4 – 9 September 2021
I arrive late at night. My younger son is still at my older son’s birthday party. The cats welcome me. Cat Lucy is – as always – courageous and curious. Tomcat Lou – the coward – runs off once he sees me in the door.
I’m back home for just a few days. My older son’s 18th birthday. We celebrate with friends. I have a few appointments, and a flying visit at my school. My fellow teachers and collegues are surprised to see me and I am surprised how warmly they welcome me back! Well, that’s my social life, at least some of it. A base I can relate to, rely on.
My sons are happy to see me, too. I clean the apartment, go shopping, pay bills, get rid of the recycling stuff that has accumulated over the weeks, help with writing application letters, repair here something and get something in order there, water the plants (some of them have hardly survived), say hello to the neighbours, talk to the garage about the stone chip that has hit my windsceen, cuddle the cats. Somehow the feeling of being ‚home‘ is nice.
Yet, I feel stressed out a bit, too. Of course, my programme is packed, but at the same time I very quickly also feel the onslaught of normality and everyday life catching me. Thoughts come up that I haven’t thought for many weeks. I do not sleep very well and this is not solely due to the heat. There is no wind, there is no space. I find the streets crowded, there is always a hold up, a queue, a hustle and bustle … people talking, Covid, problems – petty ones and crucial ones.
I hardly get done what I wanted. Then I leave again, early in the morning. Take the train to Zurich, the TGV Lyria back to Paris, with mostly Swiss people not respecting the quest of silence in the carriage. I’m leaving Switzerland again. Just after the frontier Luc posts me a sms. He’s going to catch me at the station. Great! I’m already feeling ‚at home‘ again. It’s not even lunchtime when TGV Lyria stops at Gare the Lyon. It’s cloudy this time. It’s even been drizzling on the way here. I have far less luggage and do not get hold up in the opening barrier, or rather the closing barrier at the underground.
I took tickets for the ‚Paris Metro‘ with me from home. This is so ingenious: Buy ‚le carnet‘ when you are in Paris!!! That is ten tickets for the price of nine or eight , I think. But the best about it is not the price reduction but that they are valid for Y E A R S on end! So, whenever you go to Paris, you do not have to fumble about at the ticketing machine, looking for change or queue up at the counter. Mine are from 2013 I think. That’s the when I was in Paris with little Sebastian and Maurice, being in second and fourth primary class or so … such a long time ago. Well, just take a ticket, slip it into slot and – off you go!
So, even though I have only 80 minutes, I buy my lunch, take the metro line No 1 to Châtelet, change, then the No 4 Montparnasse-Bienvüe. I already feel a little bit like a regular. The gates to the platforms open 25 minutes before departure. This time I’m not lucky. This is a ‚dual‘ train: the rear bit goes to Quimper, the leading carriages to Brest. And my carriage is the very first. So I have to walk up all the platform.
The atmosphere is again completely different. Everybody takes out his or her lunch and after finishing there is silence. Not even the cat that is travelling with us dares to mious. The train rushes past flat scenery. What great invention this is, the TGV, le train grande vitesse. The train is packed, almost to the last seat. I’m lucky, at least now for the first, long bit to Rennes, the seat adjacent is one of the few free – and it will stay free until I get to Brest.
Luc has sent me a message. He’s waiting outside the station. We go shopping to icci and then down to the port. I’ve brought chocolates from Switzerland for Luc and Sylvain, the two guardians of my van when I was away for so long. Rynka really seems to like me. She is a nice dog. Luc is sad that I’m leaving ‚la suisse nous quitte‘, but I really do not want to stay another night on the parking space of Port de Plaissance.
So I take my leave and drive off, out of Brest, over to the Crozon peninsula again and to the place that we have seen when sailing along the coast in the Baie of Douarnanez. It’s not only empty, there is an autumnly touch to the scenery. Quite some trees have a yellow-brownish shine.
I easily get to the place I’m looking for. It’s at Plage de l’Arber. I find it right away. There are a few mobilhomes and I start talking to a young Frenchman from close to Colmar. He tells me that he used to be a teacher for mechanics until two years agao, but couldn’t take it anymore with the online teaching during Covid lockdown. So he quit his job, furnished his van and drove off. Ever since then he lives, together with his dog, in the van, staying at places where you do not have to pay. He tells me that Portugal used to be great, but now you get heavily fined if they get you somewhere in the wild. Spain seems to be better.
It starts being foggy-drizzling. I sit in my van, out there is Brittany as it is quite often. I do not complain. I was so lucky with the weather so far. It was high tide when I arrived – no beach. In the morning, when the fog slowly dissolves and the sun comes out again, there is a wonderful large beach. You can even walk over to the ‚island‘, which is not an island at low tide. I take my time. I like it here and take my time.
I think about where I’m going next. At 15h00 I have to be at Port-Louis again to meet Denys and Melodie, his girlfriend. I decide to give it another try and try to find that campsite I had been on on my 2000 trip. It must be somewhere here – if it is still there. I study google maps for a long time and decide that I want to have a look at a campsite very near the place where I had breakfast on the beach a few weeks ago. It’s called Pors Ar Vag – whatever that means.
I enjoy the landscape while driving along. To my left there is Menez Hom, Brittany’s highest hill. I drive again along this ever so beautiful long beach near Saint Nic and then turn off to find the campsite. I first stop at another one thinking it is the one I am looking for. There are terraces overlooking the bay, but somehow it does not seem right. So I continue and get to Pors Ar Vag – I instantly recognise the very simple campsite. Nothing seemed to have changed for 21 years! There is the steep path down to the beach, there is the ever so grey service house, there are the rows of hedged campsites. I’ve found it. Amazing.
There are two German surfer ladies – we start chatting. They’ve been travelling Brittany for six weeks now, going from one surf spot to the next. I have to leave – and with leaving this bit of Brittany I also leave Finistère, the outmost bit of France. There are so many memories, so many places that I know here: Douarnanez, Quimper, Brest, Locronan, Crozon, Pointe de Penhir, Pointe du Raz, Penmarc’h and Phare Eckmühl, Benodet. I am very sorry not to go to Beg Meil, one of my absolute favourite spots with its pacific shell white beach. I also had wanted to go and spend a night in Port Manec, such a lovely little place, but I have to leave that behind as well. There are also famous places, like Pont-Aven, where the painter Paul Gauguin used to live before he left for the warmer Pacific. I’m driving past all those sign-posts. I leave the 29 departément and go back to the 56 (Morbihan).
When I get off the N 165, Brittany’s ‚motorway‘, and head towards Port-Louis, it feels almost like getting home. I stop at the big supermarket just before the little town and get some groceries. I arrive at 15h30, the agreed time, sharp. I spot AVEL and get on board, bring my ventilators.
Then we leave and Denys shows me where he has his ‚paradise‘. It’s somewhere in the woods of Riantec, another of these hamlets. This used to be a campsite and Denys has obtained about 8 pitches together with three mobilehomes. One he has done up really nicely. The other two are gone. I help him start his car as he hasn’t started it for 9 weeks – that the time he hasn’t been here. Then I leave.
This again is a really nice area of Brittany. I get to Etel, where we stayed on the campsite last year, my younger son and me. First, I turn off before the Ria of Etel, and drive to the outer point of the northern side of the estuary. From here, you have a wonderful view onto Etel. You can also see the campsite. It’s very narrow here and turning around, I almost hit a building – huuh, I’m not used to driving and manouevering my van anymore. The campsite is cramped with camping cars, big ones and bigger ones. The lady at the reception tells me she cannot garantee a pitch at the seafront – I believe her at once. But that’s actually the nice thing about this specific campsite.
I decide to move on. I don’t feel like putting myself up between these monsters. I also remember that the sanitary house wasn’t particularly inviting. Driving along this stretch of sandy landscape is always wonderful. Erdeven – in Breton Ar Dewen – means ‚on the dune‘. And this is what it is. Brittany’s longest sandy strech goes from Etel to Quiberon and it’s all a nature reserve – so, no wild camping here! I get to the small campsite of Les Omreux and find a nice pitch. No invasions of huge camping cars here.
The night is brisk. When I have a look at the thermometer in the morning it shows shocking 12 degrees! Yes, there is something autumnly in the air. I had already noticed it when driving out of Brest. Some of the trees show a little yellowish hue. And there is a faint mist lingering over the nearby cornfield. It’s a bit chilly when I get out of the van. But as soon as the sun comes out it’s inviting warm to stay outside again.
Where shall I go next? Shall I stay another day in Brittany or say farewell to this patch of France? I’m torn between going and staying. In the end I decide to leave, but, I have not noticed, it’s Saturday. So there is a whole load of people packing up and going home. Typically there is a hold up around Vannes – and yes there is! Google maps clearly shows it. So, why not go back to my favourite beach in the dunes and read a little till after lunchtime? That’s what I do.
I park and meet Brunhild from Saarbrücken, who is sitting her car having the same problem. She has to go home today after having spent a week around here. We start chatting for quite a while until she has to go and I finally make it to the beautiful beach. There I’m sitting in the warming sun, looking out onto the calm sea, thinking about what a wonderful moment I’m just experiencing, thankful.
Then, me too, make off. To get to the N 165 I pass the hamlet of Crucuno with it’s huge dolmen. I have been here before, on my 1985 first trip to Brittany with my friend Urs. We came here and I vividly remember the picture I took then of the dolmen with two children peeking out behind one of the stones.
The N 165 is rather empty by now and it is astonishing how fast I get down to Nantes and around it. This is where I definitively leave Brittany. South of Nantes the roofs are red tiles, north-west of Nantes the roofs are black-slate (Schiefer). Typically Breton, typically Aquitaine.
The landscape changes too. Less forests, more farmland. Large fields, corn, cattle. I suddenly realise that this looks a bit like the landscape around Fellingsbro in Sweden, where Maria lives. And I thus also understand now why I liked it so much up there.
It’s getting later, though. I don’t want to look for a campsite in the dark so I decide to get off the motorway at Niort. Just a 10 minutes drive away I’m in the middle of a wonderful landscape, called ‚Venice verte‘. It’s a region with lots of canals that have been constructed to make these stretches fertile. And it is green here! I was here in 2010 when my boys were still very small and I remember that you found ‚myocastor‘ on the menus here. ‚Myocastor‘ is a rodent, similar to the beaver, but with a smaller, round tail (Bieberratte). There are lots of myocastors around here.
I get the very last pitch at Campsite Venice Verte. I’m surprised about this, I thought it is not peak-season anymore, but the people have come for the weekend. The guy from the campsite drives away his own vehicle to let me stay. I take my bike and cycle down the road to L’Auberge de l’Ecluse, the lock’s guesthouse. I have eaten here before but new owners have just started. The food is good but not as heavenly as it used to be. Funnily enough the lady serving is English, but being married to a Frenchman, has lived for more than 40 years around here. She is very much into plants and herbs, telling everyone that the pesto is made from homegrown basil and the local terrine Poitevin is vegan and the bread contains potatoes …
I’m ready to leave the next morning when I catch a glimpse of a note that it’s market day today in nearby Coulon. I take my bike off the rack again and cycle along the Sèvre Niortaise to the small town. On my way back I encounter about 100 cyclists – it’s Sunday and probably the local Tour de France has been let loose …
Then I turn south, but I swear I will come back to this most beautiful patch of land and cycle along some more canals.
La Rochelle, ma belle. My favourite town in France, yet, I pass by as I want to see some of the inland towns and villages. I’m disapointed of Tonnay-Charante and Sant Agnant, and finnally get to the ever so well known road to Marennes and on to Ile d’Oleron. I don’t need my GPS here anymore. This is kind of home.
There are three campsite which I know. The one I used to go back in the days when I discovered Oleron, but which has unfortunately a new owner, got more expensive, a little posh with lots of mobile homes and lost its familiar atmosphere. The one I was on last year. There are sad stories connected with it, so no. The third one is the one my younger boy broke his arm in 2015. I was there twice and the boys and me loved it until that accident happened. So, why not. Getting back to good memories.
I find a wonderful pitch and make off to ‚my‘ beach. La Grande Plage is large at low tide, almost 100 meters large, or so. When I’m lying in the hot, but not too hot September sun, I am soo thankful. I have always wanted to be here once off peak season but being a teacher this has never been possible. I’m loving it! The surfers come when the high tide comes in and even though the waves do not seem so high, they are high enough to be surfed on. This is it. This is my beach! This is where I feel acquainted, I feel happy – really happy. I don’t like cold water and friends have often made fun that the Atlantic is far too cold to go swimming. This is true for Brittany where I hardly put a foot into the water. 15 degrees – I remember my younger son venturing into the water at La Pointe de Penhir last year for about 10 minutes. It was so cold that he had a headache for hours thereafter.
Here, the water might be 20, 21 degrees. I dare and I’m loving it, diving through the oncoming waves. The water is not as salty and sticky as the water in the Mediterranean. There are people land-sailing, others looking for ‚talines‘, better know as ‚vongoles‘, the Italian name for these mussels in Switzerland. You just dig in the wet sand at low tide and you find them. There are also tiny hermit crabs that dig themselves into the sand again the moment they get to the surface. You can hardly see them, let alone take a picture.
I love being here – I really do. I’ve come by bike and enjoy the long cycle back through the holm ork (Steineiche) and pine forest. The cycle lane has been improved a lot. It used to be a bumpy gravel road, now it’s smooth. It all feels so familiar and yet new – as it is not peak season.
Happiness is a rare feeling – I would like to share it as it doubles when shared. But there’s no-one. What did I tell the guy at the campsite when he asked how many people ‚we‘ were and whether there was an animal travelling with me: ‚I’m me and I’m travelling with myself.‘