France 2022: A Night to Remember - Brittany and South again

 Music

So here we are, leaving Marans at last We have raided Bricomart and have a tarp over all of the Snork Maiden inventory that just might be worth saving / selling.  We will be sorry to leave the campsite which is spacious, wooded (first night was full of owls) and seems to attract few visitors.  

Maybe they are put off by the very busy N road that passes through the centre of what would otherwise be a pretty south-of-the-Loire town.  It is on the northern boundary of Nouvelle Aquitaine (the old Poitou-Charentes) and situated in the Marais Poitevin - a network of waterways that criss cross this naturally marshy area.  The original canals and ditches were dug out by local monks, helped out in the 17C by Dutch engineers.  They are a  prominent feature of the local landscape, although if you speed up the N135 you might not even notice they are there.  We have previously had some canoe adventures in the Venise-Verte area (somewhere in the blog archive) - always a good place to go in the heat, with it’s maze of navigable ditches shaded by trees.  

One evening we decided to explore the immediate surroundings of the campsite.  It started well with a walk along the first canal.  Men fishing, one a young chef who had decided life was better on a riverbank, with his dog, fishing for carp with his own-recipe ‘carp balls’.  He was hoping to perfect these and sell them commercially.  Another chap in a sort of inflatable fishing coracle that he powered along with flippered feet, a bit like a large rubber swan.  Nobody was catching much but they seemed content enough.  I think Al was looking longingly at the riverside houses we passed, some with their own landing stages or fishing platforms.  If it wasn’t for the region's current drought and heatwaves, he could be tempted.  

We turned in from the canal to follow a farm track.  Then another took us past a field o sunflowers and to what I hoped (thanks to Ms Google) would be the back of the campsite wood.  I didn’t bargain for the pair of ditches that separated us from our objective.  They wouldn’t have stopped the Ukrainian army, but they weren’t part of the evening stroll, so back we went, the long way, to the campsite at sunset an another one pot supper.

The next morning, or maybe the morning after, we were packed by around 11am and heading Northwards in the general direction of Brittany.  It’s a long way, and without an early start, maybe a bit too long, so we broke the journey along the way, just putting up the small tent for an overnight stop in a campsite by a lake in South Brittany.  Our small tent, for those of you who haven’t met it, is a quickly erected mountain tent, just big enough for the 2 of us, and with a small space for water bottles etc under front flysheet.  We bought it at a long defunct camping shop near the Shepherd’s Bush Roundabout, hungover, and just before closing time on a Saturday afternoon.  In spite of that, we made a good choice that’s given us decades of travelling shelter.  But in recent times, the main inner tent zip has given way, and despite a professional repair, has done so again.  The upshot of that is that it is no longer insect proof.  Not a problem at the lakeside, as it happened, but read on a bit.  Campsites with low hedges remind me of suburban gardens.

The green mark indicates 'safe to dive'

Morning, on the road by around 10am and bound for Trebeurden on Brittany’s Granite Rose coast.  Al has wanted to see this for a long time.  Like Cornwall, but pinker, and with the very distinctive spiky-rocks-in-the-water that I have only seen in Brittany.  They are terrifying to navigators, especially at high tide (and the tides are very high) when you just can’t see them.  There are places in Brittany where you can anchor at high water, and at low water find yourself and your boat completely encircled by rocks. 

The first thing we notice about North Brittany is that it is VERY TIDY.  After while I began to crave a throwaway coffee cup or crisp packet, just to demonstrate that somebody was alive in those grey roofed white houses.  The Bretons seem to either have over-strict planning laws or an ant-like consciousness that persuades them that walls must be white, roofs steep and grey tiled and gardens very, very tidy.  Small dormer windows are also popular. There is something crushingly well-ordered about this part of France that seems quite at odds with the Celtic spirit.  On the plus side, there is a sense of the civic mind at work for the common good.  Again, contradictory to the general behaviour of the French that suggests that they don’t give a stuff for Government.  Maybe it’s a matter of local vs central. (Pauline, I can sense you sharpening your comment quill.)

The campsite approach, according to Ms Google, was through a quiet suburban estate, followed by a nauseatingly steep hairpin and a precipitous entrance into the campsite which I can only describe as compact.  There were often 3 pitches where you might expect room for only one, but we squashed in between a caravan-tent-2 car party and a mini-caravan couple.  Much discussion over where our heads would be safest if any of the motors ran amok.  Yes, really.  

But the site was pretty, and best of all, there were steps down to the beach, as wild, seaweedy and as rocky as its location would suggest.  Maybe it was that first evening we explored the beach shack - actually a little above the beach on a rocky-concrete outcrop.  Excellent French french fries from unpeeled potatoes and later in the week we tried their steamed mussels as well.  And they were a source of cold beer and Fanta.  

We found the coastal walk that everyone does, but before that picnicked on a beach all to ourselves.  We found a cafe with a very nice proprietor who didn’t mind us carrying on a business meeting under his awning while he closed his cafe and went for Sunday lunch.  We went to Super-U at least twice - definitely our favourite with better taramasalata than I have had anywhere, Greece included.  
I am aware that my tourism notes are few.  You can PM me if you really want suggestions.

We made a sidetrip to Morlaix to meet Pauline and Chris, who have lived in France for more than a decade and moved to Brittany to be near the coast in Aber Wrac'h.  We had decided on a restaurant. Ms Google unobligingly sent us to the wrong side of the water (Morlaix has a tidal river and a marina with a lock).  Chris apparently spotted us on our false trajectory - he is a car identification genius, since there seemed to be very few Skoda Yetis in France - but failed to flag us down. Pauline kindly phoning us to let us know that we needed to turn around and go back.  How did we ever manage without mobiles?  And now do we REALLY know where we are?  
This meeting represented practically the only one we managed; between Snork Maiden and Covid, there were a few that didn’t materialise.  Maybe more about that in a future blog.  Or maybe not.   

After almost a week on our pitch, there was a bit of a booking confusion.  Maybe our fault, probably theirs.  Upshot - we were a night short.  The proprietor had a bit of a think, and said he had come up with a solution.  We would camp in Mia’s garden.  Mia turned out to be an absent 4 year old.  Her garden was vey nice with a gazebo, a Wendy house and miniature table with benches.  This let little room for the big tent, so we decided to pitch the small one.  No problem, except for THE MOSQITOES.  It was clear as soon as we went to bed that we had a giant sign on the tent saying FREE BLOOD FEAST, ALL WELCOME in mosquito language.  Al, sensibly as it turned out, headed for the car.  I thought a night in the car was pretty unappealing and hunkered down.  I thought I could hide in my bag, but it was very warm.  It’s hard to describe exactly how uncomfortable I was.  It’s the sound as much as the biting.  I thought about Deet, I thought about a sheet, I thought about shouting and weeping.  I didn’t sleep a wink all night.
 

Eventually it started to get light.  I crawled out of the tent, staggered up the steps and woke Al with my sad story.  I managed to doze off in the car for an hour or so  had a couple of cups of tea, packed the car and there we were, ready to head for home.  This was our turnaround point, around 2500 km from home.  

 

 

COMING SOON:   Ferry Good