Made it to Muzillac!

We wrote the following a couple of days ago but haven't been able to get connected, will get up to date tonight!

Tuesday 22^nd September.

Yesterday we left Mme Renault in St Peran and rode to Paimpont which is the centre of the Broceliande and boasts a lake from which the Excalibur was brandished and I can quite see why this has been built into such a popular legend. Despite my cynical approach to the area yesterday, today it does have a certain charm and unique atmosphere. The village has a spectacular chateau (now the Mairie) attached to which is the church which is particularly well gilded. In fact there is a lot of gold in it.

On arrival we went straight to La Poste and posted most of the library which had been taking up one of my panniers each book being the weight of a brick and containing mainly information of towns in eastern France and Italy. Having paid for this we realized that it would have been cheaper to just throw them away and also immediately regretted dumping the Lonely Planet which suddenly seemed to have hitherto been our lifeline. Hopefully we can subscribe to it online so it will not be too much missed. There again that’s if we can come across a bar providing Wi-Fi (wee-fee) which is not always a given.

After a picnic overlooking the Excalibur lake –

Church just to the left of the lake picture

no sign of Arthur, Lancelot or Guinevere 


we cycled some 15 miles across switchback terrain and it really was up and down and the downs were ever so short and the ups just went up and up for ever to Augan and thence to our B&B which was about 2.5 miles west in the direction of Ploermel, where we later cycled (5 miles) for supper. For the birders reading this the forest is a haven for wild birds Willie will be pleased to know there are as many buzzards here as there must be over the pheasant pens in Ansty, but also nuthatches, tree creepers, swarms of warblers which move about so fast you can never identify them, wagtails, plover you name it. At the BandB another English couple were staying Tony and (didn’t catch her name) they were travelling by car but had bikes too and had covered most of the region we were heading toward which was useful. Tony was also a by far more experienced cyclist than us and had his own bike pump – now why didn’t I think of that. He kindly offered to check our tyre pressures (see picture taken by Vivi from our bedroom window!) as this (and you have to believe this) he tells us makes riding a lot easier. I enquired as to what pressure he thought our tyres ought to be. About 75psi he said. Ours were all on 20, no wonder we had so much trouble getting up hills and even had to peddle going down them. After that I rather wished they were travelling with us for a while.

Tuesday dawned clear blue sky, no wind, a heavy dew and the first autumn mist I’ve seen. We ought to have gone back to Ploermel to visit the museum which houses’ a clock built in 1850’ish by the local schoolmaster and all from one mechanism, to this day, accurately tells the time not only in France but in several other major cities in the world and predicts apparently correctly the phases of the moon and when Easter day should fall etc etc. We never got there.

Today was just perfect; the only mistake we made was underestimating how quickly we would get to Malestroit where we are staying because we could in fact have done at least another 10 miles effortlessly. Today’s ride took us across country until we joined the Voie Vert which runs north south from St Malo to Questembert, we have joined it about 3 quarters of the way down. Any country which can provide a tarmac surface smooth as a billiard table about 15 ft wide to run for over 100 miles purely for the pleasure of cyclists gets my wholehearted admiration. No traffic and beautiful farmland. We stopped to eat our baguette on an old railway bridge crossing the Brest to Nantes canal – built by Napoleon. I’ve hopefully put a picture on to show you. We were joined sitting on the bridge in an hour and a half by 2 cyclists, a couple walking a dog and a lizard. Quiet place! The B&B that we are in is pretty ordinary too but it’s better than the English one we stayed in on day three, and it is only a place to sleep. We thought Madam had said she’d give us dinner so we arrived at 6pm only to be told she was off to help her son milk his cows, so could we go away until 8.30 at the earliest, which is what she’d said but we’d misunderstood, so we did. On return we were asked to leave our shoes downstairs and since I was by then standing outside of a pichet of the local finest I managed to stammer ‘mais mon chaussures n’avait pas le chien merde’ to which she replied to Vivi (because it’s obvious I don’t speak much French) – so he does know some French, and that was that from me.

Malestroit is a really picturesque town with a canal running through it . There are lots of parakeets in the trees. The eglise of St Gilles and St Georges was 1300s with hideous and amusing gargoyles. I am not sure how England has laid claim to St George as he appears an awful lot here, on the stained glass and in town squares. We spent a happy time looking around the old part of the town and sitting outside bars and cafes trying to pick up wifi. I seem to be the only female anywhere except for bar maids. Everywhere we go we seem happy old men playing boules, fishing, many drinking in bars and sitting on corners, but have yet to see any women. We ventured to ask our host tonight who said they were all too busy doing house work! Hummm. Don’t want A getting any ideas!

Wed September 23^rd.

Covered market

We think that all the days are beginning to blend. 260 miles on the clock which doesn’t sound much but is when you count all those hills We are nearing the South Coast of Brittany and it is fabulously warm. Madam gave us a wonderful amount of bread and croissants which Alec was able to butter and pocket for our lunch later. She was awfully charming and rather sad. They had obviously owned a large farm until Monsieur passed on and she was now living in a chalet bungalow with beautiful French country house furniture squeezed in and a 100 year old mattress. The cycle route was great, very easy going and we arrived after 20k’s in Questembert later in no time having fiddled about looking at birds and butterflies in the forest. We stopped to look at some warblers and found a wild black grape vine growing to the top of an oak tree like a hop, honeysuckle or clematis at home. Blackbirds were gorging themselves on the grapes unfortunately they were too high for us to reach. Today we have added Blackcaps, Stonechats and we think Wheatears and Whinchats to our birdy list. There has been no rain here for 2 months so the rivers are very dry and there are a lot of fish swimming in rather slow circles in very little water. We don’t know what they are as they are as big as salmon but have narrower tails and orange fins. They are clearly not edible as there still a lot in the river and some very thin fishermen. Questembert was not terribly exciting compared to some of the other towns we have been through but it did have this very pretty covered market area. We lunched by a pond in Lauzach where a French politician had a very grand duck house (!) and then progressed along several white D roads to reach the gulf of Morbihan. Hooray. There was a certain amount of urgency to the pedalling as the sun got hotter and the sea smelled fresher. On a bike, the scents and smells are very indicative of what is around you. From diesel to manure, stephanotis to pine forests it doesn’t take long to work out what type of area you are passing through. and I, (says Alec) have turned into a complete pikey and cycled to day in nothing but my centurian’s sandals, my spray on lycra shorts and my cycle helmet. At school we used to cry ourselves to sleep with laughter at the thought of telling people the order of dress was ‘a jockstrap and a tin helmet’ – 40 years on......) Today most animals were non existent in the fields but it was fairly obvious that you were passing a pig or chicken farm. Cows seem to be the only lucky ones to be reared outside. On arrival the tide was very far out and there is about 2 miles of mud flats here in St Armel. We decided to risk not booking anywhere to stay in advance so then spent about 2 hours wandering around finding a place. After a few false starts we are in a charming modern house in a clos with every comfort you could want including a hair dryer. They were then embarrassingly generous hosts by insisting on driving us out to a restaurant as the local one was closed. We will stay here at least another day as it is a great centre for exploring the gulf, you can go south to the beaches, west to to entrance to the gulf and across on a ferry to Carnac or sort of north east back up to Vannes and then around the top of the bay the other way, I’m looking forward to it without the 40lbs of panniers. After all that we haven’t done it and are heading south to Rocher St Bernard instead – more later!