Saint Armel

La Roche Bernard west down the river

Where we are staying!

View from the big bridge at La Roche Bernard

Plage at Billiers mussel beds and shrimp fishermen plus thick mud - no swimming

Sept 25th.
Blazing sunshine and enormous breakfast. Madame thinks we are very simple and insisted on taking us on a quick tour of the local area in her car, in case we get lost. (this is because last night we weren’t sure if we were going to stay there so cycled twice around the block before making a decision) so when Monsieur caught up with us I had to pretend we were lost! Anyway they have been amazingly helpful and showed us all sorts of places to see and visit. We meandered along the coast to a fabulous Norman chateau, Suscinio, yet another that the Dukes of Brittany had built in the 11th c. This was only a holiday house for the hunting season . It seemed to rise out of the marshes and we were fortunate in that there was a fantastic exhibition of photographs of the local wildlife. Most helpful as the entire area is marshland and there is an abundance of birds. Without fail the sun is behind them and it is almost impossible to see which they are. However, we saw a great many duck, geese, more whinchat, stonechats, egrets, kingfisher and several lovely sacred ibis. We spent a happy afternoon on the beach and swam which was not too cold at all. It is a centre for salt produce and we watched a (very muscular) man raking the salt up after the low tide. This morning we biked past the market stalls in the village and there was lots of it for sale.
The stalls are amazing and it would probably be possible to live in France and never cook. In the village (St Armel) market which takes place each week there were 6 stalls. One selling 4 utterly different coloured honeys, all produced from the different islands in the Gulf Morbihan, some salt. Another with the most wonderful array of cooked foods to reheat at home. Roasted veg pastas, terrines, meatballs etc etc. All mouth watering and our next treat will be a roasted chicken for lunch. A cheese stall, eggs. Fish and all sorts of meats and veg. In the U.K I don’t think you would ever sell much advertised as Veal tongue mixed with cows tail terrine! The best of all is the equivalent to ham and egg pie. This consists of a layer if veal terrine, topped with a duxelle of mushrooms, then a good layer of Froie Gras, another layer of Pistachio nuts, and finally more veal. You need to take a lot of exercise after 1 slice of that.
Madame waved us off this morning, and we had our longest day so far slightly by mistake. We meandered Eastwards along the coast from St Armel towards Roche Bernard on the mouth of the Vilaine river. After 12 miles we reached the end of an estuary where you get a little punt to take you across. I had been happily singing a bit of CdeB ‘don’t pay the ferryman’ to get in the mood. On arrival it transpired that he had put his boat to bed until next May. Much heaving and groaning as it is a 30 mile round trip to get back to the same point. However we managed and it was a beautiful day. We stopped for a quick swim once around the other side of the estuary at Billiers. I was about to take a photo of Alec swimming alongside some local men in waders with large rakes walking through the water, when A disappeared into deep mud! Sadly it was not a plage for swimming but very picturesque and great for crevettes all the same.
We are now at the mouth of the Vilaine river which is beautiful. After a very long 42 miles we arrived in La Roche Bernard. We have now left Brittany which is progress but quite sad as without exception they were utterly charming and welcoming. We are now making a list of all the places we have to return to at a later date as we have missed so much. The Gulf of Morbihan is certainly one such area as we hardly scratched the surface.
A new map has to be bought to cover the Loire Atlantique.

We have now cycled 330 miles!