The weather forecast was grim, and the rain continued. But we only have two more days here, so we had to go with the plan. Our first stop was Locronan, a picture-perfect town just north of Quimper. In fact, the little town has been used in several movies. Because of the rain, there was no one in the town. I mean No One! There were a couple of boulangeries open but the rest of the town was deserted. We walked around a bit, drank hot chocolate, and tried to stay sort of dry (impossible).
Next stop was Plonevez-Porzay. Not much to see but there was a market, so we walked through just to check out what they had. This area is known for many things and especially strawberries. There was a long line of people waiting for these beauties.
Our main goal today was to explore the Crozon Peninsula. I had read about this area, and had corresponded with someone online about where to go and what to see. The Brittany coast is spectacular with huge jagged rocks and steep cliffs along the crashing surf. No picture can capture it. There's a coastal hiking trail that surrounds all of Brittany, and we could pick it up at various places as we stopped. We started in Morgat, drove to Pointe de Dinan (not to be confused with Dinan the city where we will stay next), Pointe de Penhir, and finally Pointe des Espagnols.
And here's where the miracle occurred. Just as we pulled into Morgat, the sun came out. We were shocked. Sunshine is not in the forecast all week. Suddenly things were looking up.
When I planned what we'd do this day, I knew that I wanted to stop for lunch in Camaret-sur-Mer. And I knew that I wanted Moules Frites, and I wanted to be able to watch the harbor and look out at the Tour Vauban. And that is exactly what we were able to do! The mussels were not the best I've had, but the experience and the location were just what I ordered for today.
Although we were tired, we felt we needed to do as much as we could today because once again, rain is in the forecast for tomorrow. So we headed down to Loctudy where we'd read that they had a cool lighthouse.
And we stopped along the way whenever we saw something we liked.
At about 6:30 tonight, we arrived in Concarneau on the southern coast of Brittany. Originally this was a stop we planned to make tomorrow, but we pushed it to today just in case we got rained out. Both of us had seen pictures of this huge castle/fort that sits right next to the main town square in the bay. Greg started taking pictures of it while I looked around for a restaurant that might be open on a Sunday night.
But we kept seeing throngs of people coming out of the fort, many of them carrying food. So we decided to walk in and found that the inside was lined with streets containing shops and restaurants. I just assumed it was an old empty fort - guess it pays to look further. I'm afraid I'm going to overuse the word "charming" in describing this part of France, but there's no other word to describe the creperie we found inside the fort for our dinner.
This is the second night in a row we've had crepes for dinner, and we'll probably have them again tomorrow. Along with strawberries and those wonderful buttery cakes you find in every shop, Brittany is known for crepes. The creperies make two kinds: savory and sweet. The savory ones are sometimes called galettes, and the batter used for the galettes is made with buckwheat. Most of the ones you see on the menu contain things like ham, mushrooms, cheese, onions, tomatoes, etc. They're often topped with an egg. And rather than wine, most people drink cider which tastes great with the crepes. Here's the one I had last night.
It was very good, but the ones we had tonight were even better. And, of course, after the savory crepe, you must order a sweet one, and they come with fruit or chocolate or honey - and Greg loves the ones with caramel.
Tomorrow we plan to spend more time on the southern coast.
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