Sunday 26th – Tuesday 28th May
Our travels took us further south along the Finistère coast where we visited some more beautiful locations, not all of them directly on the coast.
Sunday 26th May: Châteaulin and Locronan
Châteaulin:
A nice town to wander around as we were passing through, Châteaulin is situated astride the river L’Aulne. The river at this point, is also part of the Canal Nante à Brest, so every so often, there is a weir and a lock alongside it.
A feature of the town is the viaduct, which not only bridges the river, but does so with a marked curvature. It is a former railway viaduct, that is now a pedestrian route.
It is an attractive town, but like many others, there are old building which are sadly in need of extensive repair. This huge property on the far bank of the river, looked as though there had been a fire.
Locronan:
The village of Locronan is billed as a small city of character. It is in fact very attractive and a real tourism honey-pot. Visiting out of season means that it was not as crowded as it could have been, but there were still a couple of coach parties and numerous others.
As might be expected, there are a lot of souvenir/gift shops as well as places you can get something to eat or drink. There were also some unusual things to buy:
…and inside this small shop, there was a huge array of herbs and spices:
The chocolate shop displayed their craft with a two-foot high model of an elve’s house, complete with dragon:
I also noticed some unusual trade signs on the buildings:
The church was also worth a look:
Monday 27th May: Douarnenez and Ménez Drégan
Douarnenez:
The harbour town of Douarnenez faces north on the coast of Brittany, just at the start of the Cap-Sizun peninsula, with a tidal river estuary and a marina.
There is a boat museum in the river, (unfortunately closed on the day of our visit), with many old boats and ships, many of which can be seen.
We walked along, past the museum and enjoyed lunch on the quayside at a cafe, right under the road viaduct. Alison had the “moules à la crème” and I, the grilled sardines.
Ménez Drégan:
Brittany has an abundance of neolithic sites, the most well-known being the stone alignments at Carnac. Ménez Drégan is on the southern-facing coast of Brittany, near to the small town of Plouhinec. It is quite a large dry-stone structure which would have originally been roofed and covered with earth and used for burials.
Although Menez Dregan is on a small hill overlooking the sea, when it was built sea-levels would have been much lower, so it would have been some distance away from the coast and would have looked out onto a mostly flat landscape.
Tuesday 28th May: Audierne and Pointe du Raz
Audierne:
We chose to spend a couple of nights parked-up on the aire in Audierne. A south facing harbour town with a marina, a little to the west of Menez Dregan.
The town is protected by a sea defence wall with a small lighthouse at the end.
…and a beach beyond that:
Just opposite where we were parked-up, there were some derelict boats which looked photographically interesting:
Pointe du Raz:
Pointe du Raz is the westernmost part of this part of Brittany. As we were so close, we decided to visit, despite the howling gale and the parking charges.
The Pointe gets many thousands of visitors each year. Not so many when we visited, probably due to the weather. As you would expect, there were a good number of eating and souvenir establishments near to the car park, but we managed to bypass these:
Just beyond the buildings at the end of the path, there is a statue entitled; translated as: “Our Lady of Shipwrecks”
It was really blowing a hoolie when we visited. I had to remove my cap or it would definitely be gone forever!
Some were sheltering behind rocks:
We returned that night to Audierne.
"See-u-Later" 