Back on paved roads!

Back on the road again!

At the B+B, you have bfast with a few others, so it’s always a bit of a crapshoot. In our fantastic B+B in Carhaix, the other couple wouldn’t shut up. Heard at least 3X from the other guest that he was a producer and had worked in LA. This morning was more low-key, all Brits, and one woman’s brother worked for msft and lived in Redmond. Small world.

So we hit the road, easily found our way out of town, and rode along the harbor/inlet for a few miles. It’s quite a long inlet into Morlaix. Right away we felt the difference from the VV, we were moving a lot faster, and we had a fair number of cars on the road. Plus we had hills, a lot of them throughout the day. We tried to ride along the GR34 (the GRs are long-distance hiking paths throughout France), which would have kept us along the coast bit it was too small/bumpy so we got back on the road and rode up a killer hill to get up on the plateau above the coast. Then we headed north on fantastic roads. Nice surface, not much traffic. Gorgeous scenery into and across the bay leading back to Morlaix. We took a side road down to the Pointe Annalouesten and had our first great view north towards England.

We could see a few miles across the bay to the Chateau de Taureau, which is a huge old fort built in 1544 to protect the mouth of the waterway from invaders. It occupies a perfect site for observing and protecting the whole waterway. Lots of rocks sticking out of the water here too. In the old days you’d have to really know the coast well in order to operate around here.

We passed thru the little town of Diben then rode along the coast to Tregastel, which felt like time had passed it by and it was stuck in the 1950s. We bought egg/ham/tomato/cheese baguette sandwiches at a bar then ate them at the beach. We almost stayed here because it felt so off the map. But it was cloudy, so not really a beach day. Beautiful beach with only a few people on it. Then we rode up our second killer hill inland a few miles to Plougasnou. Stopped at a Boulanger for a éclair. Had the big down hill to the coast again, then tackled our most difficult hill of the day, again up from the coast onto a cliffside road above the sea. These coastal roads are beautiful but it’s a lot of up and down. April was begging for the VV. But I was loving these climbs. At the end of this cliffside road we had to climb once again as we headed inland, fourth big climb of the day, steepest yet fairly short. Then we were about 1Km from the water and traversed along the large plateau. Passed by a bunch of huge hothouses growing tomatoes.

We got to our target town of Locquirec around 3:30. We didn’t have any reservations, and it was Saturday night. We found the harbor and the TI office, they called around and found us a Chambre d’Hote. Essentially a room in a woman’s house, and it was only about ½ mile from the harbor. The woman wasn’t at home so we had to wait until 6:00. We hit the café for a couple of beers. There were two Tuaregs from Mali selling jewelry so we chatted them up. We spoke Bambara to them and the guy got all excited. Checked out the restaurants, took a walk along another beach path that looked just like the Marginal Way in Maine, then found our room for the night. Tiny little place but nicely decorated, looks out to the harbor. Nice place for 50 Euros.

Walked bak to the harbour for dinner. Ate at an excellent restaurant, I had buffalo-mozzarella with grilled eggplant/zuchini for an app, and then a chicken in a pot kind of thing with tarragon. April had a cesar salad and a pesto tagliatelle. Had a lemon meringue for dessert. All superbe!

We were really tired walking back to our room. Lights out early by 10:00. Still light out then. Back on paved roads again and it was a big winner. Plus we found better maps (but they cost 15E) so we’re not as lost. But we go thru them in a day. Tres cher!