Day 61: Lannion to Treguier

May 26, 2018

Dodie is in charge of making our daily Bookings, and she has had incredible luck, both with the places and in hitting ones that are close to the cycle route. Chez Gnoc fell right in with the rest, being a good place and directly on the route. It meant no wasted time in getting right to it.

Getting right to it is a bit of a funny concept for this part of the tour. That's because the idea of the "Tour de Manche" is to diddle around the coastline, nipping in to any particularly interesting viewpoints, harbours, rock formations, marshes, etc.

Just to belabor the topic of the routes in Brittany for one more time, here below is the best map I have found so far, showing the eight carefully developed and signposted routes in the region. According to the map set developed by the Cotes d'Armor department, the eight are not an accident, but are the result of a "bold project" involving the four Brittany departments, as well as water network operators and major towns.

Just as we started off, we came to one of those posts where someone has put up direction arrows to various major world cities, with distances. Apparently we are 5136 km from Montreal. Given that Montreal is a further hop of about 5000 km to our house, we are more than 10,000 km from home. Yikes, scary.

We had barely started off on what would be our drunken route to and around the north coast, when we came upon two touring cyclists working on one of their bikes by the road side. This turned out to be Hugues and Eric, from the south of Brittany, on a jaunt to St. Malo and back. The problem with Hugues' bike was that his front rack was allowing his pannier to interfere with the spokes. The rack needed to be spaced more away from the wheel to avoid the interference.

Dodie really likes arranging and adjusting racks and panniers, so she sprang into action, producing pouch from our pack of miscellaneous washers, spacers, tapes, zip ties, adapters, and such. After a couple of false starts, a satisfactory arrangement was achieved. Then after some celebratory photos all around, Hugues and Eric were on their way. Their direction was the same as ours, but like everyone else on the trail they would be much faster than us.

Success! (But they are still discussing how they achieved it.)

We stopped at a bakery in Trebeurden, the first town out - 14 km from Lannion. Gnoc had given us croissant, baguette, yogurt, orange juice, hot drinks - but clearly all that was only good for 14 km! At the bakery we got sandwiches that would be good for lunch plus apricot tart to keep going with right away, and kouign aman. The kouign aman was just on general principles because hey, this is Brittany! However we are finding that at 2.60 they are costly for their size, and outside of the first one we ever got, they are better in Montreal. We might slap a moratorium on kouign aman (at least until tomorrow, anyway).

Kouign Aman from Trebeurden - costly, not that great.

Trebeurden caught our attention especially because there is a marsh just north of town, called the Marais du Quellen. We read that Camargue horses were installed here in 1989, and that it is felt the horses have produced a good balance of wet meadow and woodland in the marsh. We had hoped to see some of the horses, but it seems they are not here in this season. We followed a boardwalk for some distance, and enjoyed being in the lush environment.

A painting showing the horses and other animals in the marsh

As we carried on toward Ploumanach we again appreciated the marine environment and also the amazing amount of well tended flowers everywhere. Rhodos remained the stars, growing everywhere and to great heights. We also saw more fields of artichoke, which Michel tells us is advertised as the "flower" of Brittany.

We reached an amazing area at Ploumanach. Here for about 8 km along the coast there are huge cliffs and boulders of pink granite. Consequently this is known as the Pink Granite Coast. The granite took the form of large boulders in the water, and then in people's yards. The houses were built on or around the granite, and many were also built of it. We saw where the granite is also sliced into blocks, and thought how cool it would be to get kitchen counter tops made from this.

The rock was in various shades. Here is one example

Boulders, most lots larger than these, were in people's yards.

Maybe these are ready for slicing into counter tops

As we leave the area, a sign not often seen at home - horse riders, watch out for swans!

The day continued as we wove our way through various exceptionally beautiful towns and landscapes, up and down and up again. We started to watch our own strength ebb, and our batteries as well. Since we knew this was coming, we had not planned a particularly long distance for the day. At Treguier, our stopping point, the map showed hills to climb. So what else is new?

What else new was rain. It had actually been weeks since we saw rain. Back then we had stopped at Decathlon and bought Dodie a rather sophisticated poncho, reluctantly discarding her former "Rain Legs". But there had been no opportunity to try the poncho, until today. t turned out to work very well, but we also think it looks great. On the one hand, the very bright yellow top is extremely visible, and on the other hand the black bottom half makes the whole thing look like a Korean peasant costume.

So elegant! By the way, spot the rose on the handlebar.That was a Mothers' Day gift from Super U!

Dodie really scored with our hotel in Treguier. Not only is it on the route, but it is directly beside the cathedral. The cathedral itself has the ideal situation, presiding over a square lined with medieval buildings and housing multiple biscuiteries, bakeries, and creperies.

The church, unlike the one yesterday, really had a lot going for it. Outside it is all flying buttresses, soaring towers, and ancient stone. Inside there was really nice stained glass, fresh flowers, relics of 5th century St. Tugdual (after whom the cathedral is named), and a super fancy tomb for Saint Ives.

At least one of the pieces of stained glass was unique because it dealt with a "modern" theme - an angel overseeing a dying WWI soldier. The piece shows bi-planes in flight, an unusual subject.

Stained glass and flowers in the cathedral

Though the cathedral is named for St. Tugdual, one of the founding bishops of Brittany, and though they have some of his bones in a reliquary, St Ives seems to be a bigger attraction. The St Ives tomb is really fancy, and is surrounded by marble tablets thanking him for answered prayers. They also have his skull:

Aside from the reliquary, St Tugdual does have this polychrome statue:

The buildings surrounding the church were what we always look for when coming into an old town. Half timbered, made of old stone and wood, crooked, and either on a big square or narrow street, these create a terrific ambiance. Treguier really scores well on this account, and of course it was a pleasant surprise to us.

The fact that our hotel was one of the great buildings near the church made it exciting to stay there. And how about coming up the stairs to our room:

Today's ride: 59 km (37 miles)
Total: 4,080 km (2,534 miles)

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