Blogs from Brittany , France, Europe - page 19

Hi all it is me today as time is of the essence and wifi limited :-) so as I am the quickest typist it is my job to give you a quick run down on our day. Well we started off the day in beautiful Dinan a lovely little port town with medieval walls and buildings - AMAZING. If truth be told it does go down hill a little from there as the rest of the day was spent speeding down the motorways (freeways) toward Italy. We have not quite made it spending the night in a lovely (and I actually mean that seriously) ibis hotel on the motorway but that is ok we just wanted a quick place to sleep so we can continue on making miles in the morning - heading to Tuscany and ... read more

We had to share Yves and Claudine this morning! A rather lovely young Italian couple joined us for breakfast, however, they did leave early so we ended up with some ‘quality time’ with Yves and Claudine after all! In fact, it was nearly lunchtime before we hit the road. We picked up a couple of sandwichs (and cakes) en route to Gwin Zégal, a spot we had seen featured on the SBS’s Global Village French Coastlines series. It’s just a small harbour with timber mooring-posts sticking out of the water for about four dozen boats. We sat up on the hill, eating our lunch looking over the harbour. It was so beautiful that we decided to see if there was a path down to the water. There was – a steep one! It was well worth ... read more

For the first time ever, our B&B hosts sat down with us at breakfast. Claudine and Yves were genuinely interested in hearing about us and were also very interesting in themselves. What's more, they were very happy to help us improve our French, for which we were very grateful. Claudine is a retired teacher of English so the lessons were of the highest standard! We spent the morning exploring the old town and walking the ramparts. Unfortunately, it started raining (for the first time since Paris!) so we took shelter in a Créperie and were forced to eat crépes and coffee! We had already decided to leave our visit to Le Mont St Michel to the later part of the day to avoid the massive crowds. This proved to be a good plan, as nearly everyone ... read more

We thoroughly enjoyed an easy morning as our breakfast wasn’t due until 10. Furthermore, we had the luxury of a breakfast tray brought to our cottage rather than us having to “go down” to the breakfast room. This meant Ali could have brekkie in bed! Rested and sated, we drove to Montagne St Michel (roughly, St Michael’s of the mountain – not be confused with Le Mont St Michel, which is very different). Although at 380 metres it’s not really much of a mountain by European standards, it is one of the highest point on the Monts d’Arrée which separates the north and south of Brittany. This range of hills is cloaked in bracken and heather with occasional spiky outcrops of rock. Nonetheless, Montagne St Michel really stands out from the surrounding countryside and the church ... read more

One of the things we love about staying in B&Bs is getting to meet new people over breakfast. This morning we had breakfast with a retired French couple from Lyon whose daughter is married to a Kiwi. Their English was excellent (far better than our appalling French) so we had quite a long conversation. A mere 600m from our front door, and a very pleasant walk along the tree-lined road between fields of maize (corn) is the 16th century Chapelle de Trémalo. Besides being a beautiful chapel, in a lovely rural setting, it is famous for housing the large crucifix that Gaugin used as the basis for Le Christ Jaune (The Yellow Christ). The churches in this part of Brittany are different from any we’ve seen before. They look absolutely ancient, with their weather-worn statuary that ... read more