My Travel Book - Brittany - Let's go take a long walk on the beach!

I take long walks on the beach, every day, as soon as I get to Brittany and until I leave.

I love to walk which is a good thing since my doctors are all for walking too! I am tall and I have long legs which means that I walk fast and steady.

Most people I pass on the beach are walking their dogs. Some have children with them, with or without a dog.

I don’t have children around any longer and our last dog died quite a long time ago. So whenever I go take a walk on the beach, I make sure I grab my camera before I leave the house. And I end up walking my camera. (The small one - my Canon G1x.) I can assure you it loves walking with me too.

From time to time, I go back to civilization where long walks get more scarce and I have time to sort my pictures.

Today was a bluesy day though. I hate grim grey sky. I mean it is grey because it is definitely cloudy but it looks like foggy. I find those days very depressing.

Listen to me. I have been complaining because we were having too much wind around here. Today, it was flat calm from noon until night fell. And so boring after all.

In Brittany, when you want to take a good long walk, there is nothing better than wind to fight, raging seas and racing clouds to watch.

Popeye spent a few days with me. Last week, there was a very long week-end because All Saint’s Day was on a Thursday so France came to a stop for four days.

We were hoping to go boating for the last time, this year. Oh well, this story will have to be told too!

October 27th was a Saturday. We had arrived the previous night at Les Tertres. It was cold and definitely not boating weather. Too much rain. Too much wind.
From the house, we watched a weird phenomenon - a strange curtain of rain we had never seen in our whole life at Les Tertres. A little bit scary.

Anyway, we went down to the beach. The sea was raging from shore to horizon. We could even see huge waves crashing against the islets one good mile away from us. 

The wind was so strong that it was really hard to walk. We decided to go back to the car and drive to Cap Fréhel. Hoping that we’d find fairer weather there because this is Brittany where conditions can change from one beach to another depending on their location. We should have known better. 

At the Cap, Popeye spent a long time watching the sea just in case... He is a good captain but he would be a great coastguard, no doubt about that.

October 28th - It really did not look very promising from Les Tertres.

And actually it rained hard for quite a while. By mid-afternoon, the rain stopped and we drove to Saint-Jacut-de-la-Mer to have a look at Les Ebihens from the land. Remember Les Ebihens?

It was quite interesting to look at them from the village after boating by them so many times. It was too late to walk there though since the tide was already coming in. Popeye had to go back to Brussels by train later on. Even though it may have been fun to be stuck on Les Ebihens instead. Well, not really. Too cold!

October 29th - There I was at Les Tertres by myself again hoping that the weather would really get better. It did not, at least until late afternoon.

I took my daily walk on the beach below as usual. 

And then I got this crazy idea. The night before, I had watched “The Vikings” that had been shot at Fort La Latte in 1958. We’ve gone boating by Fort La Latte so many times but I had never walked to the Fort. No sooner said than done. 

I loved every minute of it, so much that it deserves a whole post.

The view on Cap Fréhel from the Fort is breathtaking!

October 30th - The weather was so nice and so warm that I got a little bit frustrated when I realized I’d be stuck home all day long. It was maintenance day for our alarm system. And it took the guys one whole day to check everything! 

October 31rst - Another depressing day. Not too cold but so grey.

The beach was empty besides a few fishermen except that I am pretty sure this one is a fisherwoman.
Not too depressing though because Popeye was coming home for the long week-end.

November 1rst - All Saints’ Day. People were not walking their dogs. They were busy laying chrysanthemums on the graves of their relatives.  

It was freezing, really freezing. 

Wild waves. High winds. Very beautiful scenery but so cold, so cold. And guess what? We did go and take a walk anyway. But pretty soon, we decided to go to Fréhel again, just in case!

No miracle happened except that the beach is much more beautiful there than by our place. 

I really got upset watching the kid leaping up and down on slippery rocks right by violent waves while his mother was taking pictures. But I have to  face the fact that I did take several pictures of the kid too. I am inexcusable, I know.

November 2nd - It was very interesting to watch the sky.

 

On the right side of the beach, it was blue and the sun was shining. 

On our left, towards Le Verdelet, close to our house, some storm was already raging. One mile away. We hurried home and got drenched!

November 3rd - Popeye really wanted to go check on the baby his boat. We went to Saint-Cast. I had not said anything about going to sea but I noticed that he had brought his special “boating bag”. When we got to the harbor, it did not look too good as you can see. 

But I knew he had been dreaming to go boating one more time before the boat would come out of the water next week. So I tried to be very cool about it.
As soon as we left the safety of the harbor, I started feeling somewhat apprehensive. 

Some heavy swell. Popeye looked happy though. I sat down and grabbed the table. Imagine. I was not even feeling like taking pictures. A few minutes later, we ended up right in a squall. I knew that we were safe but I started feeling quite nauseated for the first time in my boating life. Olive Oyl was seasick. All right, I was not sick everywhere. I only felt very strongly I was going to be sick all over Popeye’s beautiful boat... which did not happen because Popeye made landfall pretty fast. Lucky Popeye after all.

And days go by. There I am all by myself again. Taking long walks on the beach. No matter what!

Popeye drove me again to Fréhel though before he went back to Brussels by train, on Sunday. 

Once again, we met with nice and sunny but cold weather on the beach. 

As soon as we left, the sky became really stormy not too far from Les Tertres. And guess what? We got drenched once again.

This is Northern Brittany. Never looking the same. Varying so much all the time. From day to day. Every hour. Every minute sometimes. From place to place, sometimes less than one mile away. Blue skies and stormy weather. Calm seas and raging waves. Strong Northern winds high up and West winds that sweep across the beach.

I love Brittany.

*Good Luck, and Good Night*