Pont Croix to Plage d'Aber

I've finally got the blog-headspace to spend time catching up with our travels ... starting from 9 months ago!

All, or most of, the tourists went home at the end of August so it become our time to travel. We've decided to take shortish trips for a week or so at a time, to enable us to really get to know Brittany, and were very curious to see what was on the peninsula we look across Douarnenez Bay to.

Here's the map of the there-and-back trip we did.

Our nearest town of Pont Croix

There's an interesting corner of Pont Croix, our nearest shopping town, with ruins which look either Roman or just plain very old, and there's never been a time for us to stop, on our various shopping-trips-with-a-purpose. It turns out they are just plain very old ruins, and centred around the usual laundry bath (lavoir) which you find in most rural towns in Brittany.

It was a peaceful stop for an hour or so in Pont Croix while we soaked up the sun and took photographs of the lavoir. I'll let the pictures tell the story:

Leaving our car on the hill of the main road leading into Pont Croix

we wandered towards the ruins which had piqued our curiosity.

This is the small park area above the intriguing bits, which we can see from
the road every time we pass on our way in to do our shopping.

An ancient iron loop in the wall for tethering horses, which

we passed as we walked up the hill in Pont Croix

If you can read the text on these images (above and below)

it'll give you an idea of the history of these ruins.

Reflections on a warm autumn day

Alan took this pic from a patch of park a few steps up from the lavoir.

This is the closest that I like my photograph being taken!

You can see me at the furthest right hand corner of the lavoir.

Looking towards the main road which enters Pont Croix from the north

How many feet, through the years, have contributed to the wearing

of these stone steps? Probably more female feet, seeing as it's the

laundry area ... I was listening for the chatter and laughter of their lives.

Didn't hear it of course ... but it was fun to imagine.

Himself with his trusty white hat protecting his fair skin from sun ravages.

When you see how often lions come up in history (eating the Romans

for example) and how often sculptures are dedicated to them probably worldwide,

you tend to wonder if there were millions more of them around in times past.

Ha! I bet you thought those lion sculptures were bigger! Thanks to

my lovely long camera lens I can do lovely detail shots :-)

We're all intrigued by gates and doorways - especially old ones with

stories to tell. Here, more than the gate, I enjoyed the rocks which

form the archway.

It's likely the taller, more solid, arched building is fairly modern, built

to suit the style of the older one and to house more modern plumbing.

But, it's beneath the more modern structure that those lions are sitting,

so maybe they're not as old as I would like to believe!

Someone had fun with this sign!

... and on towards Pont l'Abbe and Brest

We take side roads along our meanderings quite often. That is, if they promise to be wide enough for our motorhome! In this way you come across "real" folk and their lifestyle, including animals and activities, which we love.

On this trip we spotted a bee keeper tending his hives, paragliders (what a stunning day for it!), cyclists and farmers herding their cows.

The bee keeper looking very alien

Miss Daisy. She came running straight towards us, beautiful lady ...
and this was her countryside ....

Paragliders like dragon flies in the sky

Another perk of taking the side roads and farm roads are
the gardens and quaint houses you pass. The road often passes
through farms, cutting through and separating the main farm house and barns,
many of which are now gites and holiday cottages.
There was just enough space to pass through slowly here ...

Just after meeting Miss Daisy the cow, we stopped by the side of the

Tregarvan River which looks like a lake but it's just wide as it almost reaches the sea.

This is the view before we found the road down to the river harbourside

where all the leisure boats are moored.

We took Bridie for a bit of a walk up alongside the boat moorings and

spotted this attractive modern bridge through a gap in the trees.

Alan and his trademark hat with Bridie collecting a history of sniffs.

How are these for lovely clouds!

Above and below the leisure boat moorings on the Tregarvan River

That's enough for today ... it's ending up as a long post with all the images I want to keep! Next post I'll chat about the bay, and our relaxing week, at Plage d'Aber.

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Melody, Douarnenez, Pont Croix and Audierne

Oh I am the smartest person! LOL (I wish) I worked out how to use google maps and embed our travel maps in my blogs. Ha. So satisfying. By clicking on the plus or minus signs on the lower right hand side of the maps you can enlarge or zoom in at will. This helps if you're not quite sure which part of France we're traveling in ... just zoom out using the minus sign until the whole of France is visible.

I apologise that there's not much chat in this blog. Mainly photographs. People and fun incidents are what I really like to chat about, and there haven't been that many for me to tell you about recently. I do want to give an idea as to where we are though, so here goes.

This first map is our wander down to the coast at St-Gildas-de-Rhuys. I just called it St Gildas in my previous blog, but when I was doing this map I discovered that the real St Gildas is part of Vannes and not really on the coast at all.

What the map below shows is the time after our first visit to St-Gildas-de-Rhuys, when we went up to Rennes, back down to St-Gildas-de-Rhuys, up to Mauron to collect my pot plants from a good friend, and then out to Pors Peron where we've bought the leisure home.




Not being securely trained at this stage, and with no fences to contain her, Bridie had to be on a lead outside on the patio for a week or three. She wasn't too happy about it, but sadly that's how it had to be!

At last the shed was put up and I had one day in which to paint the windows ... which I did :-) And so our little "complex" became complete. Just waiting for the garden to take shape now.

There are a few more pics of our stunning roses on my Road Trips with Milly Facebook page. Here: https://www.facebook.com/RoadTripsWithMilly/

The days were really hot this summer and we were, of course, reluctant to either leave Bridie alone in a closed-up and hot leisure home, or take her out in a hot motorhome, so we didn't do too much traveling around. We did spend a day in Douarnenez where we had lunch; an evening in Pont Croix for supper; and a look-see day in Audierne where we found a gallery I may submit to.

Douarnenez - above and below. Different parts of the harbour.
I've found a load of more pics of Douarnenez which I'd like to keep with this blog. Instead of overloading the blog, I've made a separate page for them which you can find here : http://roadtripswithmilly.blogspot.fr/p/douarnenez.html

As you can see, there was loads of boat activity in this part of the harbour.

Pont Croix

Pont Croix is our local town for small shopping expeditions to the Super U, filling up with diesel, the Vet, and the doctor.

Apart from one evening having moules 'n frites  in the town square, I haven't yet properly visited the town. It was a lovely evening though, watching three young fellas playing French bowls (petanque?) and giggling at a large party of folk as their group swelled to about two dozen. It's exhausting for the lips and cheeks being French! As each person arrived they went around to each and every person already waiting there and double-kissed them on the cheek - sometimes not even really looking at the person at all! It was a lesson learned - never arrive late at a party. Arrive late and you're the one going around doing all the kissing. Arrive early and you only need to stand still and offer your cheeks.

The views of the bowls game, and the town square, we captured that evening ... a whole 2 of them. Obviously our meal and spending time together was more important!

It's heartening to see that young folk are keeping the tradition of petanque and bowls (I haven't yet found out the difference between the two or if they mean the same thing!) alive. There's a very active club on the edge of town as well. Way to go Pont Croix!

Audierne

Our afternoon in the coastal town of Audierne (see map above) was also mainly about boats and the harbour. The first pic shows you a road leading up the hill which I'd like to investigate one day, but on this afternoon our main aim was to find La Galerie which our friends Gearie and Linda Kenworthy had mentioned to us.

Below is the pic of La Galerie

Boats, boats and more boats ....... if any artists out there would like to use any of the images as painting inspiration, you're most welcome. It would be great if you emailed or Facebook-ed me an image of your painting though ... would love to see that please.

Well, that gives you an idea of the environs we're now living in. Next, we'll take you one peninsula up from where we are. We spent a really lovely week at l'Abbe ... with people to talk about! LOL