Category: Brittany
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Vannes: Walking the ramparts
We spent yesterday exploring Vannes but only inside the walls of the old town. Today we walked around the outside, looking at the ramparts and gardens. Vannes was founded as Venetorum by the Romans in the 1st Century, but by the 3rd century the Roman Empire was vulnerable enough that the settlement required protective walls.…
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Vannes: Beautiful town and day
Sunshine and blue skies makes a difference to any day, but Vannes itself has been a delight to visit. It seems like a prosperous energetic city, full of restaurants, bars, nice shops and markets, all in an ancient walled city with a picturesque port, quaint buildings and a cathedral. It’s really nice! We hear no…
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What a change! From Redon to Vannes!
Redon is kind of a depressed town with about 4,000 people. By contrast, Vannes is vibrant city with about 55,000 people that is hosting an event this weekend that probably draws 15,000 people. I guess we were lucky to find a place to stay. The big ultramarathon event starts/ends about a block from our rented…
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Rest days in Redon
Redon is at the crossroad of two rivers and a canal that goes from Nantes to Brest, a distance of about 240 miles (385km). We entered Redon on a towpath on La Viliane river from Rennes, and stayed for three nights. Redon is much smaller and less cosmopolitan than Rennes, so we had plenty of…
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Rennes to Redon
The route from Rennes to Redon was almost completely along a towpath with essentially no vehicles. The path was primarily crushed gravel in good condition. The route finding was simple since we just followed the canal! It was basically flat except for one detour that took us over a steep hill. The route was 57…
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Rennes: a cool place
For a place that we never considered as a destination, Rennes is really cool. The combination of ancient half-timbered houses, young people crowding cafes, beautiful cobbled streets, hipsters on bikes, sophisticated shopping areas and a diverse restaurant scene make this place much cooler than we expected.
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Rennes: Into the middle of Brittany
Today, we cycled from Mont St Michel to Rennes, a distance of 50 miles with about 1,200 feet of elevation gain. The terrain was pretty easy: along rivers, through farmland and along a canal for the last 20 miles. We stitched together 2 EuroVelo routes, the V10 and the V42-V2, with some cross country navigation…
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Towards St. Malo!
Since we started this Brittany adventure, both Chris and I have been looking forward to our visit to St. Malo. We had both read “All the light we cannot see“, and that brought strong interest to visit and explore this historic town. I had visited 40+ years ago, but Chris had never been here .…
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A flower rich ride
Yesterday we rode from St. Quai Portrieux to Erquy, a distance of 42.5 miles with elevation gain of 2,550 ft. The route navigated us around St. Brieux, giving us a brief look at an auto-route packed with speeding cars! Wow…we have not seen anything like that since we came! The route we are following is…
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A restful rainy day – and dinner at « home »
While French food is renowned around the world, there are still times when you just want a quiet dinner at home, along with a bottle of wine to savor together. And that’s what we had. Plus we had the best view in town from our apartment so why go elsewhere? We moved the table by…