Another night of rain but dry when we get up. Today’s drive should be simple, up the motorway for a bit then north cross country.
We are away in good time, join the motorway and make good progress. Traffic is much busier in Brittany now than many other places and large stretches of the motorway are flanked by industrial zones. There are still some fabulous views in places, high on the rolling hills with rotund woodland stretching as far as the eye can see. There are three options for exits to follow the tourist route, we take the third near Chateaulin. The first town off the motorway is Henvic and at Henvic’s first crossroads is a ‘Deviation’ sign - here we go again.
It’s a pretty deviation, winding up and down through lush farms with multi-coloured cattle or fields tinged mauve with onion flowers. Near Sizun [a ‘parish close’ we visited a long time ago] the road widens and is newly surfaced making a joyful drive through browning woods and bracken. Autumn has obviously come much earlier in Brittany than further south.
It’s not long before we reach St Thegonnec, another of the ‘parish closes’ towns of this area. We’ve been here before too, visiting the beautifully carved granite church and its restored interior painting works. Parish Closes were like tiny sovereign states, self sufficient and officiated by the church, often earning revenue from textile manufacture.
The aire is quite busy but its hedged bays mean no overcrowding, and the number of vans might mean that the regular Thursday pizza van will be here this evening.
After a tuna salad lunch we spend most of the afternoon taking things easy.
An email from Brittany Ferries confirms our sailing for Sunday and includes a link to the passenger locator form that we have to fill in for border control, but we can only do it within 48 hours of arrival. We wonder what happens if you don’t have a smartphone, but we do, so we will comply.
Covid’s wicked curse strikes again in the evening, unsurprisingly really, when the pizza van doesn’t come, but we have a supermarket one self isolating in the fridge so we get our pizza anyway.
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