Last year, when we were in Brittany, an old friend of Chris named Joëlle told us to visit her old friend Youenn when we passed through Pont L’Abbé. Alas, we decided to head to Slovakia instead of completing a circuit around Brittany, but this year we found ourselves going right through Pont L’Abbé and connected with Youenn.
We were excited to meet Youenn, knowing nothing about him but knowing that our friend Joëlle had eclectic and interesting friends. Indeed, that is an understatement with Youenn, a tremendously vibrant and well-traveled person, who moved back to Brittany after an almost unbelievable stint of movement, including 15 years hitchhiking all over the Americas, followed by being a professor at Brown University. Oh yeah, and doing odd jobs including being a cowboy in Arizona, a bee-keeper somewhere and an conger eel fisherman in Brittany. Now, Youenn is renovating his family home for his own use, returning to his roots while still traveling some 7 months of the year. In short, an inspiration!
But, I am getting ahead of myself.
The ride from Douarnenez to Pont L’Abbé looked like about 70’ish miles as mapped out along the coast. Too much for us in one day. So we cut a few corners to shorten the ride, which ended up being a good thing since rain fell a good proportion of the day and fog clouded our views.
The rain, when it started a couple hours into our ride, was steady and medium hard. We donned full rain gear including rain pants, and so never really got wet. We passed some other cyclists who did not look so well prepared for the weather and were glad to not be them.
We stopped in the town of Audierne, interest piqued by the traffic jam of people getting by the Saturday market. On bikes, we scooted by the cars standing in line and found a cafe to get a coffee and a crepe. I had a nice conversation with one of typically short Breton men about riding in Brittany. He was telling me about the crazy people who ride the Paris-Brest-Paris ride (a 1200 km ride done within 4 days maximum), one of whom I knew in a previous life. Maile, I’m thinking about you and your adventure!
We continued our ride to Pont L’Abbé on small roads, settling in to a picturesque bar on a corner before contacting Youenn, who lives just a few blocks away.
Once making connection to him, our day was transported to being entertained by the story of his life, fed with some great pizza from a local place, all washed down with a few bottles of wine. He even gave us a little tour of the town.
Exhausted at 11:30PM, we fell to sleep. A memorable day.
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