Nikki

For our first trip out of the country since Covid, I suggested Brittany. My husband Alan agreed so I started planning. I was last in Brittany in 1972. Felt like a good time to go back.

During Covid we started watching TV. Together. In the same room, watching the same show. Every night. First time in forty years that this was true. We’ve been watching a lot of murder mysteries and for my benefit, we have been watching a lot of murder mysteries set in France, mostly in French. But there was one show in German, set in Brittany, Inspector Dupin, which featured dead bodies washing up in impossibly picturesque fishing villages and suspects who cultivated oysters. There was a lot of eating and drinking in seaside cafés. Very inspirational. After I started planning the trip, I discovered that the TV series is based on a series of best selling books written in German, but translated into English, so I started reading those for further inspiration.

Another source of inspiration was the extensive collection of dishes made of Quimper faience that I inherited from my grandmother and around which I designed our kitchen makeover twenty-five years ago. I’ve always felt a pull towards Quimper, so this would be an opportunity to cement my bond with that city in western Brittany, the region of Finistère, translated as the end of the earth. Seemed like a good place to begin to travel again.




Quimper faience

kerouac

Amusingly enough, Kommissar Dupin (Commissaire Dupin) is actually shown in France. Of course the vast majority of French viewers prefer to set their televisions to show the French dubbed version because otherwise it is just too weird as well as reminding older viewers what could have happened to France if they watched the German version.

The English equivalent of Finistère can be found right across the English Channel under the name "Land's End."

Nikki

After flying from Boston to Paris and taking the TGV from the train station in the airport, we arrive in Rennes. We find the Rennes station a bit confusing, with multiple levels, ramps, and elevators that seem to go to different, disconnected places, but we find our way to the Paris-Brest Hotel across the street on Place de la Gare. There are a number of cafés and restaurants around the Place, and since it is not yet supper time we go to a crêperie that is serving between hours, with the idea that after a rest at the hotel we will go out for a late dinner. Nice crêpes and Alan has a first taste of a Breton whiskey. After that and a nap at the hotel we figure there is no way we are going out to dinner, so we call it a night.

We have arranged for a rental car from EuropCar through the booking agent AutoEurope. Since I am going to be a backup driver, we have requested a car with automatic transmission. It turns out the backup isn’t needed, but we don’t know that yet. So when Alan gets to the car assigned to us in the garage outside the station and finds it isn’t automatic, it is good that he has been accompanied by the Europcar employee who has taken pity on him when he seemed confused about how to get to the garage. The employee goes back to the rental desk in the station, gets the paperwork for a different car, and returns to the garage where Alan is waiting. The new car is indeed automatic and Alan drives it to the hotel where I am waiting with our bags.

Over the years, the bay around Mont Saint-Michel had silted up. There has been a tremendous public works project with the goal of increasing the tidal flow around the mount so that it is surrounded by water at high tide. A road from the mainland was demolished and replaced by a bridge. A dam which had starved the bay of water from a tidal river was also demolished and replaced by a dike which allows the water to flow. Most cars are prohibited from crossing the bridge, so visitors arrive by bus from the mainland.

We take the free bus and are a bit surprised when it stops before the end of the bridge and everyone gets off. But this allows us to approach the mount on foot with great views. We spend some time on the island but do not climb up through the village to the abbey. Fine with us; our main goal is to see it, and we are not walking so well. It was much easier in 1972. Maybe it’s steeper now.

Before we leave on the bus, we watch the sun set over the bay.



Low tide sunset

Low tide

Fra_Diavolo

Beautiful shot of the Mont -- looking forward to some good reading.

Nikki

We are staying at the Hotel Mercure Mont Saint-Michel. We have dinner at its restaurant, le Pré-Salé. After starting with oysters, I order the salt marsh lamb, a specialty of the region where sheep graze on the salt marsh. Amusingly, I have seen the dish, agneau de pré-salé, translated as “pre-salted lamb.” This is a wonderful introduction to many wonderful meals to come, topped off by a crème brûlée for Alan and some chocolate concoction for me.


First oysters of many

Crème brûlée



In the morning we walk across the dike that was built as part of the grand public works project. Lovely views, peaceful, just a few people walking along the banks of the river.




View from the dike


Control of the tidal river

HappyTrvlr

We had to cancel our trip to Brittany last year due to medical problems. I am excited to read your trip report as we are re- planning our trip there.

Nikki

After a lunch of moules frites in a crêperie (Alan’s mussels in cream, mine in cider), we drive around the bay toward Cancale, catching glimpses of Mont Saint-Michel from afar, passing oyster farms with places to taste them by the water. We would have been tempted to stop but we have just had lunch and have to pass them by.

We head toward Saint-Malo. We pass the walled city but decide not to park and walk in. This is a hard decision. While I was here in 1972, Alan hasn’t visited before. We have both read All the Light we Cannot See, based in Saint-Malo during the Second World War, when the city was bombed. Now that there is a Netflix series based on the book, we both regret missing the experience. But we have miles to go before we sleep and would be getting to our next destination too late in the day if we lingered here.

This is our longest drive of the trip. We are headed toward Ploumanac’h on the pink granite coast, where I have reserved a room at the Hotel des Rochers. This hotel is located right on the picturesque port, and our room has a large balcony which would be great in nicer weather. I have made a reservation for dinner at the hotel’s restaurant in advance because I have heard that it fills up with locals. Despite my reservation, however, I am told the restaurants are both closed.

The hotel staff calls and makes a reservation for us at Le Coste Mor. We have a wonderful meal here. I have a terrific cold seafood platter with oysters, langoustines, crab, whelks, periwinkles, prawns, and homemade mayonnaise, all served with wonderful bread and wonderful butter. Then I have dorade, a fish with which I am not familiar but which I like enough to order three times more during the trip.


port of Ploumanac’h

joannyc

I’m in!

TDudette

Yummies, Nikki! Beautiful shots also. I'm with you.

Adelaidean

I’m enjoying your travels too.
Count me in.

basingstoke2

Please keep it coming Nikki.

Nikki

As I read what I have posted, I see that I must have accidentally deleted a paragraph that discussed my thought process about Mont Saint-Michel. The post has a leap between picking up our car in Rennes and driving to our next stop, which was Mont Saint-Michel. I hadn’t wanted to go there after reading that the tourist experience was degraded by huge crowds, but Alan hadn’t been there before and remembered learning about it in school, so we decided to go. Since we weren’t walking so well I wasn’t excited about staying on the island and dragging our bags uphill to a hotel.

I decided to stay in a small area on the mainland just before the bridge where we could park at our hotel and be close to the free shuttle bus to the island. There is a gate with a passcode for people staying in this area and there is a daily fee for parking. Other visitors park in a large lot with a separate entrance and fee. This way we could arrive and park at our hotel late in the afternoon and take the bus, which runs until late in the evening. We would miss most of the crowds this way. And we could get nice views from the dike the next morning.

Nikki

After our first night at the Hotel des Rochers in Ploumanac’h we spend the day exploring the pink granite coast. In addition to the coastal views, we find ancient menhirs, or standing stones, and dolmens, or burial chambers. Brittany has a very large concentration of such Neolithic sites. Some, such as the menhir of Saint-Uzec, have been Christianized with the addition of crosses in the 17th century.



Tregastel

Dolmen

Menhir of Saint-Uzec


Pink granite formations

sculpture park


We stop at a sculpture garden with a display of figures sculpted in granite in a park setting. There are beautiful beaches surrounded by rocks in the characteristic pink granite.

Lunch consists of bread, cheese, and charcuterie we buy at a supermarket we pass. I could do this every day quite happily.

Dinner is at La Suite, where I love my appetizer of sea bass gravelax tartare with fig tree oil cream and crispy Breton galette. But the meal drags on too long when it takes my tarte soufflée au chocolat 45 minutes to make an appearance after we finish our main course even though I order it at the beginning of the meal. The waiter tells me don’t worry, it’s coming. I tell him I’m not worried, I’m falling asleep. They do comp us the dessert and we head back to the hotel where I complete the activity and go to sleep.



Sea bass gravelax tartare

Nikki

Our next destination is Quimper. The route will take us from the northern coast of Brittany to the southern coast. On the way we pass through an area of villages where we find the uniquely Breton religious complexes known as les enclos paroissiaux, or parish closes. These were built during the 16th and 17th centuries but incorporated an old pagan Celtic tradition of sacred enclosures within marked boundaries. A wall with a ceremonial arch encloses the church, cemetery, and an ossuary. In the courtyard there is a large carved structure, the calvary, depicting the crucifixion. Each village tried to outdo the others in making their structures the most elaborate to show off the wealth they accumulated selling linen and hemp for the riggings for ships. It is astonishing to find such structures in the simplest Breton villages.

We visit two of the more well-known parish closes, out of more than seventy found throughout the countryside. First we stop in Saint-Thegonnec, where the exterior is undergoing some construction and there is quite a bit of scaffolding. The maintenance of these structures must be quite an expense.



Saint-Thegonnec

Saint-Thegonnec

Saint-Thegonnec

Saint-Thegonnec calvary

Saint-Thegonnec


The second is Guimiliau. We get confused trying to find it, which you wouldn’t think possible in such a small village with such a large church. It can be seen clearly. Somehow we keep circling without finding the main entrance. We end up parking in the rear and entering through the cemetery. The calvary here has many carved faces with great expressions. There is an interpretive center in Guimiliau and I had thought of going there but we don’t look for it. You can’t do everything.




Guimiliau

Guimiliau

Guimiliau calvary

Guimiliau calvary

Guimiliau

Guimiliau

Guimiliau

rhon

Sounds like a fabulous trip. Having only spent one week in Brittany over all our travels to France, I wish we had spent more time there.
The photos are lovely.

ekscrunchy

Fantastic is right!!!!

Maybe next October!!??

ANUJ

Enjoying your TR... brings back fond memories of our trip to Brittany in 2019. Ironically, we also stayed at Hoteĺ des Rochers, perfectly placed for the pink granite coast trail! I think it was strongly recommended by a fellow Fodorite kja, who I havent seen regularly off late.

Nikki

We are staying in Quimper in the Locmaria neighborhood. This neighborhood is where the Henriot faience factory is located, along with a museum of faience and a gift store. Sadly, the factory tours are not given in October, and the museum closed at the end of September, so we must content ourselves with a visit to the gift store. I don’t really need any more Quimper pottery. Major understatement. But I do buy a couple of potholders with the “petit breton” pattern that shows Bretons in traditional costumes, and which is the pattern on my collection.

Our hotel is the Hotel Ginkgo, in a beautiful old building that is part of the priory for the church Notre Dame de Locmaria. The oldest part of the church is Romanesque, dating to the 11th century. There is a garden that belonged to the priory along the Odet River, and our room overlooks the garden, now filled with herbal and medicinal plants as it would have been in the medieval age.



Notre Dame de Locmaria




View from our room to the priory garden along the Odet


We have dinner at Le Prieuré, located next to the hotel in the church complex. We start with oysters (have I mentioned that almost every day includes some oysters?). There is a choice between “creuses” or “plates” oysters. Not knowing the difference, I conduct some quick research and read that the creuses are more common and have cupped shells, while the plates are round and flat and “are the rare glory of French estuaries”. We get the flats. We don’t see them for the rest of the trip, so are happy we tried them here.

After the oysters, we order the Menu Locmaria, which begins with opera de foie gras de canard, pain d’épices et poires (slices of layered foie gras with spice cake and pears). Next there is a trio of scallops prepared three ways: carpaccio, poêlées, and Bretonne. This is followed by roasted blue lobster tail with crème de langoustines and kari gosse spices (described in my extensive research as a Breton curry). We finish up with the sampler of desserts. Oh my.




Blue lobster tail in cream of langoustine

Scallops three ways

TDudette

Fabulous food and pix, Nikki. The megalithic aspect of France is not reported on as often. More soon, please!

Nikki

In the morning we head out in the car taking a route that more or less follows the Odet down to the sea. We find Sainte-Marine, a small port favorably described in one of the Inspector Dupin mysteries, but we can’t find our way to the water, so we drive across a bridge over the Odet to Benodet, a larger town with a ferry dock and nice views back to Sainte-Marine. In the Dupin book, a character keeps one boat in each port, I forget why.



View toward Sainte-Marine

Benodet

View toward Sainte-Marine

Benodet




Benodet

Benodet


We drive along the coast, where beautiful homes line the road overlooking the ocean.


Benodet


Dinner is at a restaurant close to our hotel, le Resto à Vins. This place is casual, with a long blackboard they carry from table to table with small writing for a menu and a lively atmosphere. I have to have them bring the blackboard closer to make out the writing. I think I remember duck breast and foie gras. Alan remembers oysters, wine and whiskey.