Normally, when we are riding, we want warm, dry weather. But we can’t complain about cool, wet conditions when so much of the world is roasting. I’m sure we’ll get enough hot and dry weather in Spain so we are enjoying our cool wet Brittany weather while we have it.
In these past couple days, we’ve been subject to clouds and rain, and a persistent wind from the WSW, the exact direction that we are going, in general.
If you look at the map above, we actually have been riding in all directions of the compass the last few days, as the route along the coast is serpentine as it closely follows the coastline and must go around all the inlets. But it’s still true that we’ve had mostly a headwind.
We’ve picked up the pace a bit, and have gotten more in the groove in terms of packing and feeling comfortable on our bikes. The weight we are carrying now seems normal, and the 15% grades we find from time to time each day don’t feel like punishment, just what we are doing to get to our destination. Chris got lower gears on her bike, and it’s nice to see that they are helpful and being used.
The Brittany coast seems kind of wild at times…with little habitation on the landscape. It’s really lovely and wild.
We stopped in a place called Lannilis one night, finding a hotel with a room available after not finding any in Saint Pabu, where we had planned to stop. Brittany seems like a funny combination of deserted and completely booked at the same time. I think it’s still recovering from Covid blues.
In Lannilis, we snagged the last table in a lovely crepe place, run by two women who have a thriving restaurant. The food and atmosphere were wonderful, and we chatted with one of the owners after dinner for some time, who spoke perfect French, pretty good English and probably a few other languages, being born and raised into Kazakhstan!
We had planned on staying at the hotel in Lannilis for a couple nights, since the forecast was for all-day rain the second day. But we decided at 9:30 to get on the road and headed for Brest, some 65 miles away if we exactly followed the route, which we did not. Yes, we did experience pretty wet and windy conditions, but we enjoyed the day anyway. The scenery was lovely and our rain gear kept us dry. We stopped for lunch and had a pastry thing with an unusual name that I can’t remember with roasted chicken and onions that hit the spot, washed down with hot coffee.
We took a shortcut to Brest mid-afternoon that brought us to our place about 5PM, giving us about 45 miles for the day and about 3,000 feet of climbing.
Brest seems like a nice town and we are staying right in the center. Maybe we’ll see a bit of it as we leave tomorrow, but today we didn’t see much as we just went to the market and cooked some food in the apartment we rented for the night.
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