Brittany or Bretagne (Part I)

Port Launay

We took this trip at the beginning of  June of 2012. We attended the wedding in St. Gildas (Bay of Morbihan) of Flo’s brother Tony to Christine, and then rented a car and headed north. We had a week to make a quick tour around peninsula of Finistere, to see what we liked and what we may want to come back to in the future. Flo’s sister has a newly built summer home in St. Gildas so we knew we’d be visiting this area regularly in the future.

We left late in the day from St. Gildas, dropped off our daughter at the train station (she was heading back to Mexico, a vacation with friends in Cancun) and then headed up highway E12 for Quimper. Our accommodations was in Port Launay, next Chateaulin, and about 20 km north of Quimper. It was called The Old Salt House, a renovated older home on the main street of Port Launay, which fronts the L’Aulne River, lined with sailboats that have ventured up from the Celtic Sea. Just five rooms, each unique in style, done over by an English couple. Good size rooms for Europe, comfortable beds, a min-bar in the hallway stocked with wines and drinks that were included in the room price, along with a continental breakfast. Recommended.

For our first day we headed south past Quimper to visit the coastal towns of Pont L’Abbé, Loctudy, Guilvinec and Penmarch. These towns tend to by quite similar, situated along a river canal or the ocean, with similar architectural styles. They can be visited quite quickly as they are small and maps are needed to get around. They are enjoyable to walk, get you out of the car, and perhaps enjoy a café creme or lunch. We schedule accordingly.

On the way back we visited Quimper, much larger than the other towns and worth spending an afternoon. We scheduled lunch here and then walked it off afterwards. We then headed back for a nap, and then dinner in Chateaulin. No restaurants in Pont Launay, need to go to Chateaulin, which is only a couple minutes further down the river.

The next day we headed north, first making a stop in Crozon and Camaret-sur-mer. Camaret is a peninsula and the coastline is rugged, very rugged. There’s not much there but rocks. But its beautiful and amazing what the ocean has done with the rocks, carving it out and creating amazing patterns and indentations. There’s a trail that you can follow along the coastline and its worthwhile doing. From there we headed back to the main highway and up to Landermeau. Landermeau is actually quite similar to Quimper, a smaller version of it. It was nice, had lunch at one of the restaurants on the bridge. Although the restaurant looked great, the good wasn’t. We keep telling ourselves to stay away from restaurants in the heavily touristic zones, but we were just too hungry to search around. And we paid the price.

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