17th –
19th July 2015
The morning was
quite cool, and I eventually set off and continued my wander along the NW coast
of Brittany. Through delightful little
villages like Plouha and Paimpol, then on to Lannion and Morlaix. They all had narrow street and amazing little
churches, and I stopped in most of them for a walk around. At Morlaix I turned south in order to avoid
Brest, and went down through Blasparts and Playben to Quimper. Playben in particular had the most ornate and
decorated church I have seen in a long time – I will need to google that one to
find out some of the history because unfortunately there seems to be no
information in the churches themselves about their history. But northern Brittany is delightful –
thoroughly enjoyed exploring it just a little.
Quimber started
to get a bit busy and industrialised after the quite villages along the
northern coast, so I dropped down of the main road to Concarneau in the hope of
finding some cooler breezes by the sea and a camp site in the countryside. Sure enough, right beside the sea, I found a
camp site in Concarneau, and although it was a bit pricey since it had swimming
pool, table tennis, jumping castles etc for the kids, it was the right time of
day and the very nice, so I went in. As
it also had washing machines and dryers, I took advantage to do a wash, and
settled in for an early night – I was pooped !
It was quite a
cool night, and after chatting with my German neighbours Jurgen and Barbara for
a while, I set off to continue my explore.
Before leaving I tried the wifi, but, like several others, we couldn’t
get a signal – Bit of a rip off considering the price of the campsite at 25
euro ! I
I set off round
the NW corner of France, avoiding Brest, and then followed the road round the
northern end of the Bay of Biscay – I was heading towards Nantes and had made
the decision that I would turn east there and start heading towards Copenhagen
but do it at a leisurely pace, instead of spending time in western France and
then rushing across Europe in 3 or 4 days.
But it rapidly became very busy with lots of traffic, so I decided
instead to head east from Lorient, aiming towards Le Mans and Chartres – Thought
I might like to see the cathedral there before heading round Paris and on.
It was cool and
drizzling all the way over to Rennes, and not desperately interesting (just
lots of farming !) and then somehow I ended up on a toll road to Le Mans – Not
my intention ! Getting on was quite difficult
– no person in the booth, you just took a ticket and paid when you got
off. But leaning out from the right hand
seat to an unmoving machine was a real stretch for me – In S America there is
always a person there to lean across and help you ! And once on the Peage, I don’t think I
overtook another car –
Anyway, plodded
on towards Chartres, with the temps creeping up over 30 deg C again in the late
afternoon, and just short of Chartres, in a little village called Nogent-Le-
Roi I saw signs to a Camping Municipal site.
Tucked away down by a little stream, it was a miserly 4.50 euro per
night – Much more to my liking. And it
still had nice toilets and facilities – Although the French seem to love having
mixed facilities – There are just a shower block and a toilet block – and
everyone uses them together ! And they
seem to have lots of hand basin only cubicles, and few shower cubicles – Haven’t
quite worked out what the French do in the hand basin cubicles yet !! Ah well, vive la difference !!
Had a delicious
steak I had bought today for supper together with new potatoes and some veggies
– and just as I finished cleaning up it started raining !! Perfect timing, and it also cooled everything
down quickly. Tomorrow into Chartres……
Rest of the pics are here :- https://picasaweb.google.com/110185357936043625130/0306WanderingAroundBrittany?authkey=Gv1sRgCLyhwdKV5cOQpAE
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