Friday, 21 August 2015

Brittany 5

Brittany 5 is Vannes part 1, since it was a photo-heavy outing.  We drove into Arradon and got the bus from there to Vannes, which was very quick and saved us having to try to find parking there. It was a somewhat overcast day, even cool at times, so it was quite good for walking around the town.



Castle grounds

Old laundry building, beside the castle


Toy shop - the bubble-blowing bear (below) is in front of it





The next two photos were both part of an exhibition called "Ephemeral Gardens". Hard to get a decent picture of the "green seating", because there was a railing around it, but it was quite fascinating. Sacks, with holes in them and different types of plants growing through, and then slatted seating a bit like a garden bench. It was a shame not to be able to sit on them. The exhibit in the second photo is titled "Scarlet Wave".



Thursday, 20 August 2015

Brittany 4

Quiberon, continued:

Along the beach...






And around the town...




There were lovely murals along the walls above the port area, depicting the history of the town.
But it wasn't easy to take any photos, because of parked cars.




Wednesday, 19 August 2015

Brittany 3

The coast of Brittany is full of peninsulas and inlets, especially where we were, on the Golfe de Morbihan. One evening we drove over to the next headland, Larmor-Baden. Actually only the last photo was taken in the village, the others were at a stop along the way. This was a low-mileage day, after the trip to la Briere; we just went for a drive in the evening.







 The next day was another longer outing, to Quiberon, I'm going to split up the photos from that, since there are quite a few. So, some here, more to follow... I had two cameras that day, so the exposures are slightly different.





The last time we were here was in September a few years ago, on a very misty overcast day. It was lovely to see it in summer mode with blue skies.

Tuesday, 18 August 2015

Brittany 2

Yesterday's photos were all from walking (not very far) northward up the coast. All these ones were taken when we walked south towards the town of Arradon. We joined the coast at a little tidal estuary, where there was an old disused water mill. It was hard to get a decent photo of it, as it was built along a wall across the estuary, but that's where the barred window is.
We saw a LOT of egrets on this holiday, and never tired of them.
We didn't tire of the beautiful wheat field either, and of course seeing it under sunshine and blue skies made it even better.











Let him who throws litter on this beach be eaten by crabs

Monday, 17 August 2015

Brittany

For the first stage of our holiday we stayed in Brittany, outside a small town not far from Vannes. It was less than a ten minute walk from the campsite to the coast, and there were well organised and maintained paths along the coast in both directions. These first few pictures are all very local, taken within walking distance of the campsite.





These pictures are from the longest trip we took while in Brittany, to the Parc naturel régional de Brière. We found part of it to be very poorly signposted and wasted enough time that we never made it to Guérande afterwards, which we had hoped to. But we got to see a very interesting documentary about life in the area at the time when all the men worked in the big ship-building yard at St Nazaire.
And we did, eventually find the Réserve Ornithologique Pierre Constant, where we had a lovely walk; most of the following photos are from there. We got to see some black spoonbills, as well as a lot of different birds of prey.

on the îsle de Fedrun

view over the marshland from one of the hides


harvested reeds, outside the interprative centre at Pierre Constant

Black Spoonbill



drifting seed from some tree