Two Go Back to France

[DBK]

We crossed over from Plymouth to Roscoff last night on BF's Armorique. It was a very smooth crossing and we slept reasonably well until woken at six UK time by the musical wake-up call BF use. For many years they have used the same tune but it changed recently. It's still harp music but not as nice as the old tune I think but I'm sure it will grow on me.

The ship was due to dock at seven, eight o'clock French time, which only gave us an hour for showers and breakfast which worked out perfectly. we were sailing into Roscoff just as I was finishing off my pain au chocolat.

After a quick shop at the Super U in Cléder, about 15 minutes drive from the port we arrived at Poulennou. There is a CCP aire here which I'd booked 2 nights for but it was only nine thirty when we arrived so we parked up behind the beach for half an hour. The reason for this was CCP pricing works in 24 hour blocks so having booked two days I'm assuming this gives me 48 hours so had we arrived at nine thirty we would have had to leave by nine thirty on Thursday, which is a tad early, especially if there was a queue for the service point, as there was this morning. This is a popular aire and has often been full this month. Anyway, we will find out when we leave if my understanding of the CCP system applies when we have booked, as opposed to just turning up. Their system records the reservation as midday to midday but I think that might be just a place-holder and it is over-written by your actual arrival time. I hope.

While we were parked at the beach Charlie had a good run, which he enjoyed after spending the night in the 'van on the ferry. I made a short video which I've uploaded to his new YouTube channel having only worked out how to create such a thing yesterday. Courtesy of Jim, Charlie is now MHF member number 105,771 so he is writing his own blog entries now, which is a load off my shoulders.

When we leave here we're going to head west and explore Brittany's north west corner which we don't know well. The weather forecast is good for at least a week so we will make the most of it. We won't be returning here until early October when good weather can't be guaranteed.

After that we will head south, aiming for the Camargue but stopping off on the way to see things of interest. We won't be in a hurry, we may not reach the Camargue for a couple of weeks or so, possibly longer.

This is Charlie on the beach.

Our sunny pitch. Charlie's very wet towel drying on the wing mirror.

Charlie's blog can be found here:

https://www.motorhomefun.co.uk/forum/threads/charlies-dog-blog.204216/page-14#post-6277724

 

[Rudski01]

We crossed over from Plymouth to Roscoff last night on BF's Armorique. It was a very smooth crossing and we slept reasonably well until woken at six UK time by the musical wake-up call BF use. For many years they have used the same tune but it changed recently. It's still harp music but not as nice as the old tune I think but I'm sure it will grow on me.

The ship was due to dock at seven, eight o'clock French time, which only gave us an hour for showers and breakfast which worked out perfectly. we were sailing into Roscoff just as I was finishing off my pain au chocolat.

After a quick shop at the Super U in Cléder, about 15 minutes drive from the port we arrived at Poulennou. There is a CCP aire here which I'd booked 2 nights for but it was only nine thirty when we arrived so we parked up behind the beach for half an hour. The reason for this was CCP pricing works in 24 hour blocks so having booked two days I'm assuming this gives me 48 hours so had we arrived at nine thirty we would have had to leave by nine thirty on Thursday, which is a tad early, especially if there was a queue for the service point, as there was this morning. This is a popular aire and has often been full this month. Anyway, we will find out when we leave if my understanding of the CCP system applies when we have booked, as opposed to just turning up. Their system records the reservation as midday to midday but I think that might be just a place-holder and it is over-written by your actual arrival time. I hope.

While we were parked at the beach Charlie had a good run, which he enjoyed after spending the night in the 'van on the ferry. I made a short video which I've uploaded to his new YouTube channel having only worked out how to create such a thing yesterday. Courtesy of Jim, Charlie is now MHF member number 105,771 so he is writing his own blog entries now, which is a load off my shoulders.

When we leave here we're going to head west and explore Brittany's north west corner which we don't know well. The weather forecast is good for at least a week so we will make the most of it. We won't be returning here until early October when good weather can't be guaranteed.

After that we will head south, aiming for the Camargue but stopping off on the way to see things of interest. We won't be in a hurry, we may not reach the Camargue for a couple of weeks or so, possibly longer.

This is Charlie on the beach.

View attachment 940429

Our sunny pitch. Charlie's very wet towel drying on the wing mirror.

View attachment 940430

Charlie's blog can be found here:

https://www.motorhomefun.co.uk/forum/threads/charlies-dog-blog.204216/page-14#post-6277724

Were heading down towards Brittany on Friday after tackling the M6 M40 M25, crossing Saturday morning, will watch with interest as we’ve never been that far down the west coast, as it’s our new to us vans first long trip the pre hol nerves are kicking in as we have previous form that all our M homes have thrown a wobbler when away, for a trouble free trip and the weather to hold

 

[Jo662]

Looking forward to following your travels DBK as always, have a great time

 

[cliffanger]

We crossed over from Plymouth to Roscoff last night on BF's Armorique. It was a very smooth crossing and we slept reasonably well until woken at six UK time by the musical wake-up call BF use. For many years they have used the same tune but it changed recently. It's still harp music but not as nice as the old tune I think but I'm sure it will grow on me.

The ship was due to dock at seven, eight o'clock French time, which only gave us an hour for showers and breakfast which worked out perfectly. we were sailing into Roscoff just as I was finishing off my pain au chocolat.

After a quick shop at the Super U in Cléder, about 15 minutes drive from the port we arrived at Poulennou. There is a CCP aire here which I'd booked 2 nights for but it was only nine thirty when we arrived so we parked up behind the beach for half an hour. The reason for this was CCP pricing works in 24 hour blocks so having booked two days I'm assuming this gives me 48 hours so had we arrived at nine thirty we would have had to leave by nine thirty on Thursday, which is a tad early, especially if there was a queue for the service point, as there was this morning. This is a popular aire and has often been full this month. Anyway, we will find out when we leave if my understanding of the CCP system applies when we have booked, as opposed to just turning up. Their system records the reservation as midday to midday but I think that might be just a place-holder and it is over-written by your actual arrival time. I hope.

While we were parked at the beach Charlie had a good run, which he enjoyed after spending the night in the 'van on the ferry. I made a short video which I've uploaded to his new YouTube channel having only worked out how to create such a thing yesterday. Courtesy of Jim, Charlie is now MHF member number 105,771 so he is writing his own blog entries now, which is a load off my shoulders.

When we leave here we're going to head west and explore Brittany's north west corner which we don't know well. The weather forecast is good for at least a week so we will make the most of it. We won't be returning here until early October when good weather can't be guaranteed.

After that we will head south, aiming for the Camargue but stopping off on the way to see things of interest. We won't be in a hurry, we may not reach the Camargue for a couple of weeks or so, possibly longer.

This is Charlie on the beach.

View attachment 940429

Our sunny pitch. Charlie's very wet towel drying on the wing mirror.

View attachment 940430

Charlie's blog can be found here:

https://www.motorhomefun.co.uk/forum/threads/charlies-dog-blog.204216/page-14#post-6277724

Have a lovely time John. We enjoyed Brittany and the CCP Aires work really well. We also used Aire-Park too.

Gâvres was a beautiful little village with a ferry over to Port-Louis.

Locmariaquer was also lovely.

 

[scousebird]

Have a lovely time.

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[carolyn]

Have a great trip. We will be docking in Cherbourg shortly but heading East and then further East until we get to Romania ! Well I do hope so anyway as we’ve only had our van less than a month.

 

[Wanders from Glos]

Have a good time, our in-laws used to have a house in Brittany further east, north of Vannes. We think Brittany does the best seafood of anywhere we have been.

 

[Dolmen]

Have a great time, I'm sure as usual you will sniff out the best places for yourself, however, knowing your love of history, if you haven't been to the Cairn de Barnenez before, its very much worth a visit if you have time on your way further West, it spans that unique shift in construction from extensive use of megaliths to quarried stone (I don't mind 99.9% of readers issuing a collective sigh)! edit - apologies see it is East of where you are, another day maybe

​

 

[DBK]

Have a great time, I'm sure as usual you will sniff out the best places for yourself, however, knowing your love of history, if you haven't been to the Cairn de Barnenez before, its very much worth a visit if you have time on your way further West, it spans that unique shift in construction from extensive use of megaliths to quarried stone (I don't mind 99.9% of readers issuing a collective sigh)! edit - apologies see it is East of where you are, another day maybe

​

Yes, I know the place. We visited it on one of our first trips. From memory the locals had been in the habit of trundling up there with wheel barrows to pinch stones but it is so big there is still much of it left. Lots of individual chambers still intact. Other sites were buried in earth which has washed away just leaving the big flat stones but here the coverings were lots of rocks which have remained other than those used to build houses in the area.

It will be interesting to see what we come across in the far north west. We're familiar with everything around the Morbihan but not the wilds of Finistère. Later we might try and visit the St Just area north east of Redon which has a lot interesting stuff.

 

[DBK]

We went on a walk of about an hour and half this morning, starting on the coastal path then looping inland for a bit before coming back to the coast a little further on and returning back along the coastal footpath.

The Rocher du Singe or Monkey Rock is a well known landmark here appearing even on postcards.

Bench with a view.

The Roscoff area is famous for its onions but they grow a huge amount of globe artichokes here as well. This field was being harvested but unfortunately it is a bit far away for a nocturnal visit with a sharp knife - we'll just have to buy some I suppose.

When we were here last year we saw signs about a marine survey of the sea bed going on. Today we saw different signs explaining what it was all about.

An undersea electricity cable between France and Ireland. Total length 575 km of which 500 will be under the sea. The end points are Knockraha in Ireland, near Cork and La Martye, a village a little way inland from where we were today. I guess these locations are where the connection is made to the national grids of each country. The description on the notice below mentions a conversion station which suggests the 700MW cable will be carrying DC.

This photo shows 4 white buoys out to sea making us think this is where the survey suggested the cable would come ashore. Not really showing but off to right was an area with much smaller stones they could dig the trench to bury the cable. The sign below warns of ropes on the foreshore.

It is scheduled to open in 2027. I suspect in the UK the public enquiry alone would take ten years. Here in France they just do it.

More information here:

https://www.rte-france.com/projets/nos-projets/celtic-interconnector

For anyone who has been to this aire before the area of dunes outside the aire has had some protection added. All but one of the paths which crossed the dunes has been closed off with chestnut fencing to protect the dunes.

And someone has recently had a go at the CCP barrier.

The broken bit is on the ground and the remaining bit of the barrier re-attached.

This is where we are, under the blue blob towards the left, Roscoff in the top right.

We will move a little further west tomorrow.

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[MichaelT]

Following with interest, did you buy the CCP privileges pack DBK ?

 

[DBK]

Following with interest, did you buy the CCP privileges pack DBK ?

Yes, mostly so we could book this specific aire so we have a reasonable chance of getting in after arriving on the ferry. It's hardly essential but this aire does get full quite often.

 

[Ingwe]

Have a great trip DBK. We are planning a similar trip, leaving any day now. Want to explore Brittany further while the weather’s decent before heading down to the Med (or possibly the South West). Who knows? It’ll depend on the weather and what takes our fancy en route.
Have to have another go at fixing our leaking kitchen tap.

 

[rod_vw]

We are over into France next Wednesday (4th Sept) with a very probably a similar heading to you DBK then back home from wherever we end up on 4th October. Feel free to call on us if you see us. Easily recognised, silver MAN TGE with this graphic on the sides...

 

[DBK]

Have a great trip DBK. We are planning a similar trip, leaving any day now. Want to explore Brittany further while the weather’s decent before heading down to the Med (or possibly the South West). Who knows? It’ll depend on the weather and what takes our fancy en route.
Have to have another go at fixing our leaking kitchen tap.

The forecast for Brittany isn't bad for the next couple of weeks. It's showing a few showers next week but the forecast keeps changing so we will just take things day by day.

Hope you can sort the tap out.

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[DBK]

We are over into France next Wednesday (4th Sept) with a very probably a similar heading to you DBK then back home from wherever we end up on 4th October. Feel free to call on us if you see us. Easily recognised, silver MAN TGE with this graphic on the sides...

View attachment 941015

We'll look out for you. I only have a faded, home printed MHF sticker on the windscreen.

 

[Ingwe]

I only have a faded, home printed MHF sticker on the windscreen.

I hope Jim hasn’t missed this ever so subtle cry from the heart and has despatched, by first class post to France, a new shiny MHF sticker.

 

[DBK]

We moved on today a little further west after first stopping briefly in Cléder to stock up for the weekend. I wanted to visit a couple of places on the way to tonight's halt and the first was the Menhir de Men Marz.

This 8.5m standing stone is one of the tallest in France. The name means "Miracle Stone" because unlike most other menhirs it is just balanced on its end without any sort of deep foundation of buried stone. I only read this after our visit otherwise I might not have got so close!

On one side there is a ledge, just below the cross which was full of small rocks.

Apparently young women would throw stones up there and if it stuck they would be married within a year. This was something else I only read later so Mrs DBK didn't get any ideas during our visit.

The cross of course is a later embellishment. This area is also known as Le Pays Pagan although this is also a relatively new idea, compared to this stone, and is linked to (officially fictional) legends of wreckers on the coast.

More info on this old stone in the link below. There is another impressive one a little south east but it isn't approachable by MH friendly roads or has parking, unlike the Miracle Stone.

Menhir de Men Marz - Tourism Côte des Légendes

PCUBRE029V50G1LH

www.cotedeslegendes.bzh

Near our last stop was a little stone Corps de Garde building. There was another one a little further down the coast so this was where we headed next. These guard posts were built in the 18th century to watch for smugglers and of course the traditional enemy, the English.

I knew it was at a place called Meneham but I hadn't expected to see signs pointing towards the place, it must be a popular Corps de Garde but on arriving we discovered we couldn't drive directly to it but were diverted off to a parking area which even had a section just for MHs.

We discovered Meneham is a reconstructed old village now acting as a tourist attraction which includes a bistro, starting to fill up as lunchtime approached,

various craft shops, a small museum and in this shot the village bread oven.

Just beyond the village and above the beach was the building we had come to see.

It was built amongst huge boulders.

Through which there was a short path which took you to the landward side of the guard house.

Inside the single room was a huge fireplace.

The two windows had bars on them which spoilt the view.

But a bit of AI wizardry soon sorts it out.

I'm not sure what happened to the rocks on the left but if you hadn't seen the original I doubt anyone would miss them.

We have ended up at Camping Curnic near Guisseny under the blue blob below. The site has a MH area next to the entrance.

The local beach.

We visited here last year looking for a geocache which had gone missing. It's now been replaced and we even found it this time. The cache is near a cross which must have been placed to mark a shipwreck but sadly all that remain of the explanatory label were two Rawlplugs in the stone.

I cooked supper tonight, which wasn't too difficult.

Take two globe artichokes and after topping and tailing them immerse in boiling salted water for about 30 minutes. This needed two saucepans as they were too big to fit in one. I added a roughly chopped clove of garlic to the water for added flavour. You can also add a bay leaf but who carries those in their MH?

Serve with a large dollop of Hollandaise sauce. I've made this from scratch at home but on our travels stuff from a jar is fine.

Pull off each "petal" and after dipping in the sauce nibble the end to extract the flesh. After some time it will look like this.

Keep going until you reveal the choke.

This is the hairy bit in the centre. Think of a thistle flower.

You won't come across this if you order these in a restaurant as they would have removed it before cooking. A teaspoon easily removes the cooked choke, very different to doing this on an uncooked choke.

The heart is then revealed, this is the tastiest bit of the artichoke. You can tell this is true as I only remembered to take the photo after eating some of it.

 

[Orion]

This is where we are, under the blue blob towards the left, Roscoff in the top right.

View attachment 940983

Roscoff, or to be more precise, Saint-Pol-de-Léon is very dear to us. It’s where we stopped for breakfast after disembarking from the early ferry on our first ride heading south on La Vélodyssée. It was also where we stopped for a celebratory beer on our way back home the following year.

EDIT to add: For those not familiar with La Vélodyssée:

Home | La Vélodyssée

www.cycling-lavelodyssee.com

 

[rod_vw]

DBK Thank you very much for reporting on your fascinating French travels. Dare I be so presumptuous as to ask you to include some sort of link to the places that you visit and overnight, Latitude and Longitude or perhaps What Three Words would suffice for us and other readers to experience the same locations.

Maybe we will be following along a similar route in a weeks time.

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[DBK]

Roscoff, or to be more precise, Saint-Pol-de-Léon is very dear to us. It’s where we stopped for breakfast after disembarking from the early ferry on our first ride heading south on La Vélodyssée. It was also where we stopped for a celebratory beer on our way back home the following year.

I know Pol de Léon quite well. My brother and I did the Velodyssee south to north having taken the ferry from Plymouth to Santander then by train to the French border. We stayed our last night at Camping ar Keguar in Pol de Léon. We had a coffee at the cafe with the aluminium chairs under the church with two towers in the town centre. Wonderful times but not to be repeated I fear as my body crumbles!

 

[DBK]

DBK Thank you very much for reporting on your fascinating French travels. Dare I be so presumptuous as to ask you to include some sort of link to the places that you visit and overnight, Latitude and Longitude or perhaps What Three Words would suffice for us and other readers to experience the same locations.

Maybe we will be following along a similar route in a weeks time.

I use Google maps a lot and this works for most places. For example, we are at Camping Curnic which if you enter it into Google maps will take you straight here. Tapping/clicking on the location shows the latitude and longitude in the top left of the screen.

I try to describe where we are in a way it should be identifiable using Google maps. But if I forget I don't mind being prompted.

I've looked at What3Words but I'm struggling to see anything unique about it.

 

[Wanders from Glos]

Looks like a beautiful day and very interesting finished off with tasty food.

 

[rod_vw]

I use Google maps a lot and this works for most places. For example, we are at Camping Curnic which if you enter it into Google maps will take you straight here. Tapping/clicking on the location shows the latitude and longitude in the top left of the screen.

I try to describe where we are in a way it should be identifiable using Google maps. But if I forget I don't mind being prompted.

I've looked at What3Words but I'm struggling to see anything unique about it.

Thanks for coming back to me.

There is a What3Words app for a mobile phone that will provide the 'Words' for your present location. Similarly there is also an app that will return your present location in latitude and longitude.
Google maps will also provide the latitude and longitude of any location if you tap a location when using a phone or right click if you are using a PC.

 

[Just smiffy]

Missed the start of this somehow… enjoying it again..

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[DBK]

Today has been a bit frustrating. The plan was to drive to the aire near the Pointe de Corsen, the most westerly point of mainland France. We've stayed here before and someone came around every evening to collect the money but now there is a machine at the entrance. All the instructions were in French and it happily took our money but we needed water and this where we got stuck. The machine printed out a ticket with a QR code which I then presented at the correct spot and it went "beep" but nothing happened. There was a number to ring which I did but it was answered by a recorded message which had a lot to say but it went over my head although at the end it seemed to ask me to press a number followed by a hash. I tried several digits but all were not correct apparently.

So we retreated and drove to the Crozon peninsula which is a popular and pleasant area.

We are at the CCP aire at Le Flet near Cameret sur Mer.

It's built on an old railway line which is now a foot and cycle path.

We did a bit of geocaching this afternoon finding 2 out of 3. This was one of them, the base of a shotgun cartridge in a hole in a tree.

I took this photo because according to Google Maps there is a CCP aire here, which of course there isn't. Two locations are showing but only one is correct. I'll submit an edit.

This is an old windmill we spotted while looking for a geocache. It might be hard to spot but the weather vane on the roof is in the shape of a cat.

 

[Dolmen]

Today has been a bit frustrating. The plan was to drive to the aire near the Pointe de Corsen, the most westerly point of mainland France. We've stayed here before and someone came around every evening to collect the money but now there is a machine at the entrance. All the instructions were in French and it happily took our money but we needed water and this where we got stuck. The machine printed out a ticket with a QR code which I then presented at the correct spot and it went "beep" but nothing happened. There was a number to ring which I did but it was answered by a recorded message which had a lot to say but it went over my head although at the end it seemed to ask me to press a number followed by a hash. I tried several digits but all were not correct apparently.

So we retreated and drove to the Crozon peninsula which is a popular and pleasant area.

View attachment 942107

We are at the CCP aire at Le Flet near Cameret sur Mer.

View attachment 942104

It's built on an old railway line which is now a foot and cycle path.

View attachment 942108

We did a bit of geocaching this afternoon finding 2 out of 3. This was one of them, the base of a shotgun cartridge in a hole in a tree.

View attachment 942105

I took this photo because according to Google Maps there is a CCP aire here, which of course there isn't. Two locations are showing but only one is correct. I'll submit an edit.

View attachment 942106

This is an old windmill we spotted while looking for a geocache. It might be hard to spot but the weather vane on the roof is in the shape of a cat.

View attachment 942103

And of course you are very close to the Lagatjar alignment, so you should start to feel the healing benefits overnight and awake feeling unusually bright. If not a coffee and croissant normally has the same effect

 

[DBK]

And of course you are very close to the Lagatjar alignment, so you should start to feel the healing benefits overnight and awake feeling unusually bright. If not a coffee and croissant normally has the same effect

And usefully, there's an aire right beside them. No need for EHU, just harvest the energy.

I think the stone just right of centre in this shot looks like the farmer in the Shaun the Sheep films. Taken at sunset of course as the site has uninterrupted views across the Atlantic to North America.

 

[DBK]

Not much to report today, we woke to the sound of rain on the skylights but it had stopped by the time I took Charlie for his walk.

I spent the morning putting together the latest edition of the Murvi Owners' Club newsletter, which I'm the editor of. I've always done this at home on a PC but having signed up with Microsoft everything is now in their cloud so the articles submitted by club members, which I had saved, should in theory all be available to me from this aire in France.

A quick check revealed they were but I hadn't installed Microsoft Office on my Surface tablet.

It was likely to be a large download so instead of using the 4G router in the van I set my phone up as a WiFi hot-spot as it had a 5G signal. At home in Devon I sometimes have to stand at the front gate to get any sort of signal but here in rural France there was 5G with a download speed of over 200mbps according to the speed test I did.

It still took over an hour to install, the bottleneck wasn't the downloading but the shear amount of CPU effort and disk writing and reading needed to install all the apps. My tablet is the cheapest MS Surface so it lacks a bit of processing speed.

But eventually it was completed and I could get on with the Newsletter. I wrote an article myself on the Comfortmatic and the need for visits to Adams Morey in Portsmouth, relying heavily on what I've learned here on MHF. For which sincere thanks to all contributors to that thread.

In the afternoon we had a gentle walk along the shore, finding one geocache and failing on another which looked as if some rock climbing was needed!

The walk started gently but then we noticed the tide was coming in quite quickly so we didn't linger!

I photographed this typical Breton cottage as we walked back through Le Flet. Note the absence of rain gutters which you find on older houses. New ones have gutters but discrete ones which are hard to spot. The Astroturf is decidedly not traditional! Also non-traditional is my editing of the image to remove a trailer parked in front of the house. I haven't done a very good job because you can still some its shadow in the lower left.

This was worth recording, a couple travelling with a donkey.

This is not an uncommon sight in the Cevennes where folk follow the Stephenson Trail in the footsteps of the author and his donkey Modestine, but it was a first for me in Brittany.

We may move a little way tomorrow.

 

[Shrimp]

This is not an uncommon sight in the Cevennes where folk follow the Stephenson Trail in the footsteps of the author and his donkey Modestine, but it was a first for me in Brittany.

Enjoyed that book, always felt sorry for Modestine tho!
Love your photos.

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