Tuesday 21st – Wednesday 22nd May 2024
Tuesday: Binic-Étables-sur-Mer
We chose to visit Binic-Étables-sur-Mer, on the recommendation of someone we had met on our travels who had just come from there in their motorhome. It was not a bad recommendation; the town is a quiet seaside resort which, out of season, provided a nice relaxing interlude on our trip.
It has a nice harbour, an outstanding beach and a pleasant, if limited, shopping street. We stayed on the municipal aire, which only cost 6.50 €. An automatic aire which requires payment to lift a barrier. You are provided with a ticket which bears a code, which you use to raise the barrier when you leave. A spacious hard-standing area with reasonable servicing facilities, but you have to hold the button in to get water, which is tiring.
Although out of season, there were a few people who seemed to be making the most of it:
To be fair, the town has some nice amenities:
…and some interesting features around and about:
Wednesday: Cairn de Banenez
Since our visit a few years ago to Carnac (which we might return to on this trip) we have been interested in the neolithic architecture in this area, so on learning about the Cairn de Banenez, we planned a short detour to visit.
We had a reasonably early start so we could make the 90Km journey and be in time to visit before the ticket office closed for lunch at 12:30.
Built in two phases, the Cairn is a multi-chamber neolithic burial mound; the largest such mound in Europe, around 6,500 years old, with 11 burial chambers. It is one of the oldest megalithic structures in Europe and one of the oldest man-made structures in the world. Some quarrying has left parts of the lower cairn exposed, revealing the chambers.
There is also some wall-art, assumed to be a representation of a bull (or bulls):
The site looks out over Morlaix Bay, where we could see someone harvesting shellfish in the distance:
The site also looks over the local village, which also looks idillic with houses nestled in the landscape:
After leaving Grande Cairn de Banenez, we had lunch alongside the bay, where we saw what appeared to be derelict seawater tanks which I assume were used for some sort of shellfish farming, perhaps oysters.
As the tide had fully gone out, more people appeared, hunting for shellfish in the sands. Again, not sure what they were seeking, but they had all brought digging implements.
Wednesday: Le Diben
The village of Le Diben, is a fishing village with beautiful sheltered harbour area, on the northern coast, near to Plougasnou. We had identified a motorhome aire overlooking the harbour and it did not disappoint. Limited services (water and drainage, no electricity), but only 5€ for the night. We were informed that this would be collected the following morning by someone. They did not come, so we were not required to pay anything.
A feature of this area are the granite rock formations. Some rocks appear to be balanced and about to fall:
The coastal path appears to go on for miles (kilometres):
At the head of the bay, there is what is described as a “Cimetière de bateaux”, a boat graveyard. I cycled along to it to have a look and found five vessels in varying states of attractive decay, but could not get full access to them:
"See-u-Later" 