Two Return to France (1 Viewer)

[DBK]

We should have left for Sicily this time last month but family matters intervened and Sicily has been put off until late summer. We have managed to get away for six weeks so we are off for a jaunt around France.
There is a very loose plan, firstly to drive the length of the Loire from sea to source then return to the coast down the Garonne. However, this plan may not survive contact with the first bottle of wine but we should end up at some point on the Île de Ré for some beach time. Indeed, I have strict orders from Mrs DBK that sunbathing will be performed by her on this trip.
I have reverted to my old username for no better reason than when I dug out my old funster badge it still showed the old name. As we were sitting in the queue at Plymouth ferry port at this point printing off a new badge was not an option.

We are accompanied by Charlie, our Border Terrier/JRT hybrid who has not matured one bit and remains a total idiot. A portrait of one of his ears can be seen below.

We have now boarded the Amorique, bound for Roscoff. The front of the ship and loading ramp can possibly be seen in the picture below. It is very quiet, probably less than half full. Do people know something we don't? Do the French celebrate the election of a new president by burning any hapless Englishman they can catch? If we survive the landing on French soil we will report on our first day in France tomorrow!

 

[davanne]

Look forward to reading about your travels

 

[Bobby22]

Yes, always interesting when TWO go travelling.

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[Anthea M]

Good luck and safe travels , look forward to your bloggy thingy!!

 

[Bailey 15]

Ohhh lovely will get map out and follow your journey
Wonderful THANKYOU

 

[jumartoo]

Have a great trip. I'll be following with interest as usual.

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[scousebird]

Have a great trip, looking forward to photos

 

[EX51SSS]

Have a great trip and looking forward to hearing more and seeing pics as we will be following on Friday and once we arrive in Calais still not sure to turn left or right.

 

[Mikey RV]

Happy travels.

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[StitchesnFluff]

Happy travels in French France

 

[Shrimp]

Have a good time and hope you fulfill the travel plans.
We had to return to UK for family health and are now going to sneak off to France for as long as poss-prob only a couple of weeks so won't be going far as will have to return, again-awaiting hospital appointments!

 

[Taran_Las]

back DBK
​

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[Gellyneck]

We are accompanied by Charlie, our Border Terrier/JRT hybrid who has not matured one bit and remains a total idiot. A portrait of one of his ears can be seen below.

Can't be that much of an idiot, he's driving! Oh, perhaps just another idiot on the road?
Enjoy yourselves.

 

[Riverbankannie]

Have a great trip

 

[Hellski]

Looking forward to reading of your travels here or within your next book

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[scousebird]

Shouldn't the title be "Three return to France" as Charlie is going with you?

 

[DBK]

Shouldn't the title be "Three return to France" as Charlie is going with you?

Don't give him ideas. He already considers himself human.

 

[DBK]

The overnight Roscoff ferry doesn't afford passengers a lie-in, we woke at 06:00 to the recorded sound of a harp coming from the ceiling mounted loudspeaker and we drove off at a few minutes past 07:00. We headed for the motorhome parking bays inside the port to make breakfast and give Charlie a chance to stretch his legs and un-stretch other parts.
Our destination was less than hour away, the municipal aire at St Thégonnec, CamperContact #1169. The aire is free but to get water you need to collect a jeton, which is free from a local shop displaying a motorhome symbol in its window. The aire has separate pitches divided off from each other by hedges, ideal for those missing campsites. A few of the pitches even have picnic tables, which if you arrive early enough as we did you can grab.

The boulangerie displayed a jeton symbol so after buying a couple of sticky buns (it seemed impolite not to) I asked for a jeton to be told they had run out. Fortunately, the Bar des Sports on the other side of the street was in stock jeton-wise so we are now setup to resupply with water tomorrow morning. There is also a small supermarket a few hundred yards from the aire who also displayed the jeton symbol. Whether they had any I don't know but they did have small bottles of Belgian beer which I bought, having forgotten to buy any in St Pol de León when we did our main shop after leaving Roscoff.
St Thégonnec is a typical village of this area with an ornate granite church surrounded by a wall or close. There are a number of similar churches locally and a board near the aire showed a map with a suggested route to visit them.

There's quite a lot to see inside the church but accompanied by Charlie we stayed outside so for a glimpse at what can be seen I can only suggest the relevant wiki entry.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint-Thégonnec_Parish_close

Which gives me the idea we could have saved a lot of money by staying at home and describing a fictional journey using images stolen off the web! A sort of updating of the idea that round the world yachtsman used many years ago - claim to be sailing round the world but in fact doing little more than sail in circles in safe waters.

In the close there is a calvary which is summoned by a carving of the crucifixion on top of a pillar surrounded by figures which depict the story of the crucifixion from arrest (pictured below) to resurrection.

There wasn't a lot more to see in the town, but we did find the old laundrette.

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[FIDGET]

Thanks @DBK ,
We are off in 4 weeks to Brittany for 3& half wks, & St Thegonnec was on my possible list & now a definite somewhere during our trip .
Keeping tabs on your trip/thread,for more interesting aires & places.
Thanks again, Terry

 

[DBK]

We left Charlie in charge of the van and wandered back into the town a little after six this evening. The sun was now in the right direction to take pictures of the other side of the calvary, which would have just been a silhouette this morning as the sun was shining from behind it.

The figures below the cross depict on this side the death of Jesus.

And resurrection.

Now dog-free we entered the church, which is quite small - and brightly painted inside.

It was hard not to think of garden gnomes when confronted by this. It must be the colours used.

So after a hard ten minutes of church photography we managed to cross the street to the Bar Tabac du Loup where the attractions include "fléchettes" or as we know them in the reducing number of pubs offering it - darts. The Bretons are more British than some parts of our own country!

The wine wasn't expensive - 2.20 euros a glass. It would be twice that in a UK pub.

 

[laird of Dunstan]

We should have left for Sicily this time last month but family matters intervened and Sicily has been put off until late summer. We have managed to get away for six weeks so we are off for a jaunt around France.
There is a very loose plan, firstly to drive the length of the Loire from sea to source then return to the coast down the Garonne. However, this plan may not survive contact with the first bottle of wine but we should end up at some point on the Île de Ré for some beach time. Indeed, I have strict orders from Mrs DBK that sunbathing will be performed by her on this trip.
I have reverted to my old username for no better reason than when I dug out my old funster badge it still showed the old name. As we were sitting in the queue at Plymouth ferry port at this point printing off a new badge was not an option.

We are accompanied by Charlie, our Border Terrier/JRT hybrid who has not matured one bit and remains a total idiot. A portrait of one of his ears can be seen below.

View attachment 161873

We have now boarded the Amorique, bound for Roscoff. The front of the ship and loading ramp can possibly be seen in the picture below. It is very quiet, probably less than half full. Do people know something we don't? Do the French celebrate the election of a new president by burning any hapless Englishman they can catch? If we survive the landing on French soil we will report on our first day in France tomorrow!

View attachment 161874

seeing your photographs of waiting for the ferry gave me a feeling of anticipation of our next trip to France

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[FIDGET]

Hi,not sure if you've been before but Locronan is nice village with beautiful church ,& an aire in the village. Well worth a visit. a little bit touristy

 

[Anthea M]

Enjoying your trip thanks!

 

[gus-lopez]

Safe travels to you both ,+ Charlie & look forward to your reports.

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[Bailey 15]

Brilliant reading thank you for updates, never stayed in aires but they look nice
Your van looks nice as well

 

[DBK]

Hi,not sure if you've been before but Locronan is nice village with beautiful church ,& an aire in the village. Well worth a visit. a little bit touristy
View attachment 161977
View attachment 161978

Sorry, forgot to answer your question. Yes, we visited Locronan last year. Very interesting place and staying at the aire gives you the opportunity to see it after all the tour buses have gone.

 

[DBK]

We drove south today, stopping for the night at an aire behind a beach. The blue blob on the map below shows where we now are.

Finding the aire was fun. We approached it from Lorient but as we left Lorient for Lamor Plage there were warnings of a 2.6m height restriction ahead, so being 2.7m we turned around and arrived or as it turned didn't arrive at the aire via Ploermeur. We didn't arrive at the aire, CamperContact 1254, because the coordinates given in the app were wrong but driving further north up the coast road we found it after about a kilometre. It is just gravel parking without any services, despite CamperContact saying it does have. I've sent them feedback so hopefully the entry will be corrected. Park4night, incident la, does list this location.

There are quite a lot of car parks along this stretch of coast but almost all of them have height restrictions - which are watched over by sharp eyes.

Between the aire and the road is a large car park which had a couple of dozen cars in it. Mrs DBK worked out over lunch the people in the cars were going to the beach and it was almost certainly a naturist one as everyone arriving was carry wind breaks down to the beach.
After lunch we followed the well made path over the road and we went to inspect the beach to confirm Mrs DBK was indeed correct. Initially, the first thing I saw were some birds on the tide line which through binoculars revealed themselves as turnstones. Scanning left and right revealed a different sort of wildlife so to avoid arrest I discretely put the binoculars in my manbag - which I'm growing to like the more I use it.
We walked north west along the coastal footpath to Fort Bloqué.

A bit of Googling revealed it was built around 1750 to deter the English from further attacks after the failed attempt by an English force to take nearby Lorient in 1746.
We will head on south tomorrow, to another aire before finding a campsite for the weekend. Weather prospects are not brilliant in the coming days but today has been excellent and I've been in shorts all day!

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[DBK]

The naturist have all left now so I took Charlie for a walk on the beach before it got too dark. Charlie is included in the picture to give an impression of scale.

Some flat rocks had interesting rock pools. I think they are like those you get sometimes in rivers. A stone starts in a natural depression and the movement of the water causes it to grind the rock beneath it, deepening the hole.
Dog included for scale.

The paths behind the beach here are typical of those I've seen elsewhere in this region, for example on the Quiberon Peninsula.

 

[davanne]

Reading your posts I was trying to remember the last time I visited Quiberon .....and it was 1997 ...can't believe it was 20 years ago.

 

[sedge]

I think we've been there. There was a middle-aged/elderly chap there with what appeared to be his whole family - and lots of other folk and families - lovely friendly, safe beach. But the thing that made us remember this bloke was the fact that his skin surface was covered with metal piercings and attachments - rings and studs and lots of things that resembled those balls with spikes in em they used to swing round and hurl at people in the heat of battle - the round bit that did the damage, bisected and miniaturised - like he was covered in asterisks in relief and yes - all along both sides of that too, I was blooming well transfixed by the bloke!

Never seen anything as much as that before or since!

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