Brittany North to South

Thursday, May 9, 2013 Brittany north to south

This was a driving day with some sightseeing.  We began on the Channel Coast and from Trebeurden, where we spent the night, drove to the Sentier des Douaniers, a long seaside footpath along the “pink” granite walls of stone rising from the sea:

 

The stone changes color with the light, but it never looked pink to me.  We picked a small road route marked on the Michelin map as being beautiful to traverse Brittany to the Atlantic coast, ending up in Quimper.  Now I had the holiday days wrong.  Yesterday was the WW II memorial.  Today is a bank holiday and tomorrow is the “work day” on which no one works.  Everything was closed today.  As we traveled through central Brittany, there was nowhere to buy gas.  All the stations were closed for the holiday.  There were a few places where the pumps were open, however, for use with credit cards.  We tried a couple and couldn’t get my cards to work.  It was getting bad.  Finally, at one of the “closed” gas stations, I asked a motorcyclist who had just filled up to help me.  I thought I was doing something wrong with my card or the machine at the pump.  He looked at my card and said it was the problem.  All over Europe they have “smart” cards with a chip in them.  That kind of card is necessary to use the gas station machines.  Of course in the USA we have no smart cards.  Fortunately I had cash, and he very kindly offered to put our gas on his card and take cash from me.  We would have been in deep trouble if we had not found such a kind person.

The road was lovely, passing through picturesque and beautiful Breton towns.  But they were buttoned up tightly.  There was nowhere to eat.  Not a single creperie, not a bakery to buy bread or baked goods, no markets, nothing.  Finally, in a small town, a bit after 2:00 we found a restaurant with lights on and people eating.  We went in and they had closed the kitchen and were about to close up.  We used the bathroom there and left, and ate energy bars we carry for just those occasions.  Ugh.  American energy bars in France for lunch.

Our final four days in Brittany are at a lovely B&B just outside of Quimper.  It is owned and run by a couple who have had it in their family for many generations.  They don’t know how many!  He had been in finance in Paris, their children are grown and gone, and he was fed up with the rat race.  This had been their vacation home, and they moved here and fixed it up as a B&B.  Here’s the front entrance:

 

And here’s the back:

 

The property is enormous, and fronts the Oder River.  Our room is large and lovely and has a giant fireplace:

 

Tomorrow is a work day (supposedly).  We plan to tour the Quimper faience factory and museum, and more.