the other tourists/travellers/holiday makers and have a glass or two of the local cider and a few of the local biscuits and a bit of a chat. A nice idea. You also get a lovely little town. Not 'olde worlde' nor a 'centro storico' surrounded by blocks of apartments. Just a bog standard town that happens to be very well looked after and quite lovely. Here, and elsewhere in France, they have found a formula for keeping perhaps the best of the old styles and blending it with the new. Doesn't always work but it does more times than it doesn't.

On one of our walks around we even peered in the windows of real estate agents - not that this isn't something we always do, just to keep up - and spotted a couple of likely prospects. There were thoughts of telling the kids we had decided to relocate and that they could send the grand kids over for a visit - if they ever decide to do the right thing and breed a few - but that mght mean pinning ourselves down to one place. Not really ready for that yet.

As I said earlier, the only part of this area that rates in the top ten must sees for France on most lists we have seen is Mont St Michel. The place is definitely striking. There you are driving through kilometres of flat land pondering the size of the drainage channels and the intensity of the agriculture and wondering where the people found the rock to build their houses and, across the cornfields, there looms this massive building. On closer inspection it was actually a town built around the base and up the sides of a massive rock.

Believe it or not, on the top of this massive pile of rock dominating the town and every place within many kilometers is the monastery. I suspect that you have to see it to appreciate its full impact on the surrounding countryside. In bygone days it must have had a massive influence on the people, particularly if they had to pay for its upkeep. These days it provides an income. We were there on a Saturday - we just have to pay more attention to days of the week - and it may have been worse than on other days but the place was awash with people, their buses, campers, cars and bicycles. All a little overwhelming after we had spent a few days taking it easy without crowds.

Brittany is at least as good as Normandy although we haven't checked out enough of the villages to put it into the contest. We found a place on a hill overlooking a lovely little village with a super wide sandy beach at low tide, and a little bitty shingle one at high tide, a well appointed camping ground with free wifi that doesn't cost the earth and we just sat and looked. We are still doing just that and may be for a while longer.

This is still a very intensively farmed area. It seems that every available piece of land is under some form of tillage. Hay making is in full swing at the moment and the corn can't be too far off. A lot of the land that has had wheat planted is now being dug up ready for either a quick crop before winter or to lie fallow. Even though the holdings appear to be rather small they are still into good sized machinery here. Tractors are routinely used to tow large trailers stacked high with round bales of hay and straw. They get along pretty well on the roads. Having driven a tractor at speed on a bitumen road a couple of times I give them plenty of room. Others seem to have a touching faith in the handling ability of large tractors and their operators. You do wonder what will happen to these farms and the communities that depend on them if the support they receive dries up.

Just in passing I will note that this area has weather that puts Melbourne's 4 seasons in one day into perspective. It is simply impossible to count the changes here. One minute pouring, then high wind, back to a gentle zephyr, then some super hot sunshine to warm everything up before it is back to light rain again. And that is in the space of an hour. The cloud formations can be spectacular and we missed some great shots of a moon in the clouds. Such is life.

And, while I am on the subject of Melbourne, congratulations to Andrew. It looks like OZL has had an excellent year. I trust the figures were what you were after.

From here? Perhaps further into Brittany. Perhaps we follow the cider and calvados trail that we have heard about from people here. Perhaps we will head back to Paris for a little while to check out some of the museums that we missed on our previous visit over 4 months ago now. We will see.

And one last thing on the subject of travellers vs tourists. A traveller can't bear going back the same way. There is another way. Let's take it? A tourist might not care. They have seen what they came for.

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