Sunday 30th June 2019

This morning Ann had a further look around the chapel at Kermaria (we had been a bit rushed yesterday owing to the two weddings).

We moved on stopping at Lanvollon to take on diesel and at Guingamp to service the van at the town aire de camping cars. We had a walk around Guingamp. Here are the old town walls.

We saw this interesting statue. Didier Drogba the great Ivorian footballer started his professional career playing for Guingamp.

Here's the church.

The town square is very attractive.

The square is set up as a surrogate beach with deckchairs and fountains.

This ornate fountain in the square is decorated with Griffins.

An effigy of the Black Virgin can be found in the church.

There are some nice old houses in town.

We moved on and stopped for the day at the aire de camping cars in the tiny remote village of L'etang-Neuf. There is a nice lake here. The aire was filled with cars attending a celebration in the nearby Auberge. With no preparation whatsoever we set off to walk around the lake. Me in flipflops, Ann in sandals, no map, no gps, no phone.

To begin with everything was easy. We followed the path which we assumed would take us around the lake.

At one stage we got a tantalising glimpse back across the lake to the Auberge.

The "path" became more and more tenuous.

At times it became very difficult to work out whether there was a path at all.

By now we had absolutely no idea where the lake was in relation to where we were.

We passed some huge boulders with a large tree growing out of them.

We waded through deep vegetation down long unused forest tracks.

After wading through a stream we came to a large meadow. We had absolutely no idea where we were or which way to go. I have a compass on my watch but as we had not noted the direction we were going when we left the village we had no clue as to which direction to take to get back to it. By now the idea of trying to retrace our steps was unthinkable. Somehow we had to continue forward and find a way back to civilisation.

At the far end of the meadow we entered the forest again. The very tenuous path eventually led us to a field of wheat which led us to a farm track and eventually to a road which passed this old chapel.

Here's a close up of the little statue above the chapel door.

We followed the road hoping for the best. We passed this interesting little cottage.

With this interesting name. Soon afterwards more by luck than anything else we arrived back at our parking place.

All this ended okay but it was not good. We got ourselves into a situation where we had no idea where we  were in a very remote place, no one else knew where we were and we had no means of communicating with anyone had we got into serious difficulties. Worse still we were totally under equipped for what we had taken on - flipflops, sandals, no phone, no map, no gps - insanity!

Today we travelled 28 miles (45 kilometres) in our van - no idea how far we travelled on foot but it was a very long way! We are at N48.41874 W3.10821

L'etang-Neuf    Street View

Saturday 29th June 2019

Today we headed to the coast but as we didn't find anywhere to our liking for an overnight stay we visited the Abbaye de Beauport which Ann walked around while I changed a faulty rear indicator bulb on our van.

In medieval times Beauport was apparently the starting point on continental Europe for British pilgrims on the overland pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in North West Spain. The scallop shell symbol of Santiago marks the start of the trail.

Here's the route the medieval pilgrims would have taken. Of course Henry VIII put an end to all that! An earlier version of Brexit!

There are some fine views out to sea from the Abbey.

We moved on and stopped for the day at the village of Kermaria. There are some marvellous medieval frescoes on the walls of the chapel here. These had been painted over and remained hidden for hundreds of years until their recent discovery and renovation. 

The frescoes represent the "dance of death". All classes of people were taken prematurely by the then rampant "black death".

There were two posh weddings in the chapel this afternoon. We only had ten minutes to look around!

In the chapel porch are these old wooden carved figures.

Wedding guests were all around.

The once quiet parking area became a sea of activity.

Here's the priest for wedding number one (they had a different one in wedding number two).

Here's the bride arriving.

It seems traditional in these parts for the "happy couple" to drive off after the ceremony in a 2CV decked with vegetation. Possibly harking back to a time when the very best wheels any Breton could aspire to was one of these?

Now the weddings are over it's a lot quieter around our parking place.

Today we travelled 32 miles (52 kilometres). We are at N48.68562 W2.97599

Kermaria    Street View

Friday 28th June 2019

We had a very late start this morning in Treguier. Eventually (it was afternoon by now) we took a walk up the hill into town passing this statue.

We went into the Cathedral.

They had guide leaflets in many languages including Welsh.

It's a very impressive building.

The roof is very fine.

Here are the portraits of most of the Cathedral's previous Bishops.

This is the grave of Saint Ives.

We decided we'd seen enough of Treguier so we took this last picture of the outside of the Cathedral before walking back down the hill to our parking place.

We walked down through the woods to the aire passing this enormous rhubarb type plant. 

After stopping at the supermarket in Treguier to service the van and buy a few supplies we moved on the short distance to the Chateau la Roche Jagu. By now the weather had become very, very hot!

We went into the air conditioned ground floor of the Chateau to cool off for a while.

We walked around the grounds. There are fine views to the nearby river.

Here's the horse bathing area!

There are a few ponds but they seem to have a severe duckweed problem.

We passed by the Palmerie.

We had to walk up a lot of very steep paths to get back to the Chateau and eventually our van in the parking area.

After a while we managed to recover from extreme heat exhaustion enough to move on to the aire de camping cars at La Roche-Darrien where we've parked for the night. It costs 4 euros a night to stay here. This includes electricity! You're supposed to put the money in an envelope and post it through the letter box at the Mairie!

Today we travelled 19 miles (31 kilometres). We are at N48.74700 W3.25972

La Roche-Darrien      Street View