Vannes - part 1

I think of all the places that we visited, Vannes was C's favourite. He says he'd love to find a camp site near there and go back for longer. I remember visiting there one evening when I was about thirteen or fourteen - I can still remember the smell of the chocolate crepes we had in the car on the way home. It was less romantic in daylight, but still a wonderful place to wander around.

These photos are mostly just shop signs...Sadly the paper shop (2nd photo) was closed for their annual holiday - it would have been a lovely shop to go into and browse around.
The 6th photo is typical Quimper faïence style. I must take a photo of the little lollipops I bought for my brother's kids - their wrapping is a similar style.
The 7th photo, the little money bag, was a sign on the Crédit Agricole bank. It has a rather mediaeval feel to it, I think.

By the lake

A couple of times we visited Lac de Guerlédan, an artificial lake created in the 1920s for hydroelectric power. Being late in the season it was quiet, but there were still some watersports going on, and we saw a cruise boat going up the lake. C was impressed with the quality of the sand on the beach we stopped off at - certainly more sandy than many beaches here.

At one end of the lake is the Abbaye de bon-Repos, an old (founded in the 12th century) Cistercian abbey which had fallen into total repair, but in the '80s the local community started work on restoring it. The church is still a ruin, but the abbey building is well restored. There was an exhibition on monastic food and cooking, which was interesting to me. In the cloisters they had planted beds of wild-flowers - beautiful.

 

Model of the abbey as it appeared in the 18th century

Old pigeon loft / dovecote

By the lake

A couple of times we visited Lac de Guerlédan, an artificial lake created in the 1920s for hydroelectric power. Being late in the season it was quiet, but there were still some watersports going on, and we saw a cruise boat going up the lake. C was impressed with the quality of the sand on the beach we stopped off at - certainly more sandy than many beaches here.

At one end of the lake is the Abbaye de bon-Repos, an old (founded in the 12th century) Cistercian abbey which had fallen into total repair, but in the '80s the local community started work on restoring it. The church is still a ruin, but the abbey building is well restored. There was an exhibition on monastic food and cooking, which was interesting to me. In the cloisters they had planted beds of wild-flowers - beautiful.

 

Model of the abbey as it appeared in the 18th century

Old pigeon loft / dovecote

First stop...

...was our friend's house in Brittany - fairly central. The first time we stayed there, C fell in love with the house, but we can see Pierre's point that it's cold in winter and quite isolated. These photos were taken on a damp morning when we took a lazy day and didn't do much at all. I did walk down to the main road (about 1.5 km) to drop the rubbish back into the bins for collection. It was the only day I needed to wear shoes and socks. We did the same walk together in the evening when we went to visit somebody, after I'd assured C that it wasn't nearly as far as he thought it was. Thank goodness we both had torches - just one might have been a bit inadequate.
It's an old house -  it's been in the family for several generations. Originally it would just have been one room deep - along the front you can see the barns to the left, and the house to the right - downstairs is a kitchen (two French doors), sitting room (French door and window, and a small sitting room area to the right of the front door. Upstairs are 4 bedrooms and the bathroom, opening off a  corridor running along the back of the house. I've been in Irish farmhouses with a very similar construction. At some stage a (relatively) modern extension was built, so along the back of the house there is a boiler room, another dining room, kitchen, bathroom and bedroom.

In the barn/garage you can see a Breton flag hanging on the wall.

Setting out

The last time we got the ferry to France it was very grey and overcast as we headed out from Cork. This time, though there were some clouds, it was lovely and sunny and quite warm. We were able to sit out on sun chairs on the deck for quite a while after most people had moved in and enjoy the warmth and sunshine. Cobh looks a lot prettier in the sunshine - or else they've painted it up a lot since 15 years ago.

I'm going to totally skip chronological order here and add two pictures from the way back. The first one was taken through the portholes at the front of the ferry. You can see the Breton flag flying. It's hard to tell how rough the crossing was - it was certainly rough in our cabin, which was very near the front. Even though we weren't out at the side but well towards the centre we could hear the waves against the side (or front) of the ship, and all Saturday my head was spinning in circles. But at least we both managed to sleep more than we expected we could, and in spite of C's expectations a couple of times, I never fell out of the bunk.

We arrived back to a grey, rainy day. It was very heavy rain for about half the drive home. We'd have stopped off at my brother's for a break from the rain and a cup of coffee, but when I rang him, there was some special event on at the kids' riding school and they weren't going to be home for some time yet, so we soldiered on.

On the home front - the coal tits were the first to realise the feeders were filled up again. I've seen a couple of blues and greats too, but the sparrows are only slowly returning and I haven't seen any robin yet. You know I've often mentioned how territorial robins are. I actually got to see two fighting on our last morning. A whole big campsite, and all the time we'd been there (and in the previous one) I'd heard a lot of territorial robin talk. C was having a last strum on his guitar before packing it into the car, so I went off walking round the site and just at the end of the row where we were pitched, I saw some movement on the ground. A closer look and it was two robins up close and personal tussling on the ground. So it is true what they say!! No photos of that, and none of the first ever kingfishers I saw :D. We saw one on an outing from our first campsite, from a hide beside a lake, and I saw another one from the little boat when we had our trip along the canals in the Marais.

Quick post

Just back from two weeks in France, still trying to catch up with everything.
The first half of the holiday we stayed in Brittany, borrowing a house from friends (that's where we were for a funeral last summer, and it was Pierre's house we stayed in, as his daughters still have it). Second half we camped in two different sites. This little video was from the third area we visited - the Marais Poitevin., a large marshy area also known as La Venise Verte or Green Venice. According to Wikipedia it covers about 970 square km , and according to our guide there are about 6000km of man-made drainage canals, as well as some natural ones. This work was started during the reign of Henri IV (1553 - 1610), who called in the Dutch experts, (just as the English did  with the Norfolk fens in the early 17th century).

After our trip along the canals we visited a bird park - mostly waterfowl, and a great way of using the natural landscape. These storks were some of the birds we saw, and we were lucky enough to be treated to a real sight. When we passed by their enclosure on the return to the car, they were all just standing around quietly. The sound from their beaks was quite amazing - like very fast castanets. After all that display, that pair settled down to a mutual grooming session - I don't know if they were picking some sort of mites out of each other or what.



More will follow as I get organised during the week...

Favourite August cards

Like July, August was a good month for feeling creative, so I have several favourites.