The retired traveller: Sunday, June 5, 2022 - Touring with a crowd

Today we toured around Brittany with 100,000 of our "closest friends." Well, if you substitute "complete strangers" for "closest friends," you'd have our experience today. We're home now and wondering if this was something more than just a nice Sunday out with the family. It turns out that today is Pentecost. (Apologies for having lost track of the church calendar.) And the French have a national holiday on Monday, June 6, Whit Monday (Lundi de Pentecôte). So it's a long weekend. Time enough for a special outing with the family.

This is the 6th public holiday since we arrived in France in April. (Luckily, there are no more until Bastille Day, AKA Dave's birthday, July 14th.) The French take advantage of each one, enjoying the out of doors and their scenic towns and villages.

But one thing this experience shows is that these places are worth visiting. The French enjoy them and appreciate them. They fill the creperies, cafés, and restaurants. They stand in line to buy ice cream. They are good for the tourist economies of these small towns and villages.

So today, we started at Concarneau, a bit over an hour from our house.

Concarneau was once the 3rd largest fishing port in France. While it has dropped today to 9th in terms of fish sold, this city still centers on fishing, shipyards, and pleasure boating. It sits in a sheltered harbor within a bay on the Atlantic Ocean.

The black building, called the Halle, is where the daily fish auction takes place

A rocky islet just off the mainland was chosen for a 10th century priory and a medieval town grew up around the church on the island. The monks ferried people the short distance to and from the mainland, allowing commerce to thrive. The town of middle class, merchants, and sailors was already fortified in the 13th century. But significant improvements to create an impregnable wall around the city were undertaken in the 15th century. The town suffered through all the upheavals of the middle ages with fights over whether the town belonged to the English, the French, or the Bretons. After the French Revolution, the town expanded to the mainland and the "ville close" (walled city) lost its importance as the center of town. Today, the "ville close" is a favorite tourist destination and is served by 2 short bridges allowing access to the area.

You can tell this is an important tourist spot by the large number of parking lots along the quay. But surprisingly, parking is free except from June 15-August 15. That's unusual.

It's very breezy here and the weather goes in and out of sunshine. At one point, I thought it would rain (and we had left our raincoats in the car, sigh). But the sun came out again and lasted the rest of the afternoon.

After stopping at the tourist office outside the gates of the "ville close," we entered the medieval city and found there were as many people crowding the streets as market day in Vannes. (Janis, you wouldn't have liked it.) And the main street is not historic, but touristy. Every building was a storefront (ok, except the museum) that sold tourist items or was an art gallery, or a restaurant.

It isn't even market day. So many people

entering the "ville close" over the moat

the main square

This sign caught my fancy - outside a patisserie

This water spigot covered the old town well. I had to wait for a woman to finish giving a drink to her dog.

restaurant sign

We escaped through the port aux vins gate to find it mostly empty with a view of the harbor.

Back inside, we found ourselves almost at the end of the city and the crowds thinning - as it was 12:30, most had already found places in the restaurants for lunch. And we found some back alleys that were remarkably free of people and commerce. We watched the ferry come and go from across the harbor to a port on the bay side of the island.

This ferry docked at the port of the "ville close" and never tied a line. The pilot has a lot of experience.

The ferry headed our way

The Port du Passage where the ferry passengers enter the "ville close"

Dave did some looking over the ramparts. Then he went to get our lunch from the car and we ate on a bench in a little corner that was empty of people.

panorama view over the ramparts

a little square near the main gate of the old town (on right)

an old well was our view from our bench at lunch

On leaving, I wanted to see the beaches to the northwest. So we wandered some streets to get to the beaches only to find they were closed off to car traffic for the day. Dang. The glimpses through the houses was intriguing. Sandy beaches and blue water looked very inviting.

Off to the next town (still thinking the crowds are only because it's Sunday), we stopped at the bridge for a look back at the walled city and fishing port. But it was too far away for a good photo

We're now headed on the Michelin driving tour from Concarneau to Pont-Aven to the east. We found the first lookout stop easily - views back to Concarneau.

The next stop was supposed to be a fort (no other discussion in Michelin). We could see remains of a wall and a sandy beach track, so decided to skip the fort.

Continuing the drive, I finally saw beach - but not one for swimming

Granite is everywhere in Brittany - here littered all over the "beach"

The next stops claimed to have pretty thatched cottages, but we never found the stops. Strike 2 Michelin. The driving tour doesn't give an address a street name or any way to identify your route - just town names. Disappointing. In Névez, there should be "18th century granite houses build of 2 m-high standing stones." But no indication where in this lovely town they might be. Strike 3 on Michelin.

We gave up and continued to Pont-Aven. This town is famous for it's mills which sit on the Aven River where the river turns into an estuary. In addition, it is famous for its butter cookies (Galettes de Pont-Aven). And finally, it has a history of being an artist community since Paul Gaugin formed one here in 1888. Today, there are walks that point out the locations that inspired many artists of the time, for example, the wooden cross that inspired Gauguin's "Yellow Jesus" painting.

the pont (bridge) over the Aven

the Aven river

Our first issue was parking. There is none. We ended up in a mostly empty parking lot way, way up the hill on the way out of town.

This may give you an idea of how steep the hill was.

Then, of course, it's Sunday and the tourist office isn't open, meaning no map of the city (and only a small one posted on the door of the office). Now what do we do? Wander with the little information we have in the guide books.

our map - a photo of the map on the tourist office door.

Finding the cookie store was no issue. It's smack dab on the busiest intersection of town.

So was the quaint bathroom. (but the toilet flushed and it was clean.)

the public bathroom with flush toilets

We found the town church which is not where the inspirational crucifix was.

nothing remarkable about this church

I liked this tiled sign on the building next to the church. I have no idea what it says, however.

The tiled sign and the church behind

Bells in the tower for Clark

With so many things going for it, Pont-Aven is overrun with tourists. Unlike Concarneau, the tourists are shopping for cookies or in the art galleries and the concentration of junky tourist shops is much smaller here.

People are everywhere!

The main street crosses the Aven and the sidewalks (narrow) aren't wide enough to hold all the people checking out this intersection.

However, we found a lovely walk on a boardwalk above the river following the traces of the many mills that were once powered by the Aven. And bonus, there weren't many people.