South to Carnac, Brittany - Days 24 to 26

A last walk with Lexy dog before leaving Gill and Martins

The last blog felt slightly stilted on re-reading, that’s what comes of not being ready to leave! Gill and Martin arrived back about half past midnight, so bed was about half past two! Not normal for us, but the conversation was unstoppable. It continued the following morning over coffee and croissants, before we finally left about 12.30 feeling like we were saying goodbye to some old friends, though we suspect it’s not goodbye as they’d love to have us back, and we’d love to go back, so maybe?

Alfie parrot making his presence felt!

The free Aire at Carnac (47°35'07.0"N 3°04'57.3"W)

Only 80km to Carnac, but by the time we’ve filled up with the cheapest diesel we’ve seen for a long time, €1.46 only for it to be €1.44 just down the road, and stopped for lunch it’s 14.30 when we pull up in the middle of Carnac on our first free Aire (47°35'07.0"N 3°04'57.3"W) and we are both feeling very tired! A gentle stroll into the tourist information, followed by a little more of a stroll to the touristy bit we made plans for the next few days.





                                             Our campsite in Carnac

The standing stones at Carnac

After a good nights sleep we were up bright and early, to miss the incoming rain, to go to the visitor centre to learn about the standing stones that are the main attraction of the area (47°35'29.4"N 3°04'56.7"W), in fact so early, we were 10 minutes before opening! We watched the little film, which basically says no one knows why thousands of stones were stood up, in rows, 7000 years ago! So, none the wiser we set off on the 3km walk alongside and among the standing stones. You have to wonder why? But having wondered that’s about it really! 

Some of them are quite big

Still a good little walk with a purpose, and back to Ted before the rain and for lunch. The rain never really happened, so we thought we’d follow the signs to the wine and food fair. For €2.00 we tasted a lot of wine, and chatted to a lot of producers from the Beaujolais lady whose husbands family have been producing wine for 150 years on 100+ hectares to the new kids on the block who have had 5 hectares for only the last 4 years but have produced some very nice, award winning, wines. Feeling slightly squiffy we headed back out into the very cold wind and back to Ted again.

Really quite big! Erected 7000 years ago at the dawn of civilisation, there are over 3000 stones aligned in straight rows and this is just one of many sites in this area. Older than Stonehenge and the pyramids, it's the largest Neolithic site in Europe

The tumulus Saint-Michel. Ancient buriel tomb with a church on top 

Very cold overnight, fine for us snuggled under the duvet, but we do have to worry about Ted’s temperature, if the water and van heater falls to 3 degrees it dumps the 10 litres of water it contains as a frost protection. We thought we’d try leaving the thermostat on 1 to see what happened. It did just as we hoped, turning on at 06.30 with an inside temperature of 6.9 degrees and an outside temperature of 4.9 degrees, so that’s comforting, and we didn’t roast, which was my other worry!

The internal buriel chamber inside the tumulus Saint-Michel, closed to the public since 1997

A stop on our cycle ride round the coast at Carnac

Sunday, unusually, is market day and what with the clock change we were ready to go out for 09.00, not all the stall holders were ready but we didn’t want to buy a mattress anyway. Did find some fish stalls selling mussels which I was looking for as every other restaurant is selling moules et frites, but at between 4.90 and 5.10 Euro per kilo for some very small looking mussels we decided not to bother. The plan was then to cycle round the headland to look at the beach and oyster farms, again the sky had cleared, but it’s very cold, so warmly wrapped we set off for a very pleasant cycle, enjoying three oysters apiece with a chilled glass of white at Les Huîtres Cochennec (47°34'40.8"N 3°05'49.0"W). I’d say what’s not to like? But I know the answers I’ll get from some!

A dog to fuss while waiting for our oysters at Les Huîtres Cochennec in Po

Another night in Carnac then, well it’s free, there is a dump station and a small toilet block and our next stop is down a peninsula, on a road to nowhere with only one small Aire to stay in, so we decided arriving earlier on a Monday is probably safer than arriving later on a Sunday! Anyway, that gives me another opportunity to pop into LIDL and look for more bargains.... 20 cents for a huge salad bowl yesterday with falafel, marinated tomatoes and couscous.....

We have finally started on our journey, they way we expected it to be, slow and gentle, not all rush and excitement but getting a good feel for a place.

The oysters and white wine arrive! It's sunny and really cold, but it's a nice view