19. Kersaint, Les Abers, and Paimpol

Story of SATURDAY 7-23-11 activities

John took off this morning from our very quaint – very old – hotel in Kersaint for a bike ride around Les Abers…several of which are in the area of our hotel and we took off together towards others when we left. They are fingers of water from the ocean extending inland similar to a fjord.  

John writing: I started my ride at 6:45a.m. and had all the roads to myself. The tide was out, animals were grazing along the road and along the beach, and I could see for miles! The nice part of the ride was the scenery, as the roads followed the shoreline of the most southern aber, with lots of ups and downs. As I passed a road sign my eye caught the word “Menhir”, so I had to follow. I found the tallest standing menhir stone in  France (31 feet!) in a farmer’s field, surrounded by electric fencing, so just took a pic from across the ditch. This thing was a fertility symbol, obviously, with all kinds of kinky legends about rubbing against the stone’s two humps. WooHoo! Rode back to the hotel and got our day going. Oddly enough, we also ended up out to France’s tallest LIGHTHOUSE later in the day. We couldn’t visit it, being on a tiny island, but we took a pic from afar. What a day…two of France’s most prominent phallic symbols, and we saw em on the same morning!

Lynn writing again: We packed up and ate breakfast at the hotel thinking it would just be ordinary –oh lalalala noooon! The dining room of the hotel was huge and very ornate…with odd touches such as an aquarium in the entry…and everything else looking as if it came out of a time warp from about 75 years ago furniture wise and decorations…very interesting and we were served at our seats, even though the breakfast was just your typical Continental breakfast of bread and jams, it was very elegant. No wonder he wanted to know at what time we would like to eat our breakfast at check in…. there were only a few others patrons staying.

Trying to drive close to the water was a frustrating experience as John had seen the Abers very closely in the morning bike ride and we were unable to repeat that with our car on the ones we were trying to follow…and I was not comfortable with some of the driving situations we got into and John was not comfortable with my reactions!! 

SO …. We gave up trying to stay close to the water and went on to find the tallest light house in France. We did find it and to quote a good friend of ours, Allen Tays…we were kind of underwhelmed LOL  

We decided to get off our destination route and stopped in Moraix – walked around a market which was conveniently going on under a huge viaduct…quite impressive! Not the market J but the viaduct sure was! We continued on our journey to Giagamp for lunch. It was not a distinctly impressive town but we did have a nice lunch in a creperie named Duchess Anne for some unknown reason. 

I was to think we were going to have our first less than exciting day during our trip when we got to our destination town of Piampol. Doesn’t sound like it would be much, does it? But….it is a very cool port community with a beautiful Port de Plaisance and our hotel is right on this port and our room overlooks this bustling center.  There is a festival starting tomorrow and boats fill the harbor. We walked to the Tourist Information Center and found out that a steam engine pulling a train ( La Vapeur du Trieux) was going to be arriving in 5 minutes! I hustled John on to the gare with me following as quickly as I could because we just know that Jack will love to see that steam engine….John made it exactly on time to set up camera with my arrival also on time to see it roll in…..so fun!!

Our luck has definitely changed and we are thrilled with our day…and looking forward to exploring our environment. We walked around checking out places for dinner this evening and found a great restaurant on the waterfront which we returned to – John and I both had been so impressed with a fish called bar that we had it again tonight. YUM…. But it was a little better at Jean-Marc’s and Pascale’s! I shopped some in the cute stores while John had a Guiness at a closeby pub…he said it definitely lost something crossing the Channel…worst he ever had.  

 But our day ended fantastically…we can hear the activities outside as we relax upstairs and see some news on the tv in English for a change….so sad to hear about what has happened in Norway…unbelievable.

Tomorrow we are going to stop by an antique car show in a nearby town that one of John’s internet friends had recommended…John is taking off in the morning for another bike ride out to pointes on the coast before we leave. We are returning to Dinan in the afternoon and life will become considerable more laid back and less eventful…but it is still France and life will be good!
PIC captions: France's tallest menhir rock! 35'.
                      Lynn marvelling at France's tallest lighthouse!
                           Moraix market under Viaduc.
                           Steam train in Piampol.

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2011 Dinan and Paris French Adventure