Jamie and Scott Go Francing: Day 4

Tuesday, 20 May 2008

Another busy day of driving. We got up at 8:30 and found a café up the street in Dinan (being slightly afraid of the potential breakfast at the hotel) for a coffee and croissant. Next was a short photographical tour of the remains of the ramparts of the old town before packing up Isabelle and hitting the road.

The plan was to head back up to the Emerald Coast near Dinard and explore more of the Breton coast – Cap Frehel and such. The coast was beautiful with rocky points and sandy beaches. We also stopped at Fort la Latte, which is this great fort, perched on a hill overlooking the English Channel.

After walking out to the Point at Cap Frehel, we turned inland and made our way to the centre of Brittany, stopping briefly for lunch in St Alban at a roadside creperie. This was Jamie’s first Breton crepe and it was fantastic - filled with cheese, mushrooms and ham. I enjoyed a lovely salad – is it still considered a salad if it’s covered in bacon and duck?

By taking a somewhat round about route through very rural Brittany (on purpose of course), we made it to our B&B in St Caradec by 3pm. http://www.beautifulbrittany.com/en/index.html We checked in and had a short chat with Christiana. She recommended that we drive the short distance to walk along the canal that Napoleon had built between Nantes and Brest – so we did. It was stunning – miles of seemingly unused locks and canals with a relatively well-kept footpath alongside. We walked for nearly an hour before deciding that it was time for a beverage.

We planned to have dinner in Loudeac, so we drove straight there, with an idea that we’d find a little café on a nice street to have a drink while we waited for dinner. Turns out Loudeac is not that scenic at all. We found an odd little bar called Le Nelson and I had my first pastis of the year while Jamie had a glass of wine. We stretched that out as long as we could before having an éclair down the street while we waited for the restaurant to open (it was excellent by the way). Even that didn’t kill enough time so we decided to go for a drive.

We made it as far as a really manky pub down the road, frequented it seems, by all the local shady men. After an hour and a bit of waiting at the pub we drove back to the restaurant to discover that it was still closed. Closer inspection of the sign outside revealed that it is only open on Wednesday and Saturday nights! As it was Tuesday we contemplated simply going back to St Caradec for a crepe but decided to have a pizza in Loudeac instead.

After a very tasty pizza we only got slightly lost as we tried to make our way back to the B&B. Fortunately, we had the foresight to buy a bottle of wine which we drank on our room. I don’t drive when I drink so had moved to diet coke earlier in the afternoon.

Pictures from Day 4: