The Channel Coast of Brittany

Wednesday, May 8, 2013  The Breton coast

Today we left the Mont St-Michel area and drove west along the Channel Coast of Brittany.  The architecture has changed dramatically from Normandy to Brittany—no more half-timbered houses (what we call Tudor) but now stone and more stone:

 

 

 

Diving along the coast we came to the small village of St. Benoit des Ondes where we came across multiple advertisements for Antiquites and Brocante (which means “flea” in French). 

 

The market is being held on a Wednesday as today is a holiday—recognizing the end of WW II.  It seems Friday is some other holiday, and everyone takes Thursday off between the two holidays, resulting in a national 5-day weekend.  It sounds a little like our national 4-day weekend at Thanksgiving, although one proprietor told us they have a number of these in France.  I don’t know.  Anyway, finding this market necessitated an hour plus-long stop, but resulted in no finds.  According to Joyce, that treasure is always at the next vendor, or maybe the one after, or the one….  You get the picture.

 

The coast here is very dramatic with bluffs, multiple small offshore islands, and wind. 

 

We stopped at two small resort towns across an estuary from each other, which were packed with people celebrating the very long weekend.  One is the walled town of St. Malo, the other very interesting one is Dinard where the British came in large numbers in the 19^th century to “take the cure” at the seaside. They built astonishing and lavish Belle Epoch villas which still remain:

 

We wound our way west, and are staying the night in the lovely town of Trebeurdin which we’ll explore tomorrow before setting off south for Quimper.