Two Go Back For More Cheese

suavecarve said:
We had st armel in the satnav for today.

Weather pushed us further south
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It should get much warmer next week, especially away from the coast. We are probably heading up the Loire and temperatures could be 30°C. You can have too much of a good thing if the humidity is high which I suspect it might be. :)
 
Glad to hear your improving, we caught Covid on the Santander ferry in March, or in Granada 2 days later from a Brit who had been on a ferry???

Were up at Honfleur with showers since yesterday but tomorrow dry for a week as we sight see here, Bayeaux and 🤞🏻 on into Brittany if it’s dry.
 
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royandsharont said:
Glad to hear your improving, we caught Covid on the Santander ferry in March, or in Granada 2 days later from a Brit who had been on a ferry???

Were up at Honfleur with showers since yesterday but tomorrow dry for a week as we sight see here, Bayeaux and 🤞🏻 on into Brittany if it’s dry.
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Have a good trip, the weather looks much better for the coming week.
 
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We've driven a little way down the coast today, stopping at Guérande near the mouth of the Loire. We're under the blue blob towards the left of the map below.

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Closer in you can see the aire in the upper right.

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It says "Aire camping-car gratuite" except this is now out of date as it has very recently become part of the CCP network and it is no longer "gratuite" as a succession of MHs have discovered today, many turning round at the discovery of the barrier.

I suspect CCP will need to improve their barrier arrangements here as there are signs a few vehicles have driven around the barrier! You can just see tyre marks on the bare soil in this photo. :)

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Almost everyone here is on the hard standing. There are more pitches at the rear which might one day be grass but at the moment they are very damp soil which you would be foolish to drive onto. Like the barrier it may not all be quite finished yet. :)

You might have noticed in the map above the centre of the town is circular. This is why:

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Inside the walls is the old town.

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Which as far as I got today because there is a market held on Saturday mornings in the centre and that is where we will be heading tomorrow. :)
 
DBK said:
I suspect CCP will need to improve their barrier arrangements here as there are signs a few vehicles have driven around the barrier! You can just see tyre marks on the bare soil in this photo.
Click to expand...
What appears even more ridiculous is what appears to be the removal of a large limb from the tree that would have restricted that practice.

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As planned we walked into the centre of Guérande this morning to visit the market. Before we got to the market itself we were struck by the number of shops selling sweets of various kinds and other shops selling salt, which is harvested locally in the Marais salants de Guérande on the coast. There was even one shop which combined both offering salted caramel made with the "fleur de sel". :) There were also several touristy clothes shops which also avoided.

The market, when we reached it, was interesting, with some good quality food on offer. The fish and meat stalls all had queues forming.

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The cafés were fairly busy.

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This is the "La place du pilori".

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English translation in the bottom right if you squint. :)

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I came to France with a list of cheeses I wanted to find but I wasn't expecting to find this one here.

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It's Pont l'Évêque, a cheese from Normandy, which we are some distance from. I wondered if perhaps like Cheddar it can be made anywhere but it has an AOP designation so it should be authentic. I had a nibble when we got back to the 'van and it is very nice with a noticeable tang. A Brie look-alike it is not.

Back at the aire I took this photo just now. It might be hard to see but all the MHs on the left, above the low bank, are not in the aire but on the parking of the small industrial estate next door. The one that has the sign forbidding MHs overnight. :) There is going to be words spoken I think around here following the conversion of this aire from free to paid.

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It's about 50/50 at the moment with about 8 outside the aire and 8 inside. :)

But the expansion of CCP continues apace. We were given this map this morning.

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It includes two each in Portugal and Belgium, three in Spain with a fourth opening soon. The rest are all in France and there is a lot of them.

French test:

PXL_20230902_155215987.jpg


Google Translate says the three words are pruning, slaughter and landscape. I suspect the middle one is felling but interesting to see how "abattage" must be linked to our word "abattoir".
 
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DBK said:
As planned we walked into the centre of Guérande this morning to visit the market. Before we got to the market itself we were struck by the number of shops selling sweets of various kinds and other shops selling salt, which is harvested locally in the Marais salants de Guérande on the coast. There was even one shop which combined both offering salted caramel made with the "fleur de sel". :) There were also several touristy clothes shops which also avoided.

The market, when we reached it, was interesting, with some good quality food on offer. The fish and meat stalls all had queues forming.

View attachment 803322

View attachment 803325

The cafés were fairly busy.

View attachment 803329

This is the "La place du pilori".

View attachment 803321

English translation in the bottom right if you squint. :)

View attachment 803327

I came to France with a list of cheeses I wanted to find but I wasn't expecting to find this one here.

View attachment 803324


It's Pont l'Évêque, a cheese from Normandy, which we are some distance from. I wondered if perhaps like Cheddar it can be made anywhere but it has an AOP designation so it should be authentic. I had a nibble when we got back to the 'van and it is very nice with a noticeable tang. A Brie look-alike it is not.

Back at the aire I took this photo just now. It might be hard to see but all the MHs on the left, above the low bank, are not in the aire but on the parking of the small industrial estate next door. The one that has the sign forbidding MHs overnight. :) There is going to be words spoken I think around here following the conversion of this aire from free to paid.

View attachment 803339

It's about 50/50 at the moment with about 8 outside the aire and 8 inside. :)

But the expansion of CCP continues apace. We were given this map this morning.

View attachment 803340

It includes two each in Portugal and Belgium, three in Spain with a fourth opening soon. The rest are all in France and there is a lot of them.

French test:

View attachment 803341

Google Translate says the three words are pruning, slaughter and landscape. I suspect the middle one is felling but interesting to see how "abattage" must be linked to our word "abattoir".
Click to expand...
The little Latin I paid attention to Ab means away whereas ad means towards.adductor muscles pull legs together abductor take them apart. Adjacent abstract absent etc.
No idea what "attoir" is or "battage"

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suavecarve said:
The little Latin I paid attention to Ab means away whereas ad means towards.adductor muscles pull legs together abductor take them apart. Adjacent abstract absent etc.
No idea what "attoir" is or "battage"
Click to expand...
I've done a bit more digging and the first part may come from "abate" meaning knock down or slaughter and the "oir" means place.

Possibly... :)
 
TheMachMan said:
Great thread. Enjoyed our Pont l'Évêque yesterday too!
We’re in Cancale which is very nice. A dozen oysters for about 8€ or less, all sold direct on the promenade.
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Oysters bought on the coast are ridiculously cheap compared to the UK. Hopefully, with our rearranged schedule we will find some towards the end of this trip. :)

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Haven’t checked long range weather forecast recently to see if we follow more of the Brittany coast or drop south……
 
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DBK said:
We're now sitting in the queue for the 22:00 sailing from a damp Plymouth to Roscoff. :)

View attachment 800368

The weather forecast for northern France has improved a bit for this week but it won't be warm so we are committed to Plan B now and will head south, but not with any haste.

Anyone who has arrived in Plymouth on a ferry may remember the reception arrangements were a bit sketchy. In the last few weeks they have opened up a new set of booths for checking passports etc. Cars are still queueing though. :) We will find out for ourselves when we return here in six weeks time.

View attachment 800366
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My advice would be bring lots of ice blocks to keep your cheese cool! We too had topped up on delicious spanish cheeses for us and family only for Brittany ferries to put us on the lowest deck of Pont Aven at 29degrees c plus so although we had run the fridge on max before boarding
by the time we were let off 2 hours after docking we, the cheese and several hundred bikers in wet weather gear were all far over cooked!

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Even by our standards today was a bit early in the trip for a laundry session but there was a swish laundrette which took card payment within walking distance of the aire so we made use of it this morning.

While the washing was being done we went on another exploration of the old town, this time without the crowds of yesterday's market.

There is still a moat around about a third of the walls.

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Curiously, the moat wasn't all at the same water level, there were a couple of "weirs" where it dropped down by half a metre or so. I can only assume the upper section, pictured above was once much deeper. Weirs wouldn't have been much defence if you could walk across them. It had never occurred to me before but when siting your moated walled town or castle you need to choose level ground. :)

This gate isn't the most impressive.

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It was remodelled in the 19th century and the medieval bits removed. But it was the site of a curious custom.

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Fortunately, we aren't fishmongers and it isn't Easter so we have kept our wine and we didn't need to get wet. :)

In the centre a gathering of 2CVs seemed to be starting.

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Rubbish crash-protection but huge fun to drive. I still miss ours. One of the bits I like about them, a bit nerdy I admit, is the engine has no distributer. The plugs fire on every stroke which works out fine as the wasted spark at the end of the exhaust stroke is of no consequence. Ingenious engineering.

Talk of which, the makers of this model, seen in a shop window, have been quick off the mark.



Those who have seen my other thread about buying hummus in France will know we did manage to buy some. Today we ate it. :)

A healthy lunch.

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But if you zoom out there were a couple of less healthy additions.

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The wine is a keeper as they say but the crisps were an experiment. A failed experiment for us, salted crisps and hummus don't mix.

The hummus itself, from Super U, was excellent, very smooth and with added garlic.

We have stopped at the aire at Prefailles a little south of St Nazaire.

Screenshot_20230903_193301_Maps.jpg


It has no EHU or services but with the sun shining we didn't see a problem but this afternoon the voltage was down to 11.7 which indicates dead leisure batteries. Obviously 2023 is becoming our Year of the Battery. The cab battery failed in Spain earlier this year and for symmetry the leisure batteries have have gone on strike now.

There are a couple of large battery shops in Nantes, which isn't far away. We will be going to one of them tomorrow. It's about thirty miles but if the bill is less than €10 per mile I will be surprised! :)
 
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Oh dear, new batteries in France is going to be painful… have you test with a multimeter ? Just might be a misreading somewhere..😎
 
Just smiffy said:
Oh dear, new batteries in France is going to be painful… have you test with a multimeter ? Just might be a misreading somewhere..😎
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I'll give that a try but the battery monitor has always been accurate and when you see it rapidly dropping below 12 volts it is time to get worried. Getting to the leisure batteries is a bit of a pain but I'll double check the voltages before making a final decision tomorrow.
 
Battery megastore France.
Ithink I read about it on here some time ago. Maybe associated with the UK company of the same name.
But I guess you would need to be on a site to get them delivered.
Price of site plus batteries could be just as expensive as the local stores I guess.
 
berni109 said:
Battery megastore France.
Ithink I read about it on here some time ago. Maybe associated with the UK company of the same name.
But I guess you would need to be on a site to get them delivered.
Price of site plus batteries could be just as expensive as the local stores I guess.
Click to expand...
If they are less than €150 each I'll be surprised. All part of life's rich tableau of experiences. :)
 
Just smiffy said:
Oh dear, new batteries in France is going to be painful… have you test with a multimeter ? Just might be a misreading somewhere..😎
Click to expand...
Just tried the multimeter and it was reading the same as the battery monitor. This was what I expected but you were right to suggest checking. :) There was a slim chance I might have saved a few hundred euro. Probably even enough to buy a new battery monitor! :)
 
It was worth a try… do they have scrap yards there..? I get £20 a battery from my local scrapy, it’ll ease the pain….😎
 

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