This day already feels a bit strange even though it started off the same as always. Dave has gone to Larmor-Baden for bread and croissants, with the addition of 2 Kouign Aman as a breakfast treat to share. Dave made scrambled eggs with cheese for breakfast and Dan and Paulette packed sandwiches for lunch. But today, Dan and Paulette must leave for home in Brussels. The 4 days have flown by.
And we must think about leaving Brittany for home. It's that strange stage where we are sad to leave this beautiful place and not yet in the mindset of how happy we will be to be home with family and friends. I expect that will happen by this afternoon once we start gathering our things.
We emptied the cupboard and refrigerator and even the wine shelf of excess that we will not use before leaving on Saturday. It's fortunate that Dan and Paulette brought a small cooler as we have cheeses and salad things we will not be able to use up before Saturday. We are left with just enough food to feed us the next couple of days. And a lot of ice cream. We'll need to eat ice cream for every meal in order to finish it.
And now Dan and Paulette have left and the airline reservations are out on the table. But it feels too soon to organize leaving. Dave has suggested a couple of local outings we could do and since the sun is shining, we will take advantage of the afternoon.
The shoreline around the Gulf of Morbihan is difficult to explore. There are many fingers of land that jut into the gulf, with few roads. We're going to use Claire's GPS to get us to some of these fingers in Larmor-Baden and south of Vannes. We're looking for views of the Gulf from places we haven't yet been. It's a perfect day for exploring. Lots of sun with a mild breeze and temperatures in the 70s.
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| Circles show where we stopped on our afternoon driving tour. The distances are short - only about 20 minutes drive from east to west. |
Our GPS has a feature where you can tap the navigation map in a location and it will place a marker there. You can then have the GPS use that as a destination without having to know an address. It's been a great feature for helping us explore the area when we don't know exactly where we're going.
The roads around Larmor-Baden brought us mostly to beaches or hiking paths along the shoreline. Several times we were frustrated by the road becoming private for the last few hundred meters. The roads we could travel were filled with private homes, impressing on us how wealthy the area is. The private property along the shores of the Gulf are not cottages, but large houses, well-maintained, with manicured yards full of flowers.
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| Seven Isles - you can walk across a sandbar at low tide to access this island |
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| 7 Isles sandbar |
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| panorama of Pointe de Berchis |
When we explored south of Vannes, we discovered that the area is covered in shallow marshy ponds whose levels are affected by the tides. To get to this area, we drove through the southern part of Vannes, crossing under the estuary we've seen in the center of Vannes via a tunnel. That was a surprise.
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| Imagine a sailboat passing above you as you go under the estuary |
Traveling around in this marshy area required miles of driving to get to a point perhaps only a few hundred meters from the last. There seemed to be more parks and public areas in this part of the Morbihan Gulf and it was easier to get to the shore along here.
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| Port Anna ferry - useful as it is about 8 miles to get from Conleau to Port Anna by car and they're only half a mile apart by water |
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| looking from Port Anna to Plage de Conleau |
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| Port Anna |
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| Bassin de Conleau - a large swimming area that sits behind a dam. |
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| Plage de Conleau |
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| Plage de Conleau |
We got home in time for apéros and leftovers for dinner. It was a quiet night of catching up on email and the blog. Tomorrow we'll stay home and get organized to leave this lovely place - with sadness.
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