Not on APT but what a gem!

Friday 27^th May

We awoke this morning to fog but by the time we were ready to go out it had lifted.

First stop was the 11^th century medieval village of Moncontour. As we neared the village the fog came down again and it was quite cool. This was a real gem to visit. We picked up a walking map at the tourist office and set off to explore. There was a lot of up and down hill on the walk. Most of the houses are from the 16^th to 18^th centuries. I loved the signs hanging to advertise the businesses. We had morning tea here – yummy pastries. By the time we finished our walk the fog had lifted again.

 

One of the streets in the beautiful village of Moncontour.

A few more shots of the village.

Just a few of the business shingles. 

Sorry - no dogs today. How about a goat?

Part of the fortified walls of Moncontour.

Moving on we headed for Quintin, another village from the 17^th and 18^th centuries. It was lunchtime so we decided to look for a relais along the route where we would stop for lunch. Bingo! Just look for the place where all the tradies vans are parked between 12 and 2 and that is where you will get a good feed. Today we had the buffet salads and cold selections, followed by boeuf bourguignon, cheese, dessert, coffee and the bottle of red of course. We’ve finally got this lunch thing all sorted and feel quite confident turning up at these places. Yesterday there were quite a lot of women at the relais we went to, but today you could count the women on one hand.

Quintin’s main attraction would be the 17^th century chateau which is still lived in and has been in the same family since the 1400s. We had a tour of the chateau but probably missed a lot of the information as the tour was in French and we just had a printed booklet to tell us about the main points. The chateau has an amazing collection of porcelain, china, glassware and silver. Some beautiful pieces - too nice to eat off. Quintin village was famous for linen manufacture in 17^th and 18^th centuries and has a lot of half timbered houses in the main streets. We were looking for the museum of linen manufacturing but this turned out to be a bit if a dud.

The chateau in Quintin. See how blue the sky was after the fog lifted.

A view of the basilica in Quintin as seen from behind the chateau. 

It was getting late in the day but having come this far we decided to keep heading north to the coast. We stopped near the village of Plerin on the Baie de Saint-Brieuc. This bay has the worlds fifth highest tidal amplitude. We only had a quick look at one of the port areas as most of the attractions seemed to be further away than we wanted to go for the day. Time to head for home.

The Baie de Saint-Brieuc as seen from Plerin.

This is just some of the houses along the river. There were some really lovely looking homes.

Lots of yachts in the port.

So what else did we find of interest today? A poster in the village of Moncontour advertising a hillclimb this weekend - 3.2k long. So, tomorrow we are off to the hillclimb. We found a newspaper in the bar talking about the hillclimb and mentioned that there would be quite a few English and Irish ‘pilotes’ (drivers) there so Rob should be able to find someone to talk to. I have my sewing and a book so should be able to amuse myself.

The couple in the gite next door are from England and when we got home yesterday it was so hot she was sunbathing and had been in the pool. It was at least 15deg. Today it was 23 so she was probably stripped right down – glad we were out.

We went to a different supermarket on the way home tonight. It is probably the French equivalent to Aldi. Everything seems so cheap, and not just at ‘aldi’. We bought a quiche, 1kg kiwi fruit, 2 tomatoes, and 3 bottles of wine and it cost us 8.50euro. 

Can't vouch for the quality of the wines, but look at the prices. Rob has been drinking mostly the house reds and so far he hasn't struck a dud.