Road Trip Report – Brittany Part 1

Having established ourselves at the Hotel Brittany, we spent the next couple of days exploring the region around Roscoff. There were a few things we knew we definitely were going to do, including hiking along the sentiers côtiers (coastal trails).

When we left Chateau Richeux heading toward Roscoff, we stopped in Perros-Guirec, a seaside resort that is the starting point of several coastal hikes. We wanted to check out how to access them and what the parking situation was around them. But first, we stopped at Plage Trestraou, the main beach in town. The boardwalk is really pretty and I enjoyed taking a few photos, I loved the steel and wood combo.

We walked along the beach and saw the most curious sight, little circular piles of sand all along the beach, I am sure they are made by some animal, but I never saw evidence of it! Does anyone know what does this?

We staked our bearings and headed over to the other side of town where there is a pretty little port. Most of these little coastal towns have a post area (majority of the time they are called Port de Plaisance) just follow the signs and you will land yourself in a marina (as opposed to the working port where fishing boats are coming in and out). There are typically cafes and restaurants, benches, walks, and access to the water (if available). We looked around a bit, but not too long as we knew we would be back to go hiking.

Up and at it early the next morning, but not forgetting to partake of Hotel Brittany's amazing breakfast, we headed back to Perros-Guirec for several hours of hiking/walking along the beautiful coast. One thing you should know about Brittany is that the weather is a bit like Seattle, with lots of days of overcast skies and rain. Incredibly, during our entire stay it was sunny and around 65 degrees, our definition of perfect weather. So walking along the sentiers côtiers (coastal trails) and sentier douanier (customs trails) the colors of the water, the sky, as well as the flora and fauna, were stunning. I usually don't take a lot of photos of flowers, but I couldn't help myself, they were so beautiful!

We wandered onto a beach loaded with rocks and spent nearly an hour climbing over them (carefully!) and taking photos. Have you ever seen seaweed this green?

As we walked around we noticed a ton of these butterflies which I have never seen before, they are so colorful.

We ended up at a lighthouse which we explored the grounds of for quite a while until we decided we were getting hungry! We had been walking for a couple of hours and had to do the return trip to get back to the car. What had been nice about taking the sentier douanier from Chateaux Richeux last October was that at the end you were rewarded with the town of Cancale where we had a delicious lunch prior to doing our return hike. In this case, with no place to refuel (we didn't pack a picnic which is what we usually do) then the further out we walked meant that we would have to repeat the same distance to return!

We stopped at a creperie back in the port (nothing impressive to report there) and headed out to find cider.

A certainty for this trip was finding the producer of the amazing apple cider we tried at the Cafe Breizh last year in Cancale. It was darn good stuff! We even convinced the cafe's owner to sell us a few extra bottles so that we would enjoy it during our lunch picnics. (You can see it in the last photo in this post from Le Loire last October.)

When we returned home last October we took the photo of the label we had taken and found out where he was located and if he sold direct. Given the fact that it is not unusual for Mr. Misadventures and I to drive hours and hours to seek out amazing food and drink, getting lost in the back roads of Brittany to find this cider was going to be no trouble at all!

And that is exactly what we did.