Being A Tour Guide

I have a guest.
A friend of many years, in fact we've been trying to remember when we first met, through our husbands who worked together in the late 70's.
We had lost touch and then I joined Facebook and found her.

We met again down in Dorset when I rented that gatehouse for a few days, and spent a happy day fossil hunting and lunching and playing catch-up.
And here she is, in France with me for a week of exploring and adventures.

On the first afternoon it rained so we went to La Vallée des Saints and wandered among the statues, oft times with another visitor nearby listening as I told Maggie the stories of the saints,not all of the saints, there are about seventy now and I'm not that good at memorising the guide book, but the ones that have impressed me for one reason or another. Like Saint Melar. It was a shame for the other visitors, and for the coffers of the organisation that runs the site, that the shop selling guide books was closed. A missed opportunity there, I wonder they don't have them in a bar or a shop in the local village too. Happily we had two copies, I buy one each year.

So that was the first afternoon. An introduction to Breton saints on a rain-swept hilltop.
The next day the forecast was for more rain but, this is Brittany, the weather can change from minute to minute so we went to the coast.

One of my greatest pleasures is arriving at the Pink Castle Beach and finding a high tide.

We had put swimming costumes and towels in the car, I never go out without mine these days, but we first wandered along the sand collecting shells. We are a pair of committed beachcombers, we discovered. But that sea... so blue, so calm, so empty, so, so there!

After a while I left Maggie on the rocks and snucked back to the car, changed into my cossie and before you could say "Bobbing about on a wave" I was swimming.

It was perfect. It is always perfect. On such occasions, life is perfect.

Of course, once someone realised that I was in the sea he appointed himself my lifeguard...

Once dried and dressed we drove past Ploumanac'h so that we could walk the Sentier des Douaniers.

It was breezy, blustery, blowy...
 

We took many pictures.
We stopped many times to gasp at the waves crashing against the rocks.
We paused to breath in the scents of iodine and ozone.

It just goes to show that you should pay no heed to the weather forecasts.

Towards the end of the path we took a detour into Ploumanac'h for a lunch break, then it was back on to the Sentier des Douaniers to retrace our steps back to the car.

Then a cold drink at Trégastel before winding our way home.

This is now a regular event for me, a swim in the sea, a walk along the pink granite, refreshments in Trégastel, and then home. To arrive sandy, salt-crusted, windswept or with a few more freckles but always, always with a happy heart.

I am so blessed, and so appreciative.

And Maggie has fallen in love with the Pink Granite Coast, as I knew she would!

Ploumanac'h, The Pink Granite Coast, Brittany

The Côte de granit rose or Pink Granite Coast is a thirty kilometre stretch of coastline in the Côtes d'Armor departement of northern Brittany. It is a popular destination for tourists, and for photographers.
That's the tourist info.

 For me the pink granite coast is the perfect location for a day out. It has glowing rose-coloured rocks along the shoreline, little rocky islands in a Breton-blue sea, white-sailed boats and white-feathered gulls, the smell of seaweed and of salt. It's a place for exploring and for adventures and it reminds me of the seaside holidays in Cornwall that my family enjoyed when I was a feisty little kid, except that it's painted pink and has that certain French flair.

It's also one of the places that's sure to make me teary-eyed with homesickness when I'm sitting in the office trying to unravel some complex computer code.        


Yesterday at work, taking a lunchtime break from thwarting Russian spammers, I began planning a day out in Brittany. Which led me back to pictures of the pink granite coast and to memories of a day spent there almost five years ago.The 'new love-interest' referred to was my current employer who was then in the process of luring me back across the channel to embark on a new career in internet security, I was unsure, the job sounded fascinating but Brittany was my home...


July 23rd 2008
Yesterday was my birthday so I laid aside my books and studies, and my swotting up on the dance steps for my new love-interest, and a friend and I set out for a day of sight-seeing at Ploumanac'h up on the pink granite coast..

Our first stop was a park full of statues that we happened upon by pure chance

This female figure was beautiful in her curvaceous and seductive pose....

and this one in grey granite that represents a modern-day menhir...
A nice thought, modern menhirs to reach out to the future I wonder what I would inscribe on mine... Snowflakes and flowers, scallop shells and leaves, and a reindeer would be fitting.

The nearby port where boats bobbed in the fresh wind and the sound of rigging striking wood was as musical as wind-chimes.

The sun was hot, the air was thick with the scent of seaweed and iodine and salt. Inspired, we decided to find a seafood feast....

After a long, lazy, languid lunch of languostines and lobster, creme brulée and coffee, we walked along the wide, sandy beach at Trestraou. On the hill behind us there were large and expensive houses We indulged in a game "What If We Won The Lottery" and this was my choice of a holiday home over-looking the beach. It is a little large for a holiday home, I expect that, like many of the beautiful houses on the Brittany coast, it's owned by a Parisian,  maintained by a skeleton staff and a dedicated old man who lovingly tends the garden.

Walking along a short section of the sentier des dounaiers,  the customs trail, and admiring the famous pink granite rock formations. Some are obvious, such as the turtle, and a bottle, others, well, I think that we see them differently through our own eyes. I saw a finely-chiselled face gazing sternly out to sea, my friend saw a whale below it...





















A collection of phalluses, like those of the chubby cherubs in Renaissance art...










The day was very hot, the sky was Breton-blue and the sea... I have never seen such a deep-blue sea. After walking for an hour my nose turned pink and freckled, my feet ached and my throat was dry. We paused to sit in the shade, drink some water and to admire the view.

As we sat in silence I pondered.
I had a big decision to make...
To leave, or to stay?
And to go, which way?

I chose to return to England and to walk back into the corporate cage. It's been a long journey and, at times, a very difficult one.  Happily I still have my house in Brittany, Fate has decreed that it remains mine, perhaps Fate knows what's best for me?